Nation

“ A nation is gradually created by a variety of influences—the influence of original organisation, of climate, soil, religion, laws, customs, manners, extraordinary accidents and incidents in their history, and the individual character of their illustrious citizens. These influences create the nation—these form the national mind, and produce in the course of centuries a high degree of civilisation. ”

“ In this wise he pictured a nation, saved from State tutelage, without a master, almost without laws, a happy nation, each citizen of which, completely developed by the exercise of liberty, would, of his free will, come to an understanding with his neighbours with regard to the thousand necessities of life. ”

“ His ideas, if conceived by the reason, took shape and colour from the splendour and fire of his imagination. A nation was to him a great living society, so complex in its relations, and whose institutions were so interwoven with glorious events in the past, that to touch it rudely was a sacrilege. ”

“ To foster this spirit, to encourage its beginnings, and to extend the influence of its example, should be the aim of wise statesmen and legislators who seek to elevate their kind and ennoble their nation; knowing that the brightest glories and the most enduring honors of a country are those which come from its thinkers and its scholars. ”

“ The nation is a democratic organisation—each individual is called, each one may make himself felt;—while the state is an aristocratic organisation, compelling, supressing: democratic states are only now arising. ”

“ Volk is the same as nation.
II, 28: “Der ganzen Nation wäre ein solches Buch ein Schatz: ... denn der Genius, der über die Wissenschaften eines Volks wachet ist zugleich der Schutzgott der Sprache desselben.” Volk is nation.
II, 32: “Und was dörfen wir uns unserer Consonanten schämen, wenn sie Concente der Tapferkeit sind, um Götter und Stammväter unseres Volks, Helden und Erretter der Nation zu preisen.” Volk is nation. ”

“ I throw out this suggestion, which may hold the imagination of those who have noble conceptions of what national life should be and what a nation should work for, in the hope that some time it may fructify. ”

“ A new nation stepped, with a touch of swagger, upon the stage,—a nation which had broken alike with the traditions and with the wisely wrought experience of the Old World, and which, with all the haste and rashness of youth, was minded to work out a separate policy and destiny of its own. ”

“ That is, we assume the nation as something already existing, something primary, to which the secondary arrangements of government should, as far as possible, conform. How then do we define the nation, which is, if there is no especial reason, to the contrary, to fix the limits of a government? Primarily, I say, as a rule, but a rule subject to exception—as a primâ facie standard, subject to special reasons to the contrary—we define the nation by language. ”

“ It is the living nation—the nation organized for its historical mission—the nation of yesterday and of to-morrow." A nation, that is, is a people in so far as they are united by traditions and purposes; and national Sovereignty implies an attachment to national history and traditions which permits only the very gradual alteration of these traditions in the direction of increasing democracy. ”

“ And then look at this Republic, stronger than any nation in Europe in the number, intelligence, vigor and patriotism of its people, and in the unparalleled abundance of its barely broached resources; resting with full security in its magnificent domain ”

“ And what distinguishes us as a nation, in this work of regeneration, from all the nations that have preceded us, is not the sword or physical power and force; but the mild, pacific and gentle spirit of liberty and our institutions; a mighty moral and political influence emanating from us invisibly, and which, like light, will penetrate to the utmost limits of the earth, becoming both visible and tangible in the great and beneficent results produced. ”

“ You have national manners, a national language; you boast an ancient and illustrious origin. Resume, then, your existence as a nation. Have a king of your own choice, who will reside among you, and reign for you alone. ”

“ The patriot loses all sense of the distinction between State, nation and government. In our quieter moments, the Nation or Country forms the basic idea of society. We think vaguely of a loose population spreading over a certain geographical portion of the earth’s surface, speaking a common language, and living in a homogeneous civilization. Our idea of Country concerns itself with the non-political aspects of a people, its ways of living, its personal traits, its literature and art, its characteristic attitudes towards life. ”

“ We will now leave this extraordinary nation, which has furnished materials for history of the most interesting nature, as it regards the character of man; their civil, political, and religious institutions, and the moral and social ties that connect society. ”

“ You are a nation that devours other nations,—a magnificent function! As politicians and philosophers, in the management of colonies, populations, and industry, and in the desire to do others any harm which may turn to your own good, you stand pre-eminent. ”

“ Happy the nation which gets such a Husband, once in the half thousand years. The Nation, as foolish wives and Nations do, repines and grudges a good deal, its weak whims and will being thwarted very often; but it advances steadily, with consciousness or not, in the way of well-doing; and, after long times, the harvest of this diligent sowing becomes manifest to the Nation, and to all Nations.”2
No such harvest is sowing for you,—Freemen and Independent Electors of Parliamentary representatives, as you think yourselves. ”

“ FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. ”

“ As we look around among our leading men, our statesmen, our legislators, the judges on our bench, the commanders of our armies, the men to whom this English nation commits the conduct of its best interests, profane and sacred, what do we see to be the principles which guide our selection? ”

“ And yet by masterly statesmanship, a cultivated taste, and careful paternalism, he brought about the peaceful prosperity which more than one nation in history has preferred to liberty, and created a civilization in which brilliant achievement and temperate life were not incompatible. ”

“ When the foundations of the Government were laid, and liberty proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the land, it was anticipated that this nation would grow to a pitch of glory and attain to a greatness and power that no other nation on the face of the earth had ever attained. ”

“ We saw in an earlier chapter that a nation is essentially the realization of an idea, the idea of a nation, that only in so far as the idea of the nation exists and operates in the minds of the members of the nation, controlling their conduct and directing it to actions having reference to the nation as a whole, does a nation come into and continue in existence. ”

“ THE PEOPLE AND THE NATION At the beginning of this discussion popular Sovereignty was declared to be the essential condition of democracy; and a general account of the nature of a constructive democratic ideal can best be brought to a close by a definition of the meaning of the phrase, popular Sovereignty, consistent with a nationalist interpretation of democracy. ”

“ And I have found--as I am sure you have, in your travels--that people everywhere, in spite of occasional disappointments, look to us--not to our wealth or power, but to the splendor of our ideals. For our Nation is commissioned by history to be either an observer of freedom's failure or the cause of its success. ”

“ "A song for our banner?"—The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand—divided we fall!"—
It made and preserves us a nation! ”

“ When we remember the remarkable manner, entirely novel in the history of political science, in which our Constitution creates a new nation and its supreme national government and yet keeps alive the former independent nations and their federation, the next sentence of that letter is of absorbing interest. ”

“ As an officer in the Kingdom of His grace, that Kingdom which He has established in this world;—a Kingdom which is yet to rule over this and all other nations; and, as a citizen of this country, I deem it fit, and meet, that while the ideas of freedom, nationality, and independence, are fresh and lively in your minds, to bring before you the relation of Christianity to our country:—or, God in a nation ”

“ Peace, peace is what I seek, and public calm;
Endless extinction of unhappy hates,
Union cemented for this nation's weal. ”

“ Yet how can we hope to make a proper use of this principle, if we cannot define a nation, if a modern historian, who has devoted himself to the study of nationality, finds himself compelled in the year 1917 to give up the attempt to define the meaning of the term nation? ”

“ But, commonly, you see some one desire runs through all the nation's history, only modified by its youth, or manhood, or old age, and by circumstances which re-act upon the nation as the nation acts upon them. ”

“ Doubtless, in this crisis of its political existence the nation has displayed many noble qualities: patriotism, fortitude in adversity, respect for authority, and in some measure the difficult arts of subordination and discipline. ”

“ The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic; and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal. ”

“ That form arises from the ensemble of circumstances, historical or national, but always human, which give rise in a nation to traditional or even fundamental laws, and through these is determined the particular form of government, the basis of transmission of supreme powers. ”

“ The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only—not from its privileged classes; ”

“ The author of these words saw the sound basis upon which future developments and progress might be securely founded, for the natural advantages of the country were such as to justify the most sanguine hopes, the Republic being destined to become a great, wealthy, and civilised nation. ”

“ The idea that I am possessed with is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a national centre, such as the English have, though they too are scattered over the face of the globe. ”

“ The good sense of the gentlemen to whom I address myself will, I am persuaded, make the necessary and present distinction between persons acting in a public capacity and character, especially of another nation, and our own citizens, who are to stand or fall by their own laws, and the estimation of their countrymen. ”

“ But, though we may not hope to lay down a definition which shall clearly mark off the nation from all other human groups, we may usefully define the nation-state or nation in the most highly developed form that it has yet attained, and recognise that various [Pg 97] peoples partake of the nature of, or approach the type of, the nation in so far as they exhibit something of its essential character. ”

“ Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the Sovereign Arbiter of All Human Events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy.
Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world. ”

“ Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governours: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. ”

“ If we are to be one Nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other Nations. ”

“ But when we study a State at its centre, its political action, its organization, its spirit, the management of its institutions of learning and of charity, the tendencies, restrictive or liberal, of its legislation, even the tone of social life and the code of manners, we discover distinctions, individualities, almost as many differences as resemblances. And we see—the saving truth in our national life—that each State is a well-nigh indestructible entity, an empire in itself, proud and conscious of its peculiarities, and jealous of its rights. ”

“ We proceed from the fundamental principle, to elevate the moral, religious, and patriotic spirit in the nation, to instil into it again courage, self-reliance, and readiness to sacrifice everything for national honor and for independence from the foreigner.... ”

“ The nation rests on industry, not on war. It is formed of agriculturists, traders, sailors, miners—not a nation of soldiers. The army numbers ten thousand—one soldier for every twenty-four thousand men. The people are at peace; no nation invades us. The government is firmly fixed and popular. A nation loving liberty, loves likewise law ”