The word Nation is suggestive beyond any definition of the dictionary. It awakens an echo second only to that of Country. It is a word of unity and power. It brings to mind intelligent masses enjoying the advantage of organization, for whom there is a Law of Nations,—as there is a Law of Nature,—each nation being a unit. Sometimes uttered vaguely, it is simply an intensive, as in the familiar exaggeration, “only a nation louder”; but even here the word furnishes a measure of vastness. In ordinary usage, it implies an aggregation of human beings who have reached such advanced stage of political development that they are no longer a tribe of Nomads, like our Indians,—no longer a mere colony, city, principality, or state,—but they are one people, throbbing with a common life, occupying a common territory, rejoicing in a common history, sharing in common trials, and securing to each the protection of the common power. We have heard, also, that a Nation is a people with the consciousness of Human Rights. Well spoke Louis the Fifteenth of France, when this word first resounded in his ears: “What means it? I am king; is there any king but me?” The monarch did not know that the Nation was more than king, all of which his successor learned among the earliest lessons of the Revolution, as this word became the inspiration and voice of France.
The ancients had but one word for State and City; nor did they use the word Nation as it is latterly used. Derived from the Latin nascor and natus, signifying “to be born” and “being born,” it was originally applied to a race or people of common descent and language, but seems to have had no reference to a common government. In the latter sense it is modern. Originally ethnological, it is now political. The French Communists have popularized the kindred word “Solidarity,” denoting a community of interests, which is an element of nationality. There is the solidarity of nations together, and also the solidarity of a people constituting one nation, being those who, according to a familiar phrase, are “all in one bottom.”
England early became a Nation; and this word seems to have assumed there a corresponding meaning. Sir Walter Raleigh, courtier of Queen Elizabeth, and victim of James the First, who was a master of our language, in speaking of the people of England, calls them “our Nation.”[3] John Milton was filled with the same sentiment, when, addressing England and Scotland, he says: “Go on, both hand in hand, O Nations, never to be disunited! be the praise and the heroic song of all posterity!”[4] In the time of Charles the Second, Sir William Temple furnished a precise definition, which foreshadows the definition of our day. According to this accomplished writer and diplomatist, a Nation was “a great number of families, derived from the same blood, born in the same country, and living under the same government and civil constitutions.”[5] Here is the political element. Johnson, in his Dictionary, follows Temple substantially, calling it “a people distinguished from another people, generally by their language, original, or government.” Our own Webster, the lexicographer, calls it “the body of inhabitants of a country united under the same government”; Worcester, “a people born in the same country and living under the same government”; the French Dictionary of the Academy, “the totality of persons born or naturalized in a country and living under the same government.”[6] Of these definitions, those of Webster and the French Academy are the best; and of the two, that of Webster the most compact.
These definitions all end in the idea of unity under one government. They contemplate political unity, rather than unity of blood or language. Undoubted nations exist without the latter. Various accents of speech and various types of manhood, with the great distinction of color, which we encounter daily, show that there is no such unity here. But this is not required. If the inhabitants are of one blood and one language, the unity is more complete; but the essential condition is one sovereignty, involving, of course, one citizenship. In this sense Gibbon employs the word, when, describing the people of Italy,—all of whom were recognized as Roman citizens,—he says: “From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into one great Nation, united by language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire.”[7] Here dominion proceeding originally from conquest is consecrated by concession of citizenship, and the great historian hails the coalesced people as Nation.
One of our ablest writers of History and Constitutional Law, Professor Lieber, of Columbia College, New York, has discussed this question with learning and power.[8] According to this eminent authority, Nation is something more than a word. It denotes that polity which is the normal type of government at the present advanced stage of civilization, and to which all people tend just in proportion to enlightenment and enfranchisement. The learned Professor does not hesitate to say that such a polity is naturally dedicated to the maintenance of all the rights of the citizen as its practical end and object. It is easy to see that the Nation, thus defined, must possess elements of perpetuity. It is not a quicksand, or mere agglomeration of particles, liable to disappear, but a solid, infrangible crystallization, against which winds and rains beat in vain.
Opposed to this prevailing tendency is the earlier propensity to local sovereignty, which is so gratifying to petty pride and ambition. This propensity, assuming various forms in different ages and countries, according to the degree of development, has always been a species of egotism. When the barbarous islanders of the Pacific imagined themselves the whole world, they furnished an illustration of this egotism in its primitive form. Its latest manifestation has been in State pretensions. But here a distinction must be observed. For purposes of local self-government, and to secure its educational and political blessings, the States are of unquestioned value. This is their true function, to be praised and vindicated always. But local sovereignty, whether in the name of State or prince, is out of place and incongruous under a government truly national. It is entirely inconsistent with the idea of Nation. Perhaps its essential absurdity in such a government was never better illustrated than by the homely apologue of the ancient Roman,[9] which so wrought upon the secessionists of his day that they at once returned to their allegiance. According to this successful orator, the different members of the human body once murmured against the “belly,” which was pictured very much as our National Government has been, and they severally refused all further coöperation. The hands would not carry food to the mouth; nor would the mouth receive it, if carried; nor would the teeth perform their office. The rebellion began; but each member soon found that its own welfare was bound up inseparably with the rest, and especially that in weakening the “belly” it weakened every part. Such is the discord of State pretensions. How unlike that unity of which the human form, with heaven-directed countenance, is the perfect type, where every part has its function, and all are in obedience to the divine mandate which created man in the image of God! And such is the Nation.
Would you know the incalculable mischief of State pretensions? The American continent furnishes three different examples, each worthy of extended contemplation. There are, first, our Indians, aborigines of the soil, split into tribes, possessing a barbarous independence, but through this perverse influence kept in constant strife, with small chance of improvement. Each chief is a representative of State pretensions. Turning the back upon union, they turn the back upon civilization itself. There is, next, our neighbor republic, Mexico, where Nature is bountiful in vain, and climate lends an unavailing charm, while twenty-three States, unwilling to recognize the national power, set up their disorganizing pretensions, and chaos becomes chronic. The story is full of darkness and tragedy. The other instance is our own, where sacrifices of all kinds, public and private, rise up in blood before us. Civil war, wasted treasure, debt, wounds, and death are the witnesses. With wailing voice all these cry out against the deadly enemy lurking in State pretensions. But this wail is heard from the beginning of history, saddening its pages from generation to generation.