XVI _ 
OF NATIONALITY, AS ‘CONNECTED 
WITH REPRESENTATIVE 
GOVERNMENT 
A 
PORTION of mankind may be said to constitute a Nation- 
ality, if they are united among themselves by common sym-_ 
pathies, which do not exist between them and any others— 
which make them co-operate with each other more willingly 
than with other people, desire to be under thé same govern- 
ment, and desire that it should be government by themselves 
ora 
portion 
of 
themselves, exclusively. This feeling’ of 
nationality may have been generated by various causes. 
Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. 
Community of language, and community of religion, greatly 
contribute to it. Geographical limits are one of its causes. But 
the 
strongest of all is identity of political antecedents; the 
possession of a national history, and consequent comfhunity 
of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure 
and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past: 
None of these circumstances however are either indispens- 
able, or necessarily sufficient by themselves. Switzerland 
has a strong sentiment of nationality, though the cantons aré 
of different races, different languages, and different religions. 
Sicily has, throughout history, felt itself quite’ distinct in 
nationality from Naples, notwithstanding identity of re- 
ligion, | almost 
identity 
of 
language, anid a considerable 
amount of common historical antecedents. Thé Flemish and 
the Walloon provinces of Belgium, notwithstanding divers- 
ity 
of 
race 
and 
language, have a much greater feeling of 
common nationality, than the former have with Holland, or 
the latter with France. Yet in general the national feeling is 
proportionally weakened by the failure of any of the causes 
which contribute to it. _ Identity of language, literature, arid, 
to some extent, of race and recollections; have maintained
428 
desire 
— 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
to 
get 
rid 
of 
the feeling of nationality in considerable strength among the 
different portions of the German name, though they have at 
no time been really united under the same government; but 
the feeling has never reached to making the separate States 
autonomy. Among Italians an 
identity far from complete, of language and literature, com- 
bined with a geographical position which separates them by 
their 
a 
distinct line from other countries, and, perhaps more than 
everything else, the possession of a common name, which 
makes them all glory i in the past achievements in arts, arms, 
politics, religious primacy, science, and literature, of any 
who share the same designation, give rise to an amount of 
national feeling in the population, which, though still imper- 
fect, has been sufficient to produce the great events now pass- 
ing, before us, notwithstanding a great mixture of races, and 
although they have never, in either ancient or modern his- 
tory, been under the same government, except while that 
government extended or was extending itself over the greater | 
part of the known world. 
Where the sentiment of nationality exists In any force, 
there is a prima facie case for uniting all the members of the 
nationality under the same government, and a government 
to 
themselves apart.* This is merely saying that the question 
of government ought to be decided by the governed. One 
hardly knows what any division of the human race shouldbe 
free 
to 
do, 
if 
not 
to 
determine, with which of the various 
collective bodies of human beings they choose to associate 
themselves. But, when a people are ripe for free institutions, 
there is a still more vital consideration. Free institutions are 
next to impossible in a country made up of different nation- 
alities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if 
they read and speak different languages, the united public 
opinion, necessary to the working of representative govern- 
ment, cannot exist. The influences which form opinions and 
decide political acts, are different in the different sections of 
the country. An altogether different set of leaders have the 
confidence of one part of the country and of another. The 
same books, newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, do not reach 
them. One section does not know what opinions, or what 
4 
4 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
ent: by 
; 
re. 
coat 
ae 
DuUSER 
4.29 
igations, are circulating in another. The same incidents, 
esame acts, the same system of government, affect them in 
different ways; and each fears more injury to itself from the 
er nationalities, than from the common arbiter, the State. 
ir mutual antipathies are generally much stronger than 
alousy of the government. That any one of them feels ag- 
ved by. the policy of the common ruler, is sufficient to 
© 
tha 
‘termine another to support that policy. Even if all are ag- — 
eved, none feel that they can rely on the others for fidelity 
joint resistance; the strength of none is sufficient to resist 
ne, and each may reasonably think that it consults its own 
vantage most by bidding 
for the favour of the government 
inst the rest. Above all, the grand and only effectual 
curity in the last resortagainst the despotism of the govern- 
‘tent, is in that case wanting: the sympathy of the army with 
people. The military are the part of every community in 
om, from the nature of the case, the distinction between 
‘angers; to the soldier, they are men against whom he may 
he-called, at a week’s notice, to fight for life or death. The 
erence to him is that between friends and foes—we may 
aost say between fellow men and another kind of animals: 
for as respects the enemy, the only law is that of force, and the 
‘orily- mitigation, the same as in the case. of other animals-— 
at’ of simple humanity. Soldiers to whose feelings half or 
ee-fourths of the subjects of the same government are 
oreigners, will have no more scruple in mowing them down, - 
d-rio 
more 
desire to ask the reason why, than they would | 
ve in doing the same thing against declared enemies. An 
tray composed of various nationalities has no other patri- 
gm: than devotion to the flag. Such armies have been the 
ecutioners of liberty through the whole duration of modern 
story. The sole bond which holds them together is their 
officers, and the government which they serve; and their only 
idea, if they have any, of public duty, is obedience to orders. 
«Aegovernment thus supported; by keeping its Hungarian regi- 
iments in Italy and its Italian in Hungary, can long continue 
olrule in both places with the iron rod of foreign conquerors. 
O.L. 
— 
22 
. 
i 
i 
ao 
; 
age 
a 
fei! 
a 
‘a 
Me 
if 
il 
: 
stats, 
i 
Ht 
uf 
e 
i 
i 
oprais 
We 
Rr 
eh eae 
cn ee 
a
430 
a 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
If it be said that so broadly marked a distinction between 
what is due to a fellow countryman and.what is due merely 
to 
human creature, is more worthy of savages than. of 
civilized beings, and ought, with the utmost energy, to be 
contended against, no one holds that opinion more strongly 
than myself. But this object, one of the worthiest to which 
human endeavour can be directed, can never, in the present 
state 
of 
civilization, 
be 
promoted by keeping different 
nationalities of anything like equivalent strength, under the 
same government. Ina barbarous state of society, the case is 
sometimes different. ‘The government may then be interested 
in 
softening the antipathies of the.races, that peace may be 
preserved, and the country more easily governed, But when - 
there are either free institutions, or a desire for them, in any 
of 
the peoples artificially tied together, the interest of the 
government 
lies in an exactly opposite direction.. It is then 
interested in keeping up and envenoming their antipathies; 
that they may be prevented from coalescing, and it may be 
enabled.to use some of them.as tools for the enslavement of 
others. The Austrian Court has now for a whole generation 
made these tactics its principal means of government, with 
what fatal success, at the time of the Vienna insurrection 
and the Hungarjan contest, the world knows too well. Hap- 
_ 
pily 
the 
there are now signs that improvement is too far ad- 
vanced, to permit this policy to be any: longer successful. 
For 
preceding reasons, it is in general a necessary 
condition of free institutions, that the boundaries of govern- 
ments should coincide in the main with those of nation- 
alities. 
But several considerations are liable to. conflict in 
practice with this general principle. In the first place, its 
application is often precluded by geographical ‘hindrances. 
There are parts even of Europe, in which different nation- 
alities are.so locally intermingled, that it is not practicable 
‘for them to be under separate governments: The population 
of 
as 
Hungary is composed of Magyars, Slovacks, Croats, 
Serbs, Roumans, and in some districts, Germans, go 3 mixed . 
up 
to. be incapable of local: separation; .and there j is no 
course open to them but to make a virtue of necessity, aid 
reconcile themselves to living together under equal rights 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
retween 
merely 
than. of 
tobe 
trongly. 
» 
which ~ 
present 
ifferent. 
der the 
‘case is 
erested 
nay be 
& 
to 
_ 
433i 
and. laws. Their community of servitude, which dates -only 
trom the destruction of Hungarian independence in 1849, 
seems to be ripening and disposing them for such an equal | 
union. The German colony of East Prussia is cut off from 
‘Germany by part of the ancient Poland, and being too weak 
maintain separate independence, must, if geographical 
contitiuity is to be maintained, -be either under a non- 
German government, or the intervening Polish territory 
‘must be under a German one. Another considerable region 
in which the dominant element of the population is German, 
the provinces of Gourland, Esthonia, and Livonia, is con- 
demned by ‘its local situation to form part of a Slavonian 
t 
when 
in any 
of the 
is 
then 
athies; 
nay be 
1ent. of 
‘ration 
t; 
with 
‘ection 
» 
ar 
Hap- 
ad- 
ssful..- 
essary 
overn- 
ation- 
lict: in 
ce, 
its 
ances. 
ation- 
icable 
lation 
roats, 
AS ‘no 
and 
state. 
In 
Eastern Gerrhany itself there is a large Slavonic 
‘population: Bohemia is principally Slavonic, Silesia and 
other 
districts 
partially .so. The most united country in 
Europe, France, is far from being homogeneous: independ- 
ently of the fragments of foreign nationalities at its remote 
extremities, it consists, as language and history prove, of two 
‘portions, one occupied almost exclusively by a.Gallo-Roman 
population, while in the other the Frankish, Burgundian, 
and other Teutonic races form a considerable ingredient. 
When proper allowance has been made for geographical 
exigencies, another more purely moral and social considera- 
tion offers itself. Experience proves, that it is possible 
an 
for one 
os 
uel 
‘nationality 
to - 
q 
merge and be absorbed in another: 
and 
human 
it 
when 
‘was originally an inferior and more backward portion of the 
he 
— 
absorption is greatly to its advantage. 
Nobody can suppose that it is not more penéficial to a , -Breton, or a Basque of French Navarre, ‘to be brought into | 
the current 
of 
the idéas and feelings of a highly civilized and 
cultivated people—to bé a member of the French nation- | 
ality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French 2 
citizenship, sharing the advantages of French protection, © 
and 
_6n 
the 
dignity and prestige of French power—than to sulk , 
his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolv- 
ing in his own little mental ‘orbit, without participation or 
in 
Interest 
the general movement of the world. The same 
remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander, 
as 
members of the British nation. — 
rights 
| 
432 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
the 
Whatever really tends to the admixture of nationalities, 
and 
blending of their attributes and peculiarities in a 
common union, is a benefit to the human race. Not by extin- 
guishing types, of which, in these cases, sufficient examples 
are sure to remain, but by softening their extreme forms, and 
a 
' - 
filling up the intervals between them. The united people, like 
crossed breed of animals (but in a still greater degree, 
because the influences in operation are moral as well as 
physical), inherits the.special aptitudes and excellences ofall | 
its progenitors, protected by the admixture from being exag- 
gerated into the neighbouring vices. But to render this 
admixture, possible, there must be peculiar conditions. ‘The 
combinations of circumstances. which occur, and which 
affect the result, are various... 
_ 
Ce 
The. nationalities. brought together under the same 
government, may be about equal in numbers and strength, 
or they may be very unequal. If unequal, the least numerous 
of the two may either be the superior in civilization, or the 
inferior. Supposing it to be superior, it may either, through 
that 
superiority, be able to acquire ascendancy over the 
other, or it may be overcome by brute strength, and reduced 
to subjection. This last is a sheer mischief to the human race, 
and one which civilized humanity with one accord should 
rise 
in 
arms 
to 
prevent. 
The 
absorption of Greece by 
Macedonia was one of the greatest misfortunes which ever 
happened to the world: that of any of the principal countries 
of Europe by Russia’would ‘be a similar one. . 
as 
If the smaller nationality, supposed to be the more ad- 
vanced in.improvement, is able to overcome the greater, as 
the Macedonians, reinforced by the Greeks, ‘did: Asia, and 
the English India, there is often a gain to civilization; but the 
conquerors and the conquered cannot in this case live to- 
gether under the same free institutions. ‘The absorption-of the 
conquerors in the less advanced: people would be an evil: 
these must be governed as subjects, and the state of things is 
either a benefit or a misfortune, according as the subjugated 
people have or have not. reached the state in which it is an 
injury not to be under a free government, and according 
conquerors do or do not use their superiority in a 
the 
manne 
improv 
subseq 
. 
Whe 
other, 
and es] 
hope o 
with a. 
a 
| 
| 
power! 
with e? 
reconc 
the 
lar 
smalle. 
If all I 
towarc 
numer 
ality b 
years, 
best fe 
resent 
Englaz 
truly s -'Lrishm 
share c 
fortun 
British 
Trelans 
half, 
tl 
them.‘ 
past, a 
apart | 
1 
: 
"world 
consci 
justice 
are no! 
a
a 
bats 
art 
:t. 
rita 
eh 
eta 
rat 
Ee, 
ea 
ee 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
Ag3 
ymer calculated to fit the conquered for a higher stage of 
provement. This topic will be particularly treated of in a 
jsequent chapter. 
7 
7 
: 
Ten the nationality which succeeds in overpowering the 
r,!is ‘both the most numerous and the most improved; 
despecially if the subdued nationality is small, and has no 
cof reasserting its independence; then, if it is governed 
hrany tolerable justice, and if the members of the more 
rful nationality are not made odious by being invested 
qithrexclusive privileges, the smaller nationality is gradually 
\onciled to its position, and becomes amalgamated with 
ieilarger. No Bas-Breton, nor even any Alsatian, has the 
allest'wish at the present day to be separated from Franice. 
fall'rishmen have not-yet arrived at the same disposition 
swards England, it is partly because they are sufficiently 
erous to be capable of constituting a respectable nation- 
: 
est 
by.‘ themselves; put principally because, until of late 
sthey had been so atrociously governed, that all their 
feelings combined with their bad ones in rousing bitter 
evitment against the Saxon rule. This disgrace to 
gland, and calamity to the whole empire, has, it may be 
truly’ said, completely ceased for nearly a generatiom No 
Jeishman is now less free than an Anglo-Saxon, nor has a less 
wre of every benefit either to his country or to his individual 
tunes, than ifhe were sprung from any other portion of the 
‘tish 
A0re: 
eateryas 
sia; and 
: 
; 
but the 
live :to 
onof the | 
an evil: 
things:is 
yugated | 
Litds.an 
‘cording 
‘ity 
ina 
ast; 
dominions. The only remaining real grievance of 
‘ireland, that of the State Church, is one which half, or nearly 
.the people of the larger island have in-common with 
sm. There is now next to nothing, except the memory of the 
the difference in the predominant religion, to keep - 
and 
apart two races, perhaps the most fitted of any tWO in the 
“orld to be'the completing counterpart of one another. The 
" -gonsciousness of being at last treated not only with equal 
gustice but with equal consideration, is making such rapid 
~qway in the Irish nation, as to be wearing off all feelings that | 
¢ould make, them jnsensible to the benefits which the. less 
mumerous. and less wealthy people must necessaril derive, 
from being fellow-citizens.instead. of Sreigners.to those who | 
are not only their nearest neighbours, but the wealthiest, and 
Ea 
rs 
| 
Af 
us 
Fe 
a 
Bt 
au 
ar 
| 
ne 
if cet 
<7 
erin 
Siena Peper ete: 
a 
rede 
agen a ner ne ESF EET
434 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
one of the freest, as well as most civilized and powerful, | 
nations of the earth. — 
oe 
~The cases in which the greatest practical obstacles exist to 
the 
blending of nationalities, are when the nationalities 
which. have been bound together are nearly equal in num- 
bers, and in the other elements of power. In such cases, each, 
confiding in its strength, and feeling itself. capable of main- 
taining an equal struggle with any of the others, is unwilling 
to 
_ 
a 
be 
merged.in it: each cultivates with-party. obstinacy its 
distinctive peculiarities; obsolete customs,’ and even de- 
clining languages, are revived, to deepen the separation; each 
deems itself tyrannized over. if any authority is exercised 
within itself by functionaries of a rival race; and whatever is 
given to one of the conflicting nationalities, is considered to be 
taken from all the rest. When nations, thus divided, are under 
despotic government which is a stranger to.all of them, or 
which, though sprung from one, yet feeling greater interest in 
its own power than in any sympathies of nationality, assigns 
no - 
., 
pl -. 
privilege to either nation, and chooses its instruments 
indifferently from all; in the course of a few generations, 
identity of situation often produces harmony of feeling, and 
the different races come to feel towards each other as fellow 
countrymen; particularly if they are dispersed over the same 
tract ofcountry. But ifthe era ofaspiration to free government 
arrives before this fusion has been effected, the opportunity 
has gone by for effecting it. From that time, ifthe unreconciled 
nationalities are geographically separate, and. especially if 
their local position is such that there is no. natural fitness or 
convenience in their being under the same government (asin 
the case of an Italian province under a French or German 
yoke), there is not only an obvious. propriety, but, if either 
freedom or concord is cared for, a necessity, for breaking the 
connexion altogether. There may be cases in which the prov- 
inces, after separation, might usefully remain united by a 
federal tie: but it generally happens that if they are willing to 
forgo complete independence, and become members ofa fed- 
eration, each of them has other neighbours. with whom it 
would prefer to connect itself, having more sympathies in 
common, if not also greater community of interest, 
pa 
~ - 
Por 
live 1 
adva 
fore}; 
the s: 
powe 
neces 
amot 
féder 
they 
ity of 
eralli 
neith 
while 
are t. 
leali 
polit: 
client 
milit 
even 
ing 
com: 
| 
for st 
_ 
cient 
religi 
polit 
weak 
Ame 
unio! 
differ 
artic’

eummarize this