Jeniffer electronic book

"The true
people," said Bismarck, in 1847, then a country squire, "is an invisible
multitude of spirits. 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. The mistake
which France made at the time of the French Revolution was precisely
that of interpreting the phrase "souvrenete nationale" as equivalent to
immediate, complete, and (in respect to the past) irresponsible popular
sovereignty.
The European nations are, consequently, not in a position to make their
national ideals frankly and loyally democratic. Their national integrity
depends upon fidelity to traditional ideas and forms quite as much as it
does upon the gradual modification of those ideas and forms in a
democratic direction.


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