National Character | Page 2

in several lands,--as in the
case of the Jews, but a nation may migrate in a body and preserve its
national character in transit, or it may have no fixed territorial abode
whatever. The Tartars and the Arabs are nations ever in motion, and
held but the most loosely by any tenure of soil.
And even citizenship under the same government, does not of itself
exhaust the idea of a nation. Russia may be said to include many
nations under her sway.
Yet the ideas of race, language, country and government, all enter into,
and with greater or less distinctness, and to a greater or less extent,
constitute the general idea of a nation. The French have in general the
same origin: they speak the same language: they possess a definite
territory: they live under one government. They are of Gallic origin: we
call their language French: their home is France: they are the subjects
of Napoleon.
These several ideas of a nation do not, however, seem to be equally
essential. It is in the idea of Government, the idea of the State, in which
an associated body of men rises to view as a personality, and as a
sovereign power, clothed with divine privileges and prerogatives,
subsisting for high moral ends, dispensing justice amongst its own
citizens in the name of God, and treating with other States as
responsible persons like itself, with whom it dwells as in a family of
nations to possess the earth;--it is in this idea that the ideas of
community of origin and of language, and occupation of the same
territory, merge themselves as subordinate or accidental, and that our
view of a nation is most satisfactory and complete.
The functions of supreme government are rarely exercised over a very
small body of men. And nations need to be of some magnitude to
realize the benefits of national existence. A nation, just in virtue of its
national constitution, is in a measure separated from the rest of
mankind. It has an existence by itself. It ought, then, to have a
completeness in itself. It should be made up of so many and such
variety of parts, that these parts in their inter-action, may produce a
sufficient life. Its classes of citizens and their occupations, should be so

diversified and numerous, that in the mutual dependence and support,
the highest possible benefit may result. Size has to do materially with
the idea of a nation. This, indeed, makes all the difference between a
family and a nation, if only sovereign prerogatives be conceded to the
family, as was done in patriarchal times. It is in the life of the State
rather than that of the family, that we have civilization. The very word
civilization implies this--civis, being a citizen, and civitas, a State.
The importance of national relations may be seen in the consideration
of the nature of history. What is history? Is it a collection of the
biographies of individual men? We do not, as a fact, give to such
collection the name of history. History has been called "the biography
of society." But of society founded upon what basis, working by what
agencies, involving what interests, proposing what ends? Not surely
voluntary associations, formed for the promotion of the arts, or
commerce, or philosophy, or benevolent undertakings. Such
associations are too limited in the numbers which belong to them, too
narrow and partial in the ends they propose and the means they use, to
justify us in calling their biography history. We must find a society
which, as nearly as possible, shall comprehend in its members the
entire human race, command in its workings all human energies,
involve in its consideration all human interests; the biography of such a
society we may call history. Such a society we find in the State. And it
is because the whole human race is gathered into nations; it is because
the State proposes as its true object the highest good of all its citizens;
and especially is it because the State as a sovereign power, not only
holds the persons and property of its citizens at its disposal, but deals
with its citizens and with all mankind as moral beings, and as itself a
moral person responsible to God,--being a sovereign only as his
minister;--it is because of all this, that we give the name history to the
biography of nations rather than to that of any other society. And the
idea of history generally accepted is this,--it is a record of the changes
which come over the aspect and fortunes of nations, in their
self-development and their mutual intercourse.[A]
The highest truth of history is unquestionably the Providence of God.
Now, it gives us a most impressive view of the importance of national

relations, when we consider