FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF POLITICS 287 



Spencer. The constitutional liberty of the individual, secured by 

 the strenuous struggle of the previous decades, was now subordinated 

 to the demand for national unity in governmental organization and 

 for majority rule in economic organization. 



The idea of nationality, as the normal and natural criterion of 

 political organization and independence, was by no means new in 

 this period, but it now gained overwhelming importance from the 

 practical work of Bismarck and Cavour in Europe and from the 

 terrific struggle through which the principle was maintained in the 

 United States. The working out of the idea was attended by a 

 change of relative position among the European Powers. France 

 was supplanted by Germany as the central figure. France, with a 

 homogeneous population and a compact territory under a unified 

 government, had only that interest in the principle of nationality 

 which was incidental to the ambition of the third Napoleon. Eng- 

 land, with Ireland on her hands, was necessarily cold toward the 

 doctrine of nationality per se. Her philosophy easily conceded that 

 the Poles were not Russians because they said they were not, and 

 that the South Carolinians were entitled to independence of the 

 United States because they believed they were; but it could not 

 admit that Irishmen were not Englishmen or were entitled to inde- 

 pendent government for any such reasons. The German, the 

 Italian, and the American peoples, however, were able to make the 

 principle of nationality predominant in both theory and practice. 

 Yet, it is not to be presumed that either Bismarck or Cavour was 

 under any illusion as to the abstract conclusiveness of nationality 

 as a principle; to them the cause of the Hohenzollern and the Savoyard 

 dynasties, respectively, was as much end as means in the policies 

 which they carried through. And, even as to the United States, 

 the time has probably now come when it will not be held unpatriotic, 

 as it certainly is not untruthful, to say that sordid considerations 

 of selfish sectional interest played a large, if not a decisive, part in 

 the struggle through which national unity was preserved. 



The triumph of nationalism in the seventh decade of the nineteenth 

 century was promptly followed by a transformation in the principle' 

 that has determined in large measure the later stages of political 

 development throughout the world. In the first period of the 

 century nationalism had been the sister creed of liberalism. Na- 

 tional independence and constitutional government had commonly 

 been united as summing up what was just and natural in the aspi- 

 rations of a people. In the name of both principles together the 

 Poles had fought for independence of Russia, the Belgians had 

 achieved their independence of the Dutch King, and the Magyars 

 and Italians had resisted the Austrian Dominion. Nationalism 

 had been essentially defensive in character and application; its 



