The nation is all of us,
and its government is trusteeship for us all in order to give us peace
and security, and in order that in peace and security we may make each
other's lives worth living by doing each the best work he can. The
nature of a nation may be seen by distinguishing it from the other
nations outside and from the parties within. The mark of a nation is
sovereignty, which means, as regards other nations, the right and the
power to make peace with them or to carry on war against them, and
which means, as regards those within, the right and the power to command
them.
A nation is a people constituted as a State, maintaining and supporting
a Government which is at once the embodiment of right and the wielder of
force. If the right represented by the Government is challenged, either
without or within, the Government asserts it by force, and in either
case disposes, to any extent that may be required, of the property, the
persons, and the lives of its subjects.
A party, according to the classical theory of the British constitution,
is a body of men within the State who are agreed in regarding some
measure or some principle as so vital to the State that, in order to
secure the adoption of the measure or the acceptance of the principle,
they are willing to sink all differences of opinion on other matters,
and to work together for the one purpose which they are agreed in
regarding as fundamental.
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