No doubt the collective interests of the German or British people suffer because such a lack of dependence and confidence exists; but their collective interests would suffer more from a sudden or violent attempt to destroy the barriers.

The nature and the history of the different democratic and national movements in the several European countries at once tie them together and keep them apart.
The peoples of Europe can only escape gradually from the large infusion of arbitrary and irrational material in their national composition.
Monarchical and aristocratic traditions and a certain measure of political and social privilege have remained an essential part of their national lives; and no less essential was an element of defiance in their attitude toward their European neighbors.

Hence, when the principle of national Sovereignty was proclaimed as a substitute for the principal of royal Sovereignty, that principle really did not mean the sudden bestowal upon the people of unlimited Sovereign power.

"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.