But in one way or another it is necessary to set up the conviction that the promptings of patriotic ambition have the sanction of moral necessity.
It is not that the line of national policy or patriotic enterprise so entered upon with the support of popular sentiment need be right and equitable as seen in dispassionate perspective from the outside, but only that it should be capable of being made to seem right and equitable to the biased populace whose moral convictions are requisite to its prosecution; which is quite another matter.

Nor is it that any such patriotic enterprise is, in fact, entered on simply or mainly on these moral grounds that so are alleged in its justification, but only that some such colorable ground of justification or extenuation is necessary to be alleged, and to be credited by popular belief.
It is not that the common man is not sufficiently patriotic, but only that he is a patriot hampered with a plodding and uneasy sense of right and honest dealing, and that one must make up one's account with this moral bias in looking to any sustained and concerted action that draws on the sentiment of the common man for its carrying on.

But the moral sense in the case may be somewhat easily satisfied with a modicum of equity, in case the patriotic bias of the people is well pronounced, or in case it is reenforced with a sufficient appeal to self-interest.

In those cases where the national fervor rises to an excited pitch, even very attenuated considerations of right and justice, such as would under ordinary conditions doubtfully bear scrutiny as extenuating circumstances, may come to serve as moral authentication for any extravagant course of action to which the craving for national prestige may incite.

The higher the pitch of patriotic fervor, the more tenuous and more thread-bare may be the requisite moral sanction.