The nation with
them was personal, not territorial. Their country was wherever
they fed their flocks and herds, pitched their tents, and
encamped for the night. There were Germans, but no German state,
and even to-day the German finds his "father-land" wherever the
German speech is spoken. The Polish, Sclavonian, Hungarian,
Illyrian, Italian, and other provinces held by German states, in
which the German language is not the mother-tongue, are excluded
from the Germanic Confederation. The Turks, or Osmanlis, are a
race, not a state, and are encamped, not settled, on the site of
the Eastern Roman or Greek Empire.
Even when the barbaric nations have ceased to be nomadic,
pastoral, or predatory nations, as the ancient Assyrians and
Persians or modern Chinese, and have their geographical
boundaries, they have still no state, no country. The nation
defines the boundaries, not the boundaries the nation. The
nation does not belong to the territory, but the territory to the
nation or its chief. The Irish and Anglo-Saxons, in former
times, held the land in gavelkind, and the territory belonged to
the tribe or sept; but if the tribe held it as indivisible, they
still held it as private property. The shah of Persia holds the
whole Persian territory as private property, and the landholders
among his subjects are held to be his tenants.
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