A portion of the people of a state not so
erected or organized, that has in no sense had a distinct
political existence of its own, has never separated from the
national body and formed a new and independent nation. It cannot
revolt; it may rise up against the government, and either
revolutionize and take possession of the state, or be put down by
the government as an insurrection. The amalgamation of the
conquering and the conquered forms a new people, and modifies the
institutions of both, but does not necessarily form a new nation
or political community. The English of to-day are very different
from both the Normans and the Saxons, or Dano-Saxons, of the time
of Richard Coeur de Lion, but they constitute the same state or
political community. England is still England.
The Roman empire, conquered by the Northern barbarians, has been
cut up into several separate and independent nations, but because
its several provinces had, prior to their conquest by the Roman
arms, been independent nations or tribes, and more especially
because the conquerors themselves were divided into several
distinct nations or confederacies. If the barbarians had been
united in a single nation or state, the Roman empire most likely
would have changed masters, indeed, but have retained its unity
and its constitution, for the Germanic nations that finally
seated themselves on its ruins had no wish to destroy its name or
nationality, for they were themselves more than half Romanized
before conquering Rome.
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