The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

y John Fiske, the most philosophical of all the
American historians. He divides nation-making
into three classes, the third of which he styles the
“English method.” This he defines as being the one
which contains the “principle of representation.”
Then he adds:--
“For this reason, though like all nation-making
it was in its early stages attended with war and
conquest, it nevertheless does not necessarily
require war and conquest in order to be put into
operation.... Now of the English or Teutonic
method, I say, war is not an essential part; for
where representative government is once
established, it is possible for a great nation to be
formed by the peaceful coalescence of neighboring
states, or by their union into a federal body.... Now
federalism, though its rise and establishment may
be incidentally accompanied by warfare, is
nevertheless in spirit pacific. Conquest in the
Oriental sense is quite incompatible with it;
conquest in the Roman sense hardly less so. At the
close of our Civil war there were now and then
zealous people to be found who thought that the
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