CHAPTER II
The Nation and the States
A few years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at its triennial Convention in revising its liturgy. It was thought desirable to introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole people; and an eminent New England divine proposed the words "O Lord, bless our nation." Accepted one afternoon on the spur of the moment, the sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many objections were raised by the laity to the word "nation," as importing too definite a recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and instead there were adopted the words "O Lord, bless these United States."
To Europeans who are struck by the patriotism and demonstrative national pride of their transatlantic visitors, this fear of admitting that the American people constitute a nation seems extraordinary. But it is only the expression on its sentimental side of the most striking and pervading characteristic of the political system of the country, the existence of a double government, a double allegiance, a double patriotism. America —I call it America (leaving out of sight South and Central America, Canada, and Mexico), in order to avoid using at this stage the term United States—America is a Commonwealth of commonwealths, a Republic of republics, a State which, while one, is nevertheless composed of other States even more essential to its existence than it is to theirs.
This is a point of so much consequence, and so apt to be misapprehended by Europeans, that a few sentences may be given to it.
When within a large political community smaller communities are found existing, the relation of the smaller to the larger usually appears in one or other of the two following forms.
