Only recently, during the nineteenth century, and then only in Europe, do we meet forms of the state which have been created by a deliberate national feeling.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
May the States be so bound to each other as forever to defy European politics. Upon that union, their consequence, their happiness, will depend. This is the first wish of a heart more truly American than words can express.
I don't think that our European Union membership precludes us from building an illiberal new state based on national foundations.
There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want a state of their own.
The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.
Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.
To me, the real 'state of the union' is found in how Americans react to current events.
It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.
I've built my homeland, I've even founded my state - in my language.
Just as the formation of the family is basic to the formation of the state, so the states themselves are the only units that can form the basic constitution of a viable international organization.
The territorial state is such an ancient form of society - here in Europe it dates back thousands of years - that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland.