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rate 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. But the new nations into which the empire has been divided have never been, at any moment, without political or governmental organization, continued from the constitution of the conquering tribe or nation, modified more or less by what was retained from the empire. It is not pretended that the constitutions of states cannot be altered, or that every people starts with a constitution fully developed, as would seem to be the doctrine of De Maistre. The constitution of the family is rather economical than political, and the tribe is far from being a fully developed state. Strictly speaking, the state, the modern equivalent for the city of the Greeks and Romans, was not fully formed till men began to build and live in cities, and became fixed to a national territory. But in the first place, the eldest born of the human race, we are told, built a city, and even in cities we find traces of the family and tribal organization long after their municipal existence--in Athens down to the Macedonian conquest, and in Rome down to the establishment of the Empire; and, in the second place, the pastoral nations, though they have not precisely the city or state organization, yet have a national organization, and obey a national authority. Strictly speaking, no pastoral nation has a civil or political constitution, but they have what in our modern tongues can be expressed by no other term. The feudal regime, which was in full vigor even in Europe from the tenth to the close of the fourteenth century, had nothing to do with cities, and really recognized no state proper; yet who hesitates to speak of it as a civil or political system, though a very imperfect one? The civil order, as it now exists, was not fully developed in the early ages. For a long time the national organizations bore unmistakable traces of
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