As a matter of fact, the two following chapters will be devoted chiefly to this labor of justification.

In the first of these chapters I shall give a partly historical and partly critical account of the national principle in its relation to democracy; and in the second I shall apply the results, so achieved, to the American national principle in its relation to the American democratic idea.

But before starting this complicated task, a few words must be premised as to the reasons which make the attempt well worth the trouble.
If a people, in becoming more of a nation, become for that very reason more of a democracy, the realization of the democratic purpose is not rendered any easier, but democracy is provided with a simplified, a consistent, and a practicable programme.

An alliance is established thereby between the two dominant political and social forces in modern life.

The suspicion with which aggressive advocates of the national principle have sometimes regarded democracy would be shown to have only a conditional justification; and the suspicion with which many ardent democrats have regarded aggressive nationalism would be similarly disarmed.