Lord Acton sobre el nacionalisme

A l'epíleg de l'interessant assaig La patria lejana. El nacionalismo en el siglo XX (2003), l'historiador Juan Pablo Fusi cita un clarivident article de lord Acton publicat en una data tan primerenca com l'any 1862, en el que el gran liberal anglès, en un moment en el que el nacionalisme era una força alliberadora i democràtica i gaudia de les simpaties de molts, ja va saber adonar-se d'on raïa el conflicte que hauria d'aflorar en el futur. Extracto:

In proclaiming the supremacy of the rights of nationality, the system of democratic equality goes beyond its own extreme boundary, and falls into contradiction with itself. [...] Nationality does not aim either at liberty or prosperity, both of which it sacrifices to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould and measure of the State. Its course will be marked with material as well as moral ruin, in order that a new invention may prevail over the works of God and the interests of mankind. There is no principle of change, no phase of political speculation conceivable, more comprehensive, more subversive, or more arbitrary than this. It is a confutation of democracy, because it sets limits to the exercise of the popular will, and substitutes for it a higher principle.

Lord Acton, Nationality, Home and Foreign Review (juliol de 1862)