The goal in reading nationalist writings was to see if it was possible to detect a central theme to nationalist argument in these cases. Instead I found that the nationalist claim was articulated in not one but two ways. One focused on securing “good government” through knowledgeable governors with a stake in the affairs of a given population. The other focused on defining and upholding a “national character” that would distinguish and sustain this population. This finding, of course, complicates the theoretical picture. Yet the two formulations appear to reflect at least one aspect of contemporary thinking on nationalism. They seem to confirm the idea that we should expect the variety of nationalist conduct or nationalist objectives to line up along a divide, either a civic/ethnic divide or perhaps a political/cultural one.