made of it a Power of the first rank for a time, was not accomplished by
force. It was not the consequence of successful aggression, but of a
long and successful defence against the raiding neighbours from the East.
The lands of Lithuanian and Ruthenian speech were never conquered by
Poland. These peoples were not compelled by a series of exhausting wars
to seek safety in annexation. It was not the will of a prince or a
political intrigue that brought about the union. Neither was it fear.
The slowly-matured view of the economical and social necessities and,
before all, the ripening moral sense of the masses were the motives that
induced the forty three representatives of Lithuanian and Ruthenian
provinces, led by their paramount prince, to enter into a political
combination unique in the history of the world, a spontaneous and
complete union of sovereign States choosing deliberately the way of
peace. Never was strict truth better expressed in a political instrument
than in the preamble of the first Union Treaty (1413). It begins with
the words: "This Union, being the outcome not of hatred, but of
love"--words that Poles have not heard addressed to them politically by
any nation for the last hundred and fifty years.

This union being an organic, living thing capable of growth and
development was, later, modified and confirmed by two other treaties,
which guaranteed to all the parties in a just and eternal union all their
rights, liberties, and respective institutions. The Polish State offers
a singular instance of an extremely liberal administrative federalism
which, in its Parliamentary life as well as its international politics,
presented a complete unity of feeling and purpose. As an eminent French
diplomatist remarked many years ago: "It is a very remarkable fact in the
history of the Polish State, this invariable and unanimous consent of the
populations; the more so that, the King being looked upon simply as the
chief of the Republic, there was no monarchical bond, no dynastic