What makes a people a people?

[Eva Elisabeth]

What makes a people a people, and a nation a nation? Are a people, a federal republic, and a nation the same? Where do they overlap, and what distincts these concepts/ideas?

Mike (brtmchl) wrote on another thread:

"What separates this War (at least to American's) is that we fought against each other...in 1864 the War...was no longer a war to preserve the Union or to put down an armed rebellion. It was a War of conquest."

To me, this wording seems to reveal/represent a basic dilemma/an ambivalence I would like to understand better.

Did you fight against each other or against another state, thus people? Often it has been discussed that the South might have had the right to secede. If that was the case or point of view, I would conclude it was conquering of another people's state, a different people. If it was the same people (Americans), I would conclude it was not conquering but preserving the Union as "this (one?!) nation (of one people?!) under God".

Please note that as a foreigner I'm not intending to judge or claim on "being right or wrong" of any side (north or south), nor do I want to stir up the legal discussion ("Does a state have the right to secede?") again or whether/how it could have been solved another way. I'm trying to understand which way of understanding and which feelings nowadays are (personally) prevalent in descendants of both former (?) "opponents" as for being one people, one nation (despite being a citizen of a state of a republic of federal states).

The reason why I'm trying to figure this out is that this question (what makes a people a people) also is a key question for Germany, and though we didn't go to war to gain reunion, IMO there are certain parallels in the "(re)union" and reconstruction process and history, but you have the way longer "experience" (of 150 years, compared to our 24 years) with the aftermath. Germany, too, is a federal constitutional republic (parliamentary, not presidental though), and underwent, and still undergoes, a process of reunion after an even much longer period of division, and of reconstruction (of the east) as well. People in the east had to give up their entire national identity as citizens of the German Democratic Republic the ideals of which they had to (several probably wholeheartedly did) praise and live in all their daily life and actions. They had to submit themselves to a new form of government, politics, social system, currency, new laws, etc. They had to get used to (the hard contest of) market economy instead of state-directed economy with the same income for whatever efforts. West Germans people were and are not eager to finance "reconstruction east", watching almost all public investions since have been made in the east, plus all the other economical and financial consequences (also regarding higher share in EU finances due to having more citizens), (eastern mass) unemployment, etc. BTW, every now and then especially Bavarians float the idea that Bavaria should seek independence and do her own thing. For me like for many others born after WWII (and no relatives in the "Soviet Occupied Zone") at first was a foreign country, like Austria.

Despite all this, and even though I have no particular patriotic feelings (with the exception of some sports events) and if I had the ("easy") opinion could well imagine to live in another (warmer!) country, without missing Germany, by hindsight I think and feel it was right, and it should be one nation/country (and that's what I think Lincoln believed about America, for it's own sake), but I can't satisfactionately argue and reason why. There seems a con to each pro. (E.g. if common language was a reason - Austrians speak German, too. Common history - the prior - pre-WWII - common history was not a long one, and so on.)

To figure this out, I would like to learn YOUR thoughts/feelings/opinion on the following:

- Is a nation, a people, and a federal union/republic of states the same? Do they overlap? What distincts them if not?

- What is (are) the main unifying factor(s)? And why? Language? Religion? Traditions? Culture? History? Economic reasons? Other?
(Sure there exist smart and exact definitions of the terms in dictionaries, but I'm interested in what you, thus the citizens and people, think and feel.)

- Historian P. S. Paludan wrote: "A divided nation might have been more easily divided again." Where and what would America be now had history taken a different road (economically, socially, politically, globally)?

- This question especially applies to the "southerners", as the focus seems so often on "the lost cause". I do well understand people in those days beweaped it, more difficult I find it to understand to wear black nowadays on April 9. I do not judge this, I just would like to understand. How do you personally feel now about the US being one country? What would it have meant for you and your life, what would your life be like, if secession and southern independence had remained until now?

Personally I believe, in the face of WWII and the aftermath, Germany wouldn't be where and what it is now without a strong, influential, undivided America, it's attitude, set of values, principles, etc. Thus our fate was in the end also linked to and benefited from Abraham Lincoln's will, believes, and efforts.

Thanks for any (honest but peacefully worded) comments and thoughs on this topic! I hope someone will reply.