The reason for this small and important writing by Hegel is that, although Germany was a nation, its rich variety was divided into multiple states, so there was no authentic State, since the ancient Holy Empire of medieval origin only gave it a formal unity. For statics - a kind of sovereign autonomy - justified their old private privileges or rights by invoking the old "German liberty," to prevent the Empire from having effective power. Even, to the detriment of Germany and the Germans, the autonomies were allied with each other or with the foreign powers when they settled their differences on German soil, according to their particular desires and sympathies. Without a real unit, Germany was outside of universal history: lacking a true State capable of organizing it at the height of the times and defending it, it was not only not a subject of history but its object.