child-nation

Updated: July 12, 2025

They should not escape from her arms with shrill screams and bleeding wounds, with ill-omened words which live so long, though the speakers of them lie cold in their graves. But this sending forth of a child-nation to take its own political status in the world has never yet been done by Great Britain.

Anthony Trollope - North America — Volume 1

But this is no longer a child-nation, irresponsible in its nonage and incapable of comprehending or assuming the responsibilities of its acts. A child that breaks a pane of glass or sets fire to a house may indeed escape.

Whitelaw Reid - Problems of Expansion: As Considered In Papers and Addresses