This is what occurs to me.

I think the literal translation works perfectly here, denoting the idea of the "common identity of the state"

I think this is probably what it's getting at: an understanding of what the state means and requires and and the wisdom and integrity to serve its interests.

This, by the way, is exactly what people mean by "sentido de estado" today. It's currently being bandied about in the election campaign; the PP has been saying that Spain needs a prime minister with "sentido de estado". The quality they're referring to is what we would call "statesmanship", I think.

It's anachronisitic, in that the idea of the state as a political unit didn't really develop until the sixteenth century, and indeed "statesman" seems to originate in English at the end of that century, from the French "homme d'état". But I don't think that's a fatal objection; the same could be said of Spanish.

Historically, "sentido de estado" could be interpreted as a sense of what his position required of him: "estado" in the sense of "estate". But to capture this you'd have to resort to a longer explanation.

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Note added at 53 mins (2011-11-13 17:08:12 GMT)
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Didn't see gallagy2's answer before posting; we're thinking along similar lines. But I'd stick with my formulation.