Two views for the ideology of national-merit are in contrary positions: the view of 'protection of state priority' supports having only 'protection of state' for the ideology of national-merit while the view of 'multiple equal values' states that 'national independence', 'protection of state', and 'democratic development' possess equal value. However, both views do not fully explain how the ideology' of national-merit is based on the historical specificity of Korea. The purposes of the study are to investigate if the immanent values of the ideology of national-merit ('national independence', 'protection of state', and 'democratic development') hold equal value, and to suggest the future direction of the ideology and the policy of national-merit via historical approach. Also, to achieve this purpose, the death of a leader or soldiers, and the massacre of civilicills are included in the frame of analysis which are used to classify the era of war of independence(1920-1949), the era of division and cold war(1950-1979), ,md the era of democratization (1980-2009) - the names which reflect the zeitgeist. The results of this study are as follows: 1) the three immanent values of the ideology of national-merit reflect the historical specificities of Korea, and are based on zeitgeist in the order of 'national independence', 'protection of state', and 'democratic development'; 2) the three immanent values of ideology of national-merit hold equal value because for a generation each era had countless number of graceful deaths, which could be a model for our nation and society; 3) a man of national-merit should be a person who do not disgrace even one out of the three immanent values of ideology of national-merit for the people to nothe paradox of national-merit; and 4) the systems of national-merit must be revised to suit the ideology of national-merit, and the contributors to democratic developnlent like the contributors to the 5.18 democratic movement must be selected as a man of national-merit under a strict criteria. The significcmce of the study lies on further suggestions of more specific solutions regarding critical agendas related to the ideology of the national-merit, better reflecting historical specificity of Korea compared to the previous researches by founding the historical basis for the immanent values of the ideology of the national-merit within specific history of Korea, Lastly, the limitation of this study is described.