SOCIETY IN AMERICA

BY

HARRIET MARTINEAU,

AUTHOR OF "ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY."

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I. (of II)

NEW YORK
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, ANN STREET,
AND CONDUIT STREET, LONDON.
1837.

INTRODUCTION.

"To seize a character, even that of one man, in its life and secret mechanism, requires a philosopher; to delineate it with truth and impressiveness is work for a poet. How then shall one or two sleek clerical tutors, with here and there a tedium-stricken esquire, or speculative half-pay captain, give us views on such a subject? How shall a man, to whom all characters of individual men are like sealed books, of which he sees only the title and the covers, decipher from his four-wheeled vehicle, and depict to us, the character of a nation? He courageously depicts his own optical delusions; notes this to be incomprehensible, that other to be insignificant; much to be good, much to be bad, and most of all indifferent; and so, with a few flowing strokes, completes a picture, which, though it may not resemble any possible object, his countrymen are to take for a national portrait. Nor is the fraud so readily detected: for the character of a people has such a complexity of aspect, that even the honest observer knows not always, not perhaps after long inspection, what to determine regarding it. From his, only accidental, point of view, the figure stands before him like the tracings on veined marble,—a mass of mere random lines, and tints, and entangled strokes, out of which a lively fancy may shape almost any image. But the image he brings with him is always the readiest; this is tried; it answers as well as another; and a second voucher now testifies its correctness. Thus each, in confident tones, though it be with a secret misgiving, repeats his precursor; the hundred-times-repeated comes in the end to be believed; the foreign nation is now once for all understood, decided on, and registered accordingly; and dunce the thousandth writes of it like dunce the first."—Edinburgh Review, No. xlvi. p. 309.

This passage cannot but strike upon the heart of any traveller who meditates giving to the world an account of the foreign country he has visited. It is the mirror held up before his face; and he inevitably feels himself, for the moment, "dunce the thousandth." For my own part, I felt the truth contained in this picture so strongly, before I was acquainted with the passage itself, that I had again and again put away the idea of saying one word in print on the condition of society in the United States. Whenever I encountered half-a-dozen irreconcilable, but respectable opinions on a single point of political doctrine; whenever half-a-dozen fair-seeming versions of a single fact were offered to me; whenever the glow of pleasure at obtaining, by some trivial accident, a piece of important knowledge passed into a throb of pain at the thought of how much must remain concealed where a casual glimpse disclosed so much; whenever I felt how I, with my pittance of knowledge and amidst my glimmerings of conviction, was at the mercy of unmanageable circumstances, wafted now here and now there, by the currents of opinion, like one surveying a continent from a balloon, with only starlight above him,—I was tempted to decline the task of generalising at all from what I saw and heard. In the intervals, however, I felt that this would be wrong. Men will never arrive at a knowledge of each other, if those who have the opportunity of foreign observation refuse to relate what they think they have learned; or even to lay before others the materials from which they themselves hesitate to construct a theory, or draw large conclusions.

In seeking for methods by which I might communicate what I have observed in my travels, without offering any pretension to teach the English, or judge the Americans, two expedients occurred to me; both of which I have adopted. One is, to compare the existing state of society in America with the principles on which it is professedly founded; thus testing Institutions, Morals, and Manners by an indisputable, instead of an arbitrary standard, and securing to myself the same point of view with my readers of both nations.

In working according to this method, my principal dangers are two. I am in danger of not fully apprehending the principles on which society in the United States is founded; and of erring in the application to these of the facts which came under my notice. In the last respect, I am utterly hopeless of my own accuracy. It is in the highest degree improbable that my scanty gleanings in the wide field of American society should present a precisely fair sample of the whole. I can only explain that I have spared no pains to discover the truth, in both divisions of my task; and invite correction, in all errors of fact. This I earnestly do; holding myself, of course, an equal judge with others on matters of opinion.

My readers, on their part, will bear in mind that, in showing discrepancies between an actual condition and a pure and noble theory of society, I am not finding fault with the Americans, as for falling behind the English, or the French, or any other nation. I decline the office of censor altogether. I dare not undertake it. Nor will my readers, I trust, regard the subject otherwise than as a compound of philosophy and fact. If we can all, for once, allay our personal feelings, dismiss our too great regard to mutual opinion, and put praise and blame as nearly as possible out of the question, more that is advantageous to us may perhaps be learned than by any invidious comparisons and proud judgments that were ever instituted and pronounced.

The other method by which I propose to lessen my own responsibility, is to enable my readers to judge for themselves, better than I can for them, what my testimony is worth. For this purpose, I offer a brief account of my travels, with dates in full; and a report of the principal means I enjoyed of obtaining a knowledge of the country.

At the close of a long work which I completed in 1834, it was thought desirable that I should travel for two years. I determined to go to the United States, chiefly because I felt a strong curiosity to witness the actual working of republican institutions; and partly because the circumstance of the language being the same as my own is very important to one who, like myself, is too deaf to enjoy anything like an average opportunity of obtaining correct knowledge, where intercourse is carried on in a foreign language. I went with a mind, I believe, as nearly as possible unprejudiced about America, with a strong disposition to admire democratic institutions, but an entire ignorance how far the people of the United States lived up to, or fell below, their own theory. I had read whatever I could lay hold of that had been written about them; but was unable to satisfy myself that, after all, I understood anything whatever of their condition. As to knowledge of them, my mind was nearly a blank: as to opinion of their state, I did not carry the germ of one.

I landed at New York on the 19th of September, 1834: paid a short visit the next week to Paterson, in New Jersey, to see the cotton factories there, and the falls of the Passaic; and passed through New York again on my way to stay with some friends on the banks of the Hudson, and at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. On the 6th of October, I joined some companions at Albany, with whom I travelled through the State of New York, seeing Trenton Falls, Auburn, and Buffalo, to the Falls of Niagara. Here I remained nearly a week; then, after spending a few days at Buffalo, I embarked on Lake Erie, landing in the back of Pennsylvania, and travelling down through Meadville to Pittsburgh, spending a few days at each place. Then, over the Alleghanies to Northumberland, on the fork of the Susquehanna, the abode of Priestley after his exile, and his burial place. I arrived at Northumberland on the 11th of October, and left it, after visiting some villages in the neighbourhood, on the 17th, for Philadelphia, where I remained nearly six weeks, having very extensive intercourses with its various society. My stay at Baltimore was three weeks, and at Washington five. Congress was at that time in session, and I enjoyed peculiar opportunities of witnessing the proceedings of the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress. I was acquainted with almost every eminent senator and representative, both on the administration and opposition sides; and was on friendly and intimate terms with some of the judges of the Supreme Court. I enjoyed the hospitality of the President, and of several of the heads of departments: and was, like everybody else, in society from morning till night of every day; as the custom is at Washington. One day was devoted to a visit to Mount Vernon, the abode and burial-place of Washington.

On the 18th of February I arrived at Montpelier, the seat of Mr. and Mrs. Madison, with whom I spent two days, which were wholly occupied with rapid conversation; Mr. Madison's share of which, various and beautiful to a remarkable degree, will never be forgotten by me. His clear reports of the principles and history of the Constitution of the United States, his insight into the condition, his speculations on the prospects of nations, his wise playfulness, his placid contemplation of present affairs, his abundant household anecdotes of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, were incalculably valuable and exceedingly delightful to me.

The intercourse which I had with Chief Justice Marshall was of the same character, though not nearly so copious. Nothing in either delighted me more than their hearty admiration of each other, notwithstanding some wide differences in their political views. They are both gone; and I now deeply feel what a privilege it is to have known them.

From Mr. Madison's I proceeded to Charlottesville, and passed two days amidst the hospitalities of the Professors of Jefferson's University, and their families. I was astonished to learn that this institution had never before been visited by a British traveller. I can only be sorry for British travellers who have missed the pleasure. A few days more were given to Richmond, where the Virginia legislature was in session; and then ensued a long wintry journey though North and South Carolina to Charleston, occupying from the 2nd to the 11th of March. The hospitalities of Charleston are renowned; and I enjoyed them in their perfection for a fortnight; and then a renewal of the same kind of pleasures at Columbia, South Carolina, for ten days. I traversed the southern States, staying three days at Augusta, Georgia, and nearly a fortnight in and near Montgomery, Alabama; descending next the Alabama river to Mobile. After a short stay there, and a residence of ten days at New Orleans, I went up the Mississippi and Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland river, which I ascended to Nashville, Tennessee. I visited the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and spent three weeks at Lexington. I descended the Ohio to Cincinnati; and after staying there ten days, ascended the river again, landing in Virginia, visiting the Hawk's Nest, Sulphur Springs, Natural Bridge, and Weyer's Cave, arriving at New York again on the 14th of July, 1835. The autumn was spent among the villages and smaller towns of Massachusetts, in a visit to Dr. Channing in Rhode Island, and in an excursion to the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont. The winter was passed in Boston, with the exception of a trip to Plymouth, for "Forefather's Day." In the Spring I spent seven weeks in New York; and a month in a farmhouse at Stockbridge, Massachusetts; making an excursion, meanwhile, to Saratoga and Lake George. My last journey was with a party of friends, far into the west, visiting Niagara again, proceeding by Lake Erie to Detroit, and across the territory of Michigan. We swept round the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to Chicago: went a long day's journey down into the prairies, back to Chicago, and by the Lakes Michigan, Huron, and St. Clair to Detroit, visiting Mackinaw by the way. We landed from Lake Erie at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 13th of July; and travelled through the interior of Ohio till we joined the river at Beaver. We visited Rapp's Settlement at Economy, on the Ohio, and returned to New York from Pittsburgh, by the canal route through Pennsylvania, and the rail-road over the Alleghanies. I sailed from New York for England on the 1st of August, 1836, having then been absent just two years.

In the course of this tour, I visited almost every kind of institution. The prisons of Auburn, Philadelphia, and Nashville: the insane and other hospitals of almost every considerable place: the literary and scientific institutions; the factories of the north; the plantations of the south; the farms of the west. I lived in houses which might be called palaces, in log-houses, and in a farm-house. I travelled much in wagons, as well as stages; also on horseback, and in some of the best and worst of steam-boats. I saw weddings, and christenings; the gatherings of the richer at watering places, and of the humbler at country festivals. I was present at orations, at land sales, and in the slave market. I was in frequent attendance on the Supreme Court and the Senate; and witnessed some of the proceedings of state legislatures. Above all, I was received into the bosom of many families, not as a stranger, but as a daughter or a sister. I am qualified, if any one is, to testify to the virtues and the peace of the homes of the United States; and let it not be thought a breach of confidence, if I should be found occasionally to have spoken of these out of the fulness of my heart.

It would be nearly impossible to relate whom I knew, during my travels. Nearly every eminent man in politics, science and literature, and almost every distinguished woman, would grace my list. I have respected and beloved friends of each political party; and of nearly every religious denomination; among slave-holders, colonizationists, and abolitionists; among farmers, lawyers, merchants, professors, and clergy. I travelled among several tribes of Indians; and spent months in the southern States, with negroes ever at my heels.

Such were my means of information. With regard to my power of making use of them, I have but a few words to say.

It has been frequently mentioned to me that my being a woman was one disadvantage; and my being previously heard of, another. In this I do not agree.

I am sure, I have seen much more of domestic life than could possibly have been exhibited to any gentleman travelling through the country. The nursery, the boudoir, the kitchen, are all excellent schools in which to learn the morals and manners of a people: and, as for public and professional affairs,—those may always gain full information upon such matters, who really feel an interest in them,—be they men or women. No people in the world can be more frank, confiding and affectionate, or more skilful and liberal in communicating information, than I have ever found the Americans to be. I never asked in vain; and I seldom had to ask at all; so carefully were my inquiries anticipated, and my aims so completely understood. I doubt whether a single fact that I wished to learn, or any doctrine that I desired to comprehend, was ever kept from me because I was a woman.

As for the other objection, I can only state my belief, that my friends and I found personal acquaintance so much pleasanter than any previous knowledge by hearsay, that we always forgot that we had heard of each other before. It would be preposterous to suppose that, received as I was into intimate confidence, any false appearances could be kept up on account of any preconceptions that could have been entertained of me.

I laboured under only one peculiar disadvantage, that I am aware of; but that one is incalculable. I mean my deafness. This does not endanger the accuracy of my information, I believe, as far as it goes; because I carry a trumpet of remarkable fidelity; an instrument, moreover, which seems to exert some winning power, by which I gain more in tête-à-têtes than is given to people who hear general conversation. Probably its charm consists in the new feeling which it imparts of ease and privacy in conversing with a deaf person. However this may be, I can hardly imagine fuller revelations to be made in household intercourse than my trumpet brought to me. But I am aware that there is no estimating the loss, in a foreign country, from not hearing the casual conversation of all kinds of people, in the streets, stages, hotels, &c. I am aware that the lights which are thus gathered up by the traveller for himself are often far more valuable than the most elaborate accounts of things offered to him with an express design. This was my peculiar disadvantage. It could not be helped; and it cannot be explained away. I mention it, that the value of my testimony may be lowered according to the supposed worth of this circumstance.

Much is often said about the delicacy to be observed, in the act of revealing the history of one's travels, towards the hosts and other friends of the traveller who have reposed confidence in him. The rule seems to me a very plain one, which reconciles truth, honour and utility. My rule is to speak of the public acts of public persons, precisely as if I had known them only in their public character. This may be sometimes difficult, and sometimes painful, to the writer; but it leaves no just cause of complaint to any one else. Moreover, I hold it allowable and necessary to make use of opinions and facts offered in fire-side confidence, as long as no clue is offered by which they may be traced back to any particular fire-side. If any of my American friends should find in this book traces of old conversations and incidents, let them keep their own counsel, and be assured that the conversation and facts remain private between them and me. Thus far, all is safe; and further than this, no honourable person would wish to go.

This is not the place in which to speak of my obligations or of my friendships. Those who know best what I have in my heart to say meet me here under a new relation. In these pages, we meet as writer and readers. I would only entreat them to bear this distinction in mind, and not to measure my attachment to themselves by anything this book may contain about their country and their nation. The bond which unites us bears no relation to clime, birth-place, or institutions. In as far as our friendship is faithful, we are fellow-citizens of another and a better country than theirs or mine.

CONTENTS.

VOL. I.

SOCIETY IN AMERICA

PART I. POLITICS.

" ... Those unalterable relations which Providence has ordained that everything should bear to every other. These relations, which are truth itself, the foundation of virtue, and consequently, the only measures of happiness, should be likewise the only measures by which we should direct our reasoning. To these we should conform in good earnest, and not think to force nature, and the whole order of her system, by a compliance with our pride and folly, to conform to our artificial regulations. It is by a conformity to this method we owe the discovery of the few truths we know, and the little liberty and rational happiness we enjoy." Burke.

Mr. Madison remarked to me, that the United States had been "useful in proving things before held impossible." Of such proofs, he adduced several. Others, which he did not mention, have since occurred to me; and, among them, the pursuit of the à priori method in forming a constitution:—the à priori method, as it is styled by its enemies, though its advocates, with more reason, call it the inductive method. Till the formation of the government of the United States, it had been generally supposed, and it is so still by the majority of the old world, that a sound theory of government can be constructed only out of the experience of man in governments; the experience mankind has had of despotisms, oligarchies, and the mixtures of these with small portions of democracy. But the essential condition of the fidelity of the inductive method is, that all the elements of experience should be included. If, in this particular problem, of the true theory of government, we take all experience of government, and leave out all experience of man, except in his hitherto governing or governed state, we shall never reach a philosophical conclusion. The true application of the inductive method here is to test a theory of government deduced from the principles of human nature, by the results of all governments of which mankind has had experience. No narrower basis will serve for such an induction. Such a method of finding a good theory of government was considered impossible, till the United States "proved" it.

This proof can never be invalidated by anything that can now happen in the United States. It is common to say "Wait; these are early days. The experiment will fail yet." The experiment of the particular constitution of the United States may fail; but the great principle which, whether successfully or not, it strives to embody,—the capacity of mankind for self-government,—is established for ever. It has, as Mr. Madison said, proved a thing previously held impossible. If a revolution were to take place to-morrow in the United States, it remains an historical fact that, for half a century, a people has been self-governed; and, till it can be proved that the self-government is the cause of the instability, no revolution, or series of revolutions, can tarnish the lustre, any more than they can impair the soundness of the principle that mankind are capable of self-government. The United States have indeed been useful in proving these two things, before held impossible; the finding a true theory of government, by reasoning from the principles of human nature, as well as from the experience of governments; and the capacity of mankind for self-government.

It seems strange that while politics are unquestionably a branch of moral science, bearing no other relation than to the duty and happiness of man, the great principles of his nature should have been neglected by politicians—with the exception of his love of power and desire of gain,—till a set of men assembled in the State House at Philadelphia, in the eighteenth century, and there throned a legitimate political philosophy in the place of a deposed king. The rationale of all preceding governments had been, "men love power, therefore there must be punishments for rulers who, having already much, would seize more. Men desire gain; therefore there must be punishments for those, rulers or ruled, who would appropriate the gains of others." The rationale of the new and "impossible" government is "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable lights; that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."[1] This last recognizes, over and above what the former admits, the great principles of indefeasible rights; human equality in relation to these; and the obligation of universal justice.

These, then, are the principles which the statesmen in the State House at Philadelphia announced as the soul of their embryo institutions; and the rule through which they were to work was no less than that golden one which seems to have been, by some unhappy chance, omitted in the bibles of other statesmen—"Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you." Perhaps it may be reserved for their country to prove yet one more impossible thing—that men can live by the rule which their Maker has given them to live by. Meanwhile, every true citizen of that country must necessarily be content to have his self-government tried by the test of these principles, to which, by his citizenship, he has become a subscriber. He will scorn all comparisons, instituted as a test of merit, between his own government and those of other countries, which he must necessarily consider as of narrower scope and lower aim. Whether such comparisons be instituted abroad in a spirit of contempt, or at home in a spirit of complacency, he will regard them equally as irrelevant, and proving nothing to the best purposes of true citizens. He will disdain every test but that furnished by the great principles propounded in the State House at Philadelphia; and he will quarrel with no results fairly brought out by such a test, whether they inspire him with shame, or with complacency. In either case, he will be animated by them.

If the politics of a country be really derived from fundamental principles of human nature and morals, the economy, manners, and religion of that country must be designed to harmonise with these principles. The same test must be applicable to all. The inalienable right of all the human race to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, must control the economical, as well as the political arrangements of a people; and the law of universal justice must regulate all social intercourse, and direct all administration of religion.

Politics are morals, all the world over; that is, politics universally implicate the duty and happiness of man. Every branch of morals is, and ought to be considered, a universal concern. Under despotic governments, there is a pretension, more or less sincere, on the part of the rulers, to moral regards; but from these the bulk of the people are, by common consent, cut off. If the bulk of the people saw the truth, that the principles of politics affect them,—are the message of their Maker as principles are to them, as well as to their rulers, they would become moral agents in regard to politics, and despotism would be at an end. As it is, they pay their taxes, and go out to war when they are bid, are thankful when they are left unmolested by their government, and sorry or angry when they feel themselves oppressed; and there they end. It is owing to their ignorance of politics being morals—i. e. matters of equal concern to all—that this truth is not made manifest in action in every country on the globe that has any government at all.

The same is the case of the unrepresented under governments which are not called despotic. According to the principles professed by the United States, there is there a rectification of this mighty error—a correction of this grand oversight. In that self-governing nation, all are held to have an equal interest in the principles of its institutions, and to be bound in equal duty to watch their workings. Politics there are universal duty. None are exempted from obligation but the unrepresented; and they, in theory, are none. However various may be the tribes of inhabitants in those States, whatever part of the world may have been their birth-place, or that of their fathers, however broken may be their language, however noble or servile their employments, however exalted or despised their state, all are declared to be bound together by equal political obligation, as firmly as under any other law of personal or social duty. The president, the senator, the governor, may take upon himself some additional responsibility, as the physician and lawyer do in other departments of office; but they are under precisely the same political obligation as the German settler, whose axe echoes through the lonely forest; and the Southern planter, who is occupied with his hospitalities; and the New England merchant, whose thoughts are on the sea; and the Irishman, in his shanty on the canal-bank; and the negro, hoeing cotton in the hot field, or basking away his sabbath on the shore of the Mississippi. Genius, knowledge, wealth, may in other affairs set a man above his fellows; but not in this. Weakness, ignorance, poverty may exempt a man from other obligations; but not from this. The theory of the government of the United States has grasped and embodied the mighty principle, that politics are morals;—that is, a matter of universal and equal concern. We shall have to see whether this principle is fully acted out.

Implicated with this is the theory, that the majority will be in the right, both as to the choice of principles which are to govern particular cases, and the agents who are to work them. This theory, obviously just as it appears, as long as it is applied to matters of universal and equal concern, cannot be set aside without overthrowing all with which it is involved. We shall have to see, also, whether this principle is effectually carried out.

Implicated with this, again, is the principle that a mutable, or rather elastic form, must be given to every institution. "The majority are in the right." Such is the theory. Few individuals of this majority can act for longer than two-score years and ten; few for so long. No one can suppose that his successor will think or feel as he does, however strict may be the regard of each to the fundamental principles which are to regulate his citizenship. It is absolutely necessary, to secure permanence to the recognition of those principles, that there should be liberty to change the form which contains them. Else, in the endless variety of human views and interests, there is danger lest men, being prohibited from producing a correspondence between the principles they recognise, and the forms they desire, should, because interdicted from outward change, gradually alter the spirit of their government. In such a case, men would be some time in discovering that the fair body of their constitution has become possessed, while they had supposed her inspired: and, to pass over the mischiefs which might happen during the period of her possession, the work of exorcism would be difficult and perilous.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Declaration of Independence.

CHAPTER I. PARTIES.

"For these are the men that, when they have played their parts, and had their exits, must step out, and give the moral of their scenes, and deliver unto posterity an inventory of their virtues and vices."

Sir Thomas Browne.

The first gentleman who greeted me on my arrival in the United States, a few minutes after I had landed, informed me without delay, that I had arrived at an unhappy crisis; that the institutions of the country would be in ruins before my return to England; that the levelling spirit was desolating society; and that the United States were on the verge of a military despotism. This was so very like what I had been accustomed to hear at home, from time to time, since my childhood, that I was not quite so much alarmed as I might have been without such prior experience. It was amusing too to find America so veritably the daughter of England.

I looked around me carefully, in all my travels, till I reached Washington, but could see no signs of despotism; even less of military. Except the officers and cadets at West Point, and some militia on a training day at Saugerties, higher up on the Hudson, I saw nothing that could be called military; and officers, cadets, and militia, appeared all perfectly innocent of any design to seize upon the government. At Washington, I ventured to ask an explanation from one of the most honoured statesmen now living; who told me, with a smile, that the country had been in "a crisis" for fifty years past; and would be for fifty years to come.

This information was my comfort, from day to day, till I became sufficiently acquainted with the country to need such support no longer. Mournful predictions, like that I have quoted, were made so often, that it was easy to learn how they originated.

In the United States, as elsewhere, there are, and have always been, two parties in politics, whom it is difficult to distinguish on paper, by a statement of their principles, but whose course of action may, in any given case, be pretty confidently anticipated. It is remarkable how nearly their positive statements of political doctrine agree, while they differ in almost every possible application of their common principles. Close and continued observation of their agreements and differences is necessary before the British traveller can fully comprehend their mutual relation. In England, the differences of parties are so broad,—between those who would have the people governed for the convenience of their rulers; those who would have the many governed, for their good, by the will of the few; and those who would have the people govern themselves;—that it is, for some time, difficult to comprehend how there should be party differences as wide in a country where the first principle of government is that the people are to govern themselves. The case, however, becomes clear in time: and, amidst a half century of "crises," the same order and sequence become discernible which run through the whole course of human affairs.

As long as men continue as differently organized as they now are, there will be two parties under every government. Even if their outward fortunes could be absolutely equalised, there would be, from individual constitution alone, an aristocracy and a democracy in every land. The fearful by nature would compose an aristocracy, the hopeful by nature a democracy, were all other causes of divergence done away. When to these constitutional differences are added all those outward circumstances which go to increase the fear and the hope, the mutual misunderstandings of parties are no longer to be wondered at. Men who have gained wealth, whose hope is fulfilled, and who fear loss by change, are naturally of the aristocratic class. So are men of learning, who, unconsciously identifying learning and wisdom, fear the elevation of the ignorant to a station like their own. So are men of talent, who, having gained the power which is the fit recompense of achievement, dread the having to yield it to numbers instead of desert. So are many more who feel the almost universal fear of having to part with educational prejudices, with doctrines with which honoured teachers nourished the pride of youth, and prepossessions inwoven with all that has been to them most pure, lofty, and graceful. Out of these a large aristocratic class must everywhere be formed.

Out of the hopeful,—the rising, not the risen,—the aspiring, not the satisfied,—must a still larger class be everywhere formed. It will include all who have most to gain and least to lose; and most of those who, in the present state of education, have gained their knowledge from actual life, rather than, or as well as, from books. It will include the adventurers of society, and also the philanthropists. It will include, moreover,—an accession small in number, but inestimable in power,—the men of genius. It is characteristic of genius to be hopeful and aspiring. It is characteristic of genius to break up the artificial arrangements of conventionalism, and to view mankind in true perspective, in their gradations of inherent rather than of adventitious worth. Genius is therefore essentially democratic, and has always been so, whatever titles its gifted ones may have worn, or on whatever subjects they may have exercised their gifts. To whatever extent men of genius have been aristocratic, they have been so in spite of their genius, not in consistency with it. The instances are so few, and their deviations from the democratic principle so small, that men of genius must be considered as included in the democratic class.

Genius being rare, and its claims but tardily allowed by those who have attained greatness by other means, it seems as if the weight of influence possessed by the aristocratic party,—by that party which, generally speaking, includes the wealth, learning, and talents of the country,—must overpower all opposition. If this is found not to be the case, if it be found that the democratic party has achieved everything that has been achieved since the United States' constitution began to work, it is no wonder that there is panic in many hearts, and that I heard from so many tongues of the desolations of the "levelling spirit," and the approaching ruin of political institutions.

These classes may be distinguished in another way. The description which Jefferson gave of the federal and republican parties of 1799 applies to the federal and democratic parties of this day, and to the aristocratic and democratic parties of every time and country. "One," says Jefferson, "fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them."

There is much reason in both these fears. The unreasonableness of party lies in entertaining the one fear, and not the other. No argument is needed to prove that rulers are prone to selfishness and narrowness of views: and no one can have witnessed the injuries that the poor suffer in old countries,—the education of hardship and insult that furnishes them with their only knowledge of the highest classes, without being convinced that their ignorance is to be feared;—their ignorance, not so much of books as of liberty and law. In old countries, the question remains open whether the many should, on account of their ignorance, be kept still in a state of political servitude, as some declare; or whether they should be gradually prepared for political freedom, as others think, by an amelioration of their condition, and by being educated in schools; or whether, as yet others maintain, the exercise of political rights and duties be not the only possible political education. In the New World, no such question remains to be debated. It has no large, degraded, injured, dangerous (white) class who can afford the slightest pretence for a panic-cry about agrarianism. Throughout the prodigious expanse of that country, I saw no poor men, except a few intemperate ones. I saw some very poor women; but God and man know that the time has not come for women to make their injuries even heard of. I saw no beggars but two professional ones, who are making their fortunes in the streets of Washington. I saw no table spread, in the lowest order of houses, that had not meat and bread on it. Every factory child carries its umbrella; and pig-drivers wear spectacles. With the exception of the foreign paupers on the seaboard, and those who are steeped in sensual vice, neither of which classes can be politically dangerous, there are none who have not the same interest in the security of property as the richest merchant of Salem, or planter of Louisiana. Whether the less wealthy class will not be the first to draw out from reason and experience the true philosophy of property, is another question. All we have to do with now is their equal interest with their richer neighbours in the security of property, in the present state of society. Law and order are as important to the man who holds land for the subsistence of his family, or who earns wages that he may have land of his own to die upon, as to any member of the president's cabinet.

Nor is there much more to fear from the ignorance of the bulk of the people in the United States, than from their poverty. It is too true that there is much ignorance; so much as to be an ever-present peril. Though, as a whole, the nation is, probably, better informed than any other entire nation, it cannot be denied that their knowledge is far inferior to what their safety and their virtue require. But whose ignorance is it? And ignorance of what? If the professors of colleges have book-knowledge, which the owner of a log-house has not; the owner of a log-house has very often, as I can testify, a knowledge of natural law, political rights, and economical fact, which the college-professor has not. I often longed to confront some of each class, to see whether there was any common ground on which they could meet. If not, the one might bring the charge of ignorance as justly as the other. If a common ground could be discovered, it would have been in their equal relation to the government under which they live: in which case, the natural conclusion would be, that each understood his own interests best, and neither could assume superiority over the other. The particular ignorance of the countryman may expose him to be flattered and cheated by an oratorical office-seeker, or a dishonest newspaper. But, on the other hand, the professor's want of knowledge of the actual affairs of the many, and his educational biases, are just as likely to cause him to vote contrary to the public interest. No one who has observed society in America will question the existence or the evil of ignorance there: but neither will he question that such real knowledge as they have is pretty fairly shared among them.

I travelled by wagon, with a party of friends, in the interior of Ohio. Our driver must be a man of great and various knowledge, if he questions all strangers as he did us, and obtains as copious answers. He told us where and how he lived, of his nine children, of his literary daughters, and the pains he was at to get books for them; and of his hopes from his girl of fourteen, who writes poetry, which he keeps a secret, lest she should be spoiled. He told us that he seldom lets his fingers touch a novel, because the consequence always is that his business stands still till the novel is finished; "and that doesn't suit." He recited to us, Pope's "Happy the man whose wish and care," &c. saying that it suited his idea exactly. He asked both the ladies present whether they had written a book. Both had; and he carried away the titles, that he might buy the books for his daughters. This man is fully informed of the value of the Union, as we had reason to perceive; and it is difficult to see why he is not as fit as any other man to choose the representatives of his interests. Yet, here is a specimen of his conversation with one of the ladies of the party.

"Was the book that you wrote on natural philosophy, madam?"

"No; I know nothing about natural philosophy."

"Hum! Because one lady has done that pretty well:—hit it!—Miss Porter, you know."

"What Miss Porter?"

"She that wrote 'Thaddeus of Warsaw,' you know. She did it pretty well there."

As an antagonist case, take the wailings of a gentleman of very distinguished station in a highly aristocratic section of society;—wailings over the extent of the suffrage.

"What an enormity it is that such a man as Judge ——, there, should stand on no higher level in politics than the man that grooms his horse!"

"Why should he? I suppose they have both got all they want,—full representation: and they thus bear precisely the same relation to the government."

"No; the judge seldom votes, because of his office: while his groom can, perhaps, carry nineteen men to vote as he pleases. It is monstrous!"

"It seems monstrous that the judge should omit his political duty for the sake of his office; and also that nineteen men should be led by one. But limiting the suffrage would not mend the matter. Would it not do better to teach all the parties their duty?"

Let who will choose between the wagon-driver and the scholar. Each will vote according to his own views; and the event,—the ultimate majority,—will prove which is so far the wiser.

The vagueness of the antagonism between the two parties is for some time perplexing to the traveller in America; and he does not know whether to be most amazed or amused at the apparent triviality of the circumstances which arouse the strongest party emotions. After a while, a body comes out of the mystery, and he grasps a substantial cause of dissension. From the day when the first constitution was formed, there have been alarmists, who talk of a "crisis:" and from the day when the second began its operations, the alarm has, very naturally, taken its subject matter from the failure of the first. The first general government came to a stand through weakness. The entire nation kept itself in order till a new one was formed and set to work. As soon as the danger was over, and the nation proved, by the last possible test, duly convinced of the advantages of public order, the timid party took fright lest the general government should still not be strong enough; and this tendency, of course, set the hopeful party to watch lest it should be made too strong. The panic and antagonism were at their height in 1799.[2] A fearful collision of parties took place, which ended in the establishment of the hopeful policy, which has continued, with few interruptions, since. The executive patronage was retrenched, taxes were taken off, the people were re-assured, and all is, as yet, safe. While the leaders of the old federal party retired to their Essex junto, and elsewhere, to sigh for monarchy, and yearn towards England, the greater number threw off their fears, and joined the republican party. There are now very few left to profess the politics of the old federalists. I met with only two who openly avowed their desire for a monarchy; and not many more who prophesied one. But there still is a federal party, and there ever will be. It is as inevitable that there will be always some who will fear the too great strength of the state governments, as that there will be many who will have the same fear about the general government. Instead of seeing in this any cause for dismay, or even regret, the impartial observer will recognise in this mutual watchfulness the best security that the case admits of for the general and state governments preserving their due relation to one another. No government ever yet worked both well and indisputably. A pure despotism works (apparently) indisputably; but the bulk of its subjects will not allow that it works well, while it wrings their heads from their shoulders, or their earnings from their hands. The government of the United States is disputed at every step of its workings: but the bulk of the people declare that it works well, while every man is his own security for his life and property.

The extreme panic of the old federal party is accounted for, and almost justified, when we remember, not only that the commerce of England had penetrated every part of the country, and that great pecuniary interests were therefore everywhere supposed to be at stake; but that republicanism, like that which now exists in America, was a thing unheard of—an idea only half-developed in the minds of those who were to live under it. Wisdom may spring, full-formed and accomplished, from the head of a god, but not from the brains of men. The Americans of the Revolution looked round upon the republics of the world, tested them by the principles of human nature, found them republican in nothing but the name, and produced something, more democratic than any of them; but not democratic enough for the circumstances which were in the course of arising. They saw that in Holland the people had nothing to do with the erection of the supreme power; that in Poland (which was called a republic in their day) the people were oppressed by an incubus of monarchy and aristocracy, at once, in their most aggravated forms; and that in Venice a small body of hereditary nobles exercised a stern sway. They planned something far transcending in democracy any republic yet heard of; and they are not to be wondered at, or blamed, if, when their work was done, they feared they had gone too far. They had done much in preparing the way for the second birth of their republic in 1789, and for a third in 1801, when the republicans came into power; and from which date, free government in the United States may be said to have started on its course.

A remarkable sign of those times remains on record, which shows how different the state of feeling and opinion was then from any that could now prevail among a large and honourable body in the republic. The society of the Cincinnati, an association of officers of the revolutionary army, and other honourable persons, ordered their proceedings in a manner totally inconsistent with the first principles of republicanism; having secret correspondences, decking themselves with an order, which was to be hereditary, drawing a line of distinction between military and other citizens, and uniting in a secret bond the chiefs of the first families of the respective States. Such an association, formed on the model of some which might be more or less necessary or convenient in the monarchies of the old world, could not be allowed to exist in its feudal form in the young republic; and, accordingly, the hereditary principle, and the power of adopting honorary members, were relinquished; and the society is heard of no more. It has had its use in showing how the minds of the earlier republicans were imbued with monarchical prepossessions, and how large is the reasonable allowance which must be made for the apprehensions of men, who, having gone further in democracy than any who had preceded them, were destined to see others outstrip themselves. Adams, Hamilton, Washington! what names are these! Yet Adams in those days believed the English constitution would be perfect, if some defects and abuses were remedied. Hamilton believed it would be impracticable, if such alterations were made; and that, in its then existing state, it was the very best government that had ever been devised. Washington was absolutely republican in his principles, but did not enjoy the strong faith, the entire trust in the people, which is the attendant privilege of those principles. Such men, pressed out from among the multitude by the strong force of emergency, proved themselves worthy of their mission of national redemption; but, though we may now be unable to single out any who, in these comparatively quiet times, can be measured against them, we are not thence to conclude that society, as a whole, has not advanced; and that a policy which would have appeared dangerous to them, may not be, at present, safe and reasonable.

Advantageous, therefore, as it may be, that the present federal party should be perpetually on the watch against the encroachments of the state governments,—useful as their incessant recurrence to the first practices, as well as principles, of the constitution may be,—it would be for their comfort to remember, that the elasticity of their institutions is a perpetual safeguard; and, also, that the silent influence of the federal head of their republics has a sedative effect which its framers themselves did not anticipate. If they compare the fickleness and turbulence of very small republics,—Rhode Island, for instance,—with the tranquillity of the largest, or of the confederated number, it is obvious that the existence of a federal head keeps down more quarrels than ever appear.

When the views of the present apprehensive federal party are closely looked into, they appear to be inconsistent with one or more of the primary principles of the constitution which we have stated. "The majority are right." Any fears of the majority are inconsistent with this maxim, and were always felt by me to be so, from the time I entered the country till I left it.

One sunny October morning I was taking a drive, with my party, along the shores of the pretty Owasco Lake, in New York state, and conversing on the condition of the country with a gentleman who thought the political prospect less bright than the landscape. I had been less than three weeks in the country, and was in a state of something like awe at the prevalence of, not only external competence, but intellectual ability. The striking effect upon a stranger of witnessing, for the first time, the absence of poverty, of gross ignorance, of all servility, of all insolence of manner, cannot be exaggerated in description. I had seen every man in the towns an independent citizen; every man in the country a land-owner. I had seen that the villages had their newspapers, the factory girls their libraries. I had witnessed the controversies between candidates for office on some difficult subjects, of which the people were to be the judges. With all these things in my mind, and with every evidence of prosperity about me in the comfortable homesteads which every turn in the road, and every reach of the lake, brought into view, I was thrown into a painful amazement by being told that the grand question of the time was "whether the people should be encouraged to govern themselves, or whether the wise should save them from themselves." The confusion of inconsistencies was here so great as to defy argument: the patronage among equals that was implied; the assumption as to who were the wise; and the conclusion that all the rest must be foolish. This one sentence seemed to be the most extraordinary combination that could proceed from the lips of a republican.

The expressions of fear vary according to the pursuits, or habits of mind of those who entertain them: but all are inconsistent with the theory that the majority are right. One fears the influence in the national councils of the "Tartar population" of the west, observing that men retrograde in civilisation when thinly settled in a fruitful country. But the representatives from these regions will be few while they are thinly settled, and will be in the minority when in the wrong. When these representatives become numerous, from the thick settlement of those regions, their character will have ceased to become Tartar-like and formidable: even supposing that a Tartar-like character could co-exist with the commerce of the Mississippi. Another tells me that the State has been, again and again, "on a lee shore, and a flaw has blown it off, and postponed the danger; but this cannot go on for ever." The fact here is true; and it would seem to lead to a directly contrary inference. "The flaw" is the will of the majority, which might be better indicated by a figure of something more stable. "The majority is right." It has thus far preserved the safety of the state; and this is the best ground for supposing that it will continue to be a safeguard.

One of the most painful apprehensions seems to be that the poorer will heavily tax the richer members of society; the rich being always a small class. If it be true, as all parties appear to suppose, that rulers in general are prone to use their power for selfish purposes, there remains the alternative, whether the poor shall over-tax the rich, or whether the rich shall over-tax the poor: and, if one of these evils were necessary, few would doubt which would be the least. But the danger appears much diminished on the consideration that, in the country under our notice, there are not, nor are likely to be, the wide differences in property which exist in old countries. There is no class of hereditary rich or poor. Few are very wealthy; few are poor; and every man has a fair chance of being rich. No such unequal taxation has yet been ordained by the sovereign people; nor does there appear to be any danger of it, while the total amount of taxation is so very small as in the United States, and the interest that every one has in the protection of property is so great. A friend in the South, while eulogizing to me the state of society there, spoke with compassion of his northern fellow citizens, who were exposed to the risks of "a perpetual struggle between pauperism and property." To which a northern friend replied, that it is true that there is a perpetual struggle everywhere between pauperism and property. The question is, which succeeds. In the United States, the prospect is that each will succeed. Paupers may obtain what they want, and proprietors will keep that which they have. As a mere matter of convenience, it is shorter and easier to obtain property by enterprise and labour in the United States, than by pulling down the wealthy. Even the most desponding do not consider the case as very urgent, at present. I asked one of my wealthy friends, who was predicting that in thirty years his children would be living under a despotism, why he did not remove. "Where," said he, with a countenance of perplexity, "could I be better off?"—which appeared to me a truly reasonable question.

In a country, the fundamental principle of whose politics is, that its "rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," it is clear that there can be no narrowing of the suffrage. However earnestly some may desire this, no one hopes it. But it does not follow that the apprehensive minority has nothing left but discontent. The enlightenment of society remains not only matter for hope, but for achievement. The prudent speak of the benefits of education as a matter of policy, while the philanthropic promote it as a matter of justice. Security of person and property follows naturally upon a knowledge of rights. However the aristocracy of wealth, learning, and talent may differ among themselves, as to what is the most valuable kind of knowledge, all will agree that every kind will strengthen the bonds of society. In this direction must the aristocracy work for their own security. If they sufficiently provide the means of knowledge to the community, they may dismiss their fears, and rest assured that the great theory of their government will bear any test; and that "the majority will be in the right."

If the fears of the aristocracy are inconsistent with the theory of the government under which they live, so is much of the practice of the democracy. Their hopefulness is reasonable; their reliance on the majority is reasonable. But there are evils attendant on their practice of their true theories which may account for the propounding of worse theories by their opponents.

Learning by experience is slow work. However sure it may be, it is slow; and great is the faith and patience required by men who are in advance of a nation on a point which they feel that they could carry, if they had not to wait the pleasure of the majority. Though the majority be right in respect of the whole of politics, there is scarcely a sensible man who may not be more in the right than the majority with regard to some one point; and no allowance can be too great for the perpetual discouragement hence arising. The majority eventually wills the best; but, in the present imperfection of knowledge, the will is long in exhibiting itself; and the ultimate demonstration often crowns a series of mistakes and failures. From this fact arises the complaint of many federalists that the democratic party is apt to adopt their measures, after railing both at those measures, and at the men who framed them. This is often true: and it is true that, if the people had only had the requisite knowledge, they would have done wisely to have accepted good measures from the beginning, without any railing at all. But the knowledge was wanting. The next best thing that can happen is, that which does happen: that the people learn, and act upon their learning. If they are not wise enough to adopt a good measure at first, it would be no improvement of the case that they should be too obstinate to accept it at last. The case proves only that out of ignorance come knowledge, conviction, and action; and the majority is ultimately in the right. Whenever there is less of ignorance to begin with, there will be less of the railing, which is childish enough, whether as a mere imputation, or as a reality.

The great theory presumes that the majority not only will the best measures, but choose the best men. This is far from being true in practice. In no respect, perhaps, are the people more behind their theory than in this. The noble set of public servants with which the people were blessed in their revolutionary period seems to have inspired them at first with a somewhat romantic faith in men who profess strong attachment to whatever has been erected into a glory of the nation; and, from that time to this, the federal party has, from causes which will be hereafter explained, furnished a far superior set of men to the public service than the democratic party. I found this fact almost universally admitted by the wisest adherents of democracy; and out of it has arisen the mournful question, whether an honest man with false political principles be not more dangerous as a ruler than an unscrupulous man with true political principles. I have heard the case put thus: "There is not yet a sufficiency of real friends of the people willing to be their servants. They must take either a somewhat better set of men whose politics they disapprove, or a somewhat worse set of men to make tools of. They take the tools, use them, and throw them away."

This is true; and a melancholy truth it is; since it is certain that whenever the people shall pertinaciously require honest servants, and take due pains to ascertain their honesty, true men will be forthcoming. Under God's providence, the work never waits for the workman.

This fact, however, has one side as bright as the other is dark. It is certain that many corrupt public servants are supported under the belief that they are good and great men. No one can have attended assiduously on the course of public affairs at Washington, and afterwards listened to conversation in the stages, without being convinced of this. As soon as the mistake is discovered, it is rectified. Retribution often comes sooner than it could have been looked for. Though it be long delayed, the remedy is ultimately secure. Every corrupt faction breaks up, sooner or later, and character is revealed: the people let down their favourite, to hide his head, or continue to show his face, as may best suit his convenience; and forthwith choose a better man; or one believed to be better. In such cases, the evil lies in ignorance—a temporary evil; while the principle of rectification may work, for aught we can see, eternally.

Two considerations,—one of fact, another of inference,—may reassure those who are discouraged by these discrepancies between the theories of the United States' government, and the practice of the democratic party, with regard to both measures and men. The Americans are practically acquainted with the old proverb, "What is every body's business is nobody's business." No man stirs first against an abuse which is no more his than other people's. The abuse goes on till it begins to overbear law and liberty. Then the multitude arises, in the strength of the law, and crushes the abuse. Sufficient confirmation of this will occur to any one who has known the State histories of the Union for the last twenty years, and will not be wholly contradicted by the condition of certain affairs there which now present a bad aspect. Past experience sanctions the hope that when these bad affairs have grown a little worse, they will be suddenly and completely redressed. Illustrations in abundance are at hand.

Lotteries were formerly a great inducement to gaming in Massachusetts. Prudent fathers warned their sons against lotteries; employers warned their servants; clergymen warned their flocks. Tracts, denouncing lotteries, were circulated; much eloquence was expended,—not in vain, though all sober people were already convinced, and weak people were still unable to resist the seduction. At length, a young man drowned himself. A disappointment in a lottery was found to be the cause. A thrill of horror ran through the community. Every man helped to carry his horror of lotteries into the legislature; and their abolition followed in a trice.

Freemasonry was once popular in the United States; and no one seemed to think any harm of it, though, when examined, it clearly appears an institution incompatible with true republicanism. The account given of it by some friends of mine, formerly masons, is, that it is utterly puerile in itself; that it may be dignified, under a despotism, by an application to foreign objects, but that it is purely mischievous in a republic. Its object, of course, is power. It can have no other; and ought not to have this, where the making of the laws is the office of the people. Its interior obligations are also violations of the democratic principle. All this was as true of masonry twelve years ago as it is now; but masonry was allowed to spread far and wide. One Morgan, a freemason, living in the western part of the state of New York, did a remarkable deed, for which various motives are assigned. He wrote a book in exposure of masonry, its facts and tendencies. When the first part was printed and secured, some masons broke into the printing-office where it was deposited, and destroyed as much of the work as they could lay hold of. Being partly foiled, they bethought themselves of stopping the work by carrying off the author. He was arrested for a trifling debt, (probably fictitious,) conveyed hastily to a magistrate, some miles off, who committed him for want of bail. The ostensible creditor arrived at the jail, in the middle of the night, and let him out; four or five men put him into a carriage, which made for the Canada frontier. On landing him on British ground, the masons there refused to have any concern in a matter which had gone so far, and Morgan was shut up in the fort at Niagara village, where the Niagara river flows into Lake Ontario. There he was fed and guarded for two days. Thus far, the testimony is express; and concerning the succeeding circumstances there is no reasonable doubt. He was put into a boat, carried out into the middle of the river, and thrown in, with a stone tied to his neck. For four years, there were attempts to bring the conspirators to justice; but little was done. The lodges subscribed funds to carry the actual murderers out of the country. Sheriffs, jurymen, constables, all omitted their duty with regard to the rest. The people were roused to action by finding the law thus overawed. Anti-masonic societies were formed. Massachusetts and other States passed laws against extra-judicial oaths. In such States, the lodges can make no new members, and are becoming deserted by the old. The anti-masonic party flourishes, having a great principle as its basis. It has the control in a few States, and powerful influence in others. Morgan's disclosures have been carried on by other hands. A bad institution is overthrown. The people have learned an important lesson; and they have gone through an honourable piece of discipline in making a stand for the law, which is the life of their body politic.

Thus end, and thus, we may trust, will end the mistakes of the people, whose professed interest is in a wise self-government. Some worse institutions even than masonry remain to be cast out. The law has been again overawed; not once, but many times; and the eyes of the world are on the people of the United States, to see what they will do. The world is watching to discover whether they are still sensible of the sacred value of unviolated law; whether they are examining who it is that threatens and overbears the law, and why; and whether they are proceeding towards the re-establishment of the peace and security of their whole community, by resolutely rooting out from among their institutions every one which will not bear the test of the first principles of the whole.

The other ground of hope of which I spoke as being inferential, arises out of the imaginative political character of the Americans. They have not yet grown old in the ways of the world. Their immediate fathers have done such a deed as the world never saw; and the children have not yet passed out the intoxication of success. With far less of vanity and presumption than might have been looked for from their youth among the nations, with an extraordinary amount of shrewdness and practical talent shared among individuals, the American people are as imaginative as any nation I happen to have heard or read of. They reminded me every day of the Irish. The frank, confiding character of their private intercourses, the generous nature of their mutual services, the quickness and dexterity of their doings, their fertility of resource, their proneness to be run away with by a notion, into any extreme of absurdity—in all this, and in everything but their deficiency of moral independence, (for which a difference of circumstances will fully account,) they resemble the Irish. I regard the American people as a great embryo poet: now moody, now wild, but bringing out results of absolute good sense: restless and wayward in action, but with deep peace at his heart: exulting that he has caught the true aspect of things past, and at the depth of futurity which lies before him, wherein to create something so magnificent as the world has scarcely begun to dream of. There is the strongest hope of a nation that is capable of being possessed with an idea; and this kind of possession has been the peculiarity of the Americans from their first day of national existence till now. Their first idea was loftier than some which have succeeded; but they have never lost sight of the first. It remains to be, at intervals, apprehended anew; and whenever the time shall arrive, which cannot but arrive, when the nation shall be so fully possessed of the complete idea as by a moral necessity to act it out, they will be as far superior to nations which act upon the experience and expediency of their time as the great poet is superior to common men.

This time is yet very far distant; and the American people have not only much to learn, and a painful discipline to endure, but some disgraceful faults to repent of and amend. They must give a perpetual and earnest heed to one point; to cherish their high democratic hope, their faith in man. The older they grow, the more must they "reverence the dreams of their youth." They must eschew the folly and profaneness so prevalent in the old world, of exalting man, abstractedly and individually, as a piece of God's creation, and despising men in the mass. The statesman in a London theatre feels his heart in a tumult, while a deep amen echoes through its chambers at Hamlet's adoration of humanity; but not the less, when he goes home, does he speak slightingly, compassionately, or protectingly of the masses, the population, the canaille. He is awestruck with the grandeur of an individual spirit; but feels nothing of the grandeur of a congregated million of like spirits, because they happen to be far off. This proves nothing but the short-sightedness of such a man. Such shortness of sight afflicts some of the wisest and best men in the new world. I know of one who regards with a humble and religious reverence the three or four spirits which have their habitation under his roof, and close at hand; who begins to doubt and question, in the face of far stronger outward evidence of good, persons who are a hundred miles off; and has scarcely any faith left for those who happen to be over the sea. The true democratic hope cannot coexist with such distrust. Its basis is the unmeasured scope of humanity; and its rationale the truth, applicable alike to individuals and nations, that men are what they are taken for granted to be. "Countrymen," cries Brutus, dying,

"My heart doth joy that yet in all my life,

I found no man but he was true to me."

The philosophy of this fact is clear; it followed of course from Brutus always supposing that men were true. Whenever the Americans, or any other people, shall make integrity their rule, their criterion, their invariable supposition, the first principles of political philosophy will be fairly acted out, and the high democratic hope will be its own justification.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Jefferson writes, September, 1798, "The most long-sighted politician could not, seven years ago, have imagined that the people of this wide extended country could have been enveloped in such delusion, and made so much afraid of themselves and their own power, as to surrender it spontaneously to those who are manœuvring them into a form of government, the principal branches of which may be beyond their control."

Again, March, 1801:—"You have understood that the revolutionary movements in Europe had, by industry and artifice, been wrought into objects of terror in this country, and had really involved a great portion of our well-meaning citizens in a panic which was perfectly unaccountable, and during the prevalence of which they were led to support measures the most insane. They are now pretty thoroughly recovered from it, and sensible of the mischief which was done, and preparing to be done, had their minds continued a little longer under that derangement. The recovery bids fair to be complete, and to obliterate entirely the line of party division, which had been so strongly drawn."—Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 401, 457.

CHAPTER II. APPARATUS OF GOVERNMENT.

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management. Try by this, as a tally, every provision of our constitution, and see if it hangs directly on the will of the people."

Jefferson.

Though it be true that the principles of government are to be deduced more from experience of human nature than experience of human governments, the institutions in which those principles are to be embodied must be infinitely modified by preceding circumstances. Bentham must have forgotten this when he offered, at sixty-four, to codify for several of the United States, and also for Russia. He proposed to introduce a new set of terms. These could not, from his want of local knowledge, have been very specific; and if general, what was society to do till the lawyers had done arguing? How could even a Solomon legislate, three thousand miles off, for a republic like that of Connecticut, which set out with taking its morals and politics by handfuls, out of Numbers and Deuteronomy? or for Virginia, rank with feudal prejudices and methods? or for Delaware, with its monarchical martyr spirit? or for Louisiana, compounded of Spain, France, and America? Though at the time of the framing of the constitution, the States bore a strong general resemblance in their forms of government, endless minor differences existed, mainly arising from the different tenure on which they had been held under the English crown. Some had been provinces, governed by royal commissions, according to royal convenience. These were New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Others had been under proprietary government; as Maryland, held under patent, by Lord Baltimore; and Pennsylvania and Delaware, held by William Penn. Others, again, were under charter governments; ruled and altogether disposed of by political corporations. Such were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Within the memory of middle-aged men, the governor of New Hampshire used to travel in a coach and six, while the governor of the much more important Massachusetts went on a horse, with his wife on a pillion. It is within the memory of living men how Massachusetts rose up in rejection of the imposition of a clergy by England; while the colonial law of Virginia ordained parsons to be paid yearly six thousand weight of prime tobacco, in addition to marriage, burial, and birth-fees; in which days, an unholy pastor, appointed by Lord Baltimore, was seen to ride about with the church key in one hand, and a pistol in the other. It is absurd to suppose that communities, where wide differences of customs, prejudices, and manners still exist, can be, or ought to be, brought into a state of exact conformity of institutions. Diversities, not only of old custom, but of climate, productions and genealogy, forbid it; and reason does not require it. That institutions should harmonise with the same first principles, is all that is requisite. Some, who would not go so far as to offer to codify for countries where they have not get their foot, are yet apt to ask the use of one or another institution, to which the Americans seem to be unreasonably attached. It is a sufficient general answer that institutions are rarely sudden and complete inventions. They have usually an historical origin, even when renovated by revolution. Their protracted existence, and the attachment of the people to them are strong presumptions of their having some use. If their purposes can be better attained in another way, they will surely be modified. If they are the result of compromise, they will be abolished, according to the invariable law by which expediency finally succumbs to principle. That this will be the fate of certain of the United States' institutions which no one yet dreams of touching, and few dare to analyze, has been clearly foreseen, for forty years past, by many of the most upright and able men in the country. Some of them entertain an agonizing alarm at the prospect of change. Others, more reasonably, trust that, where no large pecuniary interests are at stake, the work of rectifying may very quietly and safely succeed that of reconciling: and the majority have no idea of the changes which their own hands, or their children's, will have to effect. The gradual ripening for change may be an advantage in more respects than one. Political changes which are the result of full conviction in a free people, are pretty sure to be safe. Time is also allowed, meanwhile, for men to practice their new lesson of separating the idea of revolution from the horrors which have no more natural connexion with it than burning at the stake has with the firm grasp of speculative truth.

SECTION I.
THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT.

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

So much for the authority, and the objects of this celebrated constitution, as set forth in its preamble.

Its provisions are so well known that it is needful only to indicate them. In Europe, the difficulty is to avoid supposing the state governments to be subordinate to the general. "They are coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole." State government legislates and administers in all affairs which concern its own citizens. To the federal government are consigned all affairs which concern citizens, as foreigners from other states, or as fellow-citizens with all in certain specified relations.

The general objects of the instrument are easily stated; and an apparently clear case of separation between the general and state governments drawn out upon paper. But the application of the instrument to practice is the difficulty.

In this, there are two grand difficulties, among many of inferior importance. The one is, to construe the instrument; the other is, to bridge over its awful chasms of compromise.

There has never been a solemn instrument drawn up yet without leaving room for varieties of construction. There never can be, under our present use of abstract terms; no two men's abstractions being alike, or discoverably so. Of course, the profession in this case is, that words are to be taken according to their just and natural import; that there is to be no straining; that they are to be judged of according to common sense; and so on. The old jests against etymologists are enough to prove how far men are from agreeing what straining is. As to common sense, men respond in unison to a revelation of it; but they rarely agree, à priori, as to what it is. This difficulty is a wholly unavoidable one. The refuge under it is in the maxim "the majority are right." If the case in dispute be one of judicial import, the citizen may appeal to the Supreme Court. If it be of a different nature, it must be left to that other kind of supreme court,—the majority,—and the verdict will be given through the ballot-boxes.

The other difficulty, that of compromise, is declared to have been equally unavoidable. Concession, large mutual concession, was clearly necessary. To what extent, may be faintly conceived from the following extract from the Federalist. To some readers, who are more interested in the present workings of the government, than in the embarrassments of its inventors, this extract may appear dull. But it is useful to be presented with an outline of the difficulties incurred in legislating for a federal republic, both as a fact in political science; as a means of forming something like a just judgment of the framers of the constitution; and as a ground of hope that, so much danger having been surmounted, that which remains may be also overcome.

"This one tells us, that the proposed constitution ought to be rejected, because it is not a confederation of the States, but a government over individuals. Another admits, that it ought to be a government over individuals, to a certain extent, but by no means to the extent proposed. A third does not object to the government over individuals, or to the extent proposed; but to the want of a Bill of Rights. A fourth concurs in the absolute necessity of a Bill of Rights, but contends that it ought to be declaratory, not of the personal rights of individuals, but of the rights reserved to the States in their political capacity. A fifth is of opinion that a Bill of Rights of any sort would be superfluous and misplaced; and that the plan would be unexceptionable, but for the fatal power of regulating the times and places of election. An objector in a large State exclaims loudly against the unreasonable equality of representation in the senate. An objector in a small State is equally loud against the dangerous inequality in the House of Representatives. From one quarter, we are alarmed with the amazing expense, from the number of persons who are to administer the new government. From another quarter, and sometimes from the same quarter on another occasion, the cry is that the Congress will be but the shadow of a representation; and that the government would be far less objectionable, if the number of the expenses were doubled. A patriot in a State that does not import or export, discerns insuperable objections against the power of direct taxation. The patriotic adversary, in a State of great exports and imports, is not less dissatisfied that the whole burthen of taxes may be thrown on consumption. This politician discovers in the constitution a direct and irresistible tendency to monarchy. That, is equally sure that it will end in aristocracy. Another is puzzled to say which of these shapes it will ultimately assume, but sees clearly it must be one or other of them. While a fourth is not wanting, who, with no less confidence, affirms, that the constitution is so far from having a bias towards either of these dangers, that the weight on that side will not be sufficient to keep it upright and firm against its opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries to the constitution, the language is, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government, and all the requisite precautions in favour of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are not a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one come forward with his particular explanation, and scarcely any two are exactly agreed on the subject. In the eyes of one, the junction of the senate with the president, in the responsible function of appointing to offices, instead of vesting this power in the executive alone, is the vicious part of the organisation. To another, the exclusion of the House of Representatives, whose numbers alone could be a due security against corruption and partiality in the exercise of such a power, is equally obnoxious. With a third, the admission of the president into any share of a power, which must ever be a dangerous engine in the hands of the executive magistrate, is an unpardonable violation of the maxims of republican jealousy. No part of the arrangement, according to some, is more inadmissible than the trial of impeachments by the Senate, which is alternately a member both of the legislative and executive departments, when this power so evidently belonged to the judiciary department. We concur fully, reply others, in the objection to this part of the plan; but we can never agree that a reference of impeachments to the judiciary authority would be an amendment of the error: our principal dislike to the organisation arises from the extensive powers already lodged in that department. Even among the zealous patrons of a council of state, the most irreconcilable variance is discovered, concerning the mode in which it ought to be constituted. The demand of one gentleman is, that the council should consist of a small number, to be appointed by the most numerous branch of the legislature. Another would prefer a larger number, and considers it a fundamental condition, that the appointment should be made by the president himself."[3]

It must have cost Mr. Madison some trouble to vary the mode of expression in putting this host of objections. We cannot but admire the ingenuity with which he has brought them into view. But what should we say to the management which should reconcile the differences themselves? Concessions, various and large, were obviously necessary. I am not about to give a catalogue of what these actually were. They may be learned from any history of the period. Suffice it that the general and state governments not only urged and established claims, but admitted a set of prohibitions on themselves.

In all this there appears no fatal compromise. But there were some which made the wisest men of the time tremble for the stability of their noble work. There seems peril enough in the liability to the occurrence of new questions, which could not be foreseen, and for which an opening might, or might not, happen to be left. When, in addition to such, there were some questions left to be settled by a future government, from the inability of the statesmen of 1787 to agree upon them, these statesmen might well be uneasy about the stability of their work. Of the first order of questions is that which is now debated with great animosity,—whether Congress has power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia: a disputed point of construction, on which it seems to me that no plain person can be blamed for not anticipating any difference of opinion. Of the second class is that great question, or nest of questions, respecting Reserved Rights. It was agreed that all unforeseen questions which might arise with regard to the respective powers of the general and state governments, should be settled by the state governments; but then, there was an indefinite limitation introduced in the clause, that the general government should have all powers necessary for the prosecution of such and such purposes. This vague clause has been the occasion of the Union being shaken to its centre; and it may be thus shaken again, before the questions arising out of it are all settled.

Even these, being open questions, are less formidable than the compromise of the true republican principle which is apparent in some provisions of the constitution, and in some of the most important institutions of the country. The northern States, which had abolished, on principle, a far milder slavery than that of the cotton and sugar-growing south, agreed to admit slavery in the south as a basis for direct taxation, and for representation. They did worse. They agreed to act in behalf of their southern fellow-citizens in the capture and restitution of runaway slaves, and in the defence of masters against rebellious slaves. What bitter sorrows of conscience and of feeling this compromise has cost their children, it is impossible fully to describe. Of course, the law, being against conscience, i. e. the law of man coming into collision with the law of God, is constantly broken; and causes of dissension hence arise. I know that slavery is only recognised by the constitution as a matter of fact; and that it is only twice mentioned; in connexion with representation, and with the restitution to their masters of "persons held to labour escaping into another State:" but the fact remains that a man who abhors slavery is compellable by the law which his fathers made, to deliver up to the owner a slave whose act of absconding he approves. It is impossible to estimate the evils which have proceeded from, and which will yet arise out of this guilty but "necessary" compromise.

There was difficulty in bringing the greater and smaller States into union. The smaller States could not agree to such an unequal representation as should render them liable to be swallowed up by the larger; while the larger could not consent to be reduced to an equality with the smaller. The Senate was established to afford an equal state representation; while the House of Representatives affords a fair representation of the nation in the aggregate, according to numbers. But the principle of the general government is, that it governs the entire people as one nation, and not as a league of States. There ought, in consistency with this, to be no state representation at all; and the Senate is an anomaly. An anomalous institution cannot be very long-lived. A second chamber, on a more consistent principle, will probably be established in its place, to fulfil its functions as a Court of Review, and as a check upon the precipitation of the other house, and, if need be, upon the encroachments of the executive. There is yet more of compromise involved in this institution of the Senate; as might be expected, since there is no end of compromise when principle is once departed from; yet there are statesmen who defend it on other grounds than that its establishment was necessary to the foundation of any federal government at all. One observed to me, "Some things look well in theory, and fail in practice. This may not be justifiable in theory; but it works well." If this last sentence be true, the well-working of the Senate is only a temporary affair; an accident. Its radical change becomes a question of time merely; and the recent agitation of the question of Instructions seems to indicate that the time is not very far distant.

The appointment of the judges for life is another departure from the absolute republican principle. There is no actual control over them. Theirs is a virtually irresponsible office. Much can be and is said in defence of this arrangement; and whatever is said, is most powerfully enforced by the weight of character possessed by the judiciary, up to this day. But all this does not alter the fact that irresponsible offices are an inconsistency in a republic. With regard to all this compromise, no plea of expediency can alter the fact that, while the House of Representatives is mainly republican, the Senate is only partially so, being anomalous in its character, and its members not being elected immediately by the people; and that the judiciary is not republican at all, since the judges are independent of the nation, from the time of their appointment.

I was told, on high authority, that the assent of the first nine States to the constitution, in 1788, was obtained by means not absolutely fair. What devices were used to procure an apparent majority, I was not informed; but it is generally supposed that if there had been no legislatures active on the occasion, if it had been put to the vote throughout the nation, the ratification would not have taken place when it did. Chief Justice Marshall gives testimony to this effect in his Life of Washington. "So small, in many instances, was the majority in favour of the constitution, as to afford strong ground for the opinion that, had the influence of character been removed, the intrinsic merits of the instrument would not have secured its adoption. Indeed, it is scarcely to be doubted that, in some of the adopting States, a majority of the people were in opposition."

That a constitution, so framed, and so carried, should have worked as well as it has done, seems to point out two very encouraging things; that we may, without rashness, speak of it as Washington did, when he said, "I was convinced it approached nearer to perfection than any government hitherto instituted among men;" and that the world may quietly and hopefully await the further proceedings of the American people, in their advances towards an uncompromising democracy. There will be changes, but not therefore convulsion. There will be the change which Jefferson foresaw, and provided for without dread. "Still," says he, so lately as June, 1824, "we consider our constitutions not otherwise changeable than by the authority of the people, on a special election of representatives for that very purpose: they are, until then, the lex legum. But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession for ever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead."—"A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man."[4]

Nothing can be more striking to a stranger than the experience gained, after some residence in the United States, of the ultimate ascendency of the will of the majority—i. e. of the right—in defiance of all appearances to the contrary. The review of what I witnessed of this kind, in the course of two years, with regard to the conduct of Congress alone, surprises and cheers me. It is true that I see several wrongs unredressed; several wounds inflicted on the people's liberties yet unhealed; but these are cases in which the people do not yet understand what has been done; or have not yet roused themselves to show that they do.

In the Senate, the people's right of petition is invaded. Last session, it was ordained that all petitions and memorials relating to a particular subject—slavery in the District of Columbia—should be laid on the table unread, and never recurred to. Of course, the people will not long submit to this. What has been already achieved in Congress on this topic is a security that the rest will follow. When I entered the United States, there was an absolute and most ominous silence in Congress about slavery. Almost every leading man there told me in conversation that it was the grand question of all; that every member's mind was full of it; that nearly all other questions were much affected, or wholly determined by it; yet no one even alluded to it in public. Before I left, it had found its way into both houses. The houses had, in some sort, come to a vote upon it, which showed the absolute abolition strength in the House of Representatives to be forty-seven. The entering wedge having been thus far driven, it is inconceivable that the nation will allow it to be withdrawn by surrendering their right of petition. When I left, however, the people had virtually no right of petition with regard to the District over which they—i. e. their Congress—have an exclusive jurisdiction.

Again. There were loud and extensive complaints, last session, of the despotism of the chair in the House of Representatives, chiefly in connexion with the subject of slavery. No members, it was said, were allowed a fair hearing but those who sat in a particular part of the house. If this complaint arises out of the peevishness of political disappointment, it will soon be contradicted by facts. If it is true, it is a grave injury. In either case, the chair will not long possess this power of despotism. If the favoured are few, as the complaint states, the injured many will demand and obtain the power to make themselves heard in turn; and no spirit of party can long stand in the way of a claim so just.

Again. After the gentlemen of Charleston had disgraced their city and country, by breaking into the post-office, and burning the contents of the mail-bags, in their dread of abolition papers, a post-master wrote to a member of the cabinet, desiring his approbation for having examined and refused to forward certain papers mailed at his office. The member of the cabinet, Kendall, gave the desired sanction to this audacious stoppage of the post-office function, declaring that the good of the community (as judged of by the individual) is a consideration above the law. The strangers in the land knew not what to make of the fool-hardiness of hazarding such a declaration, in a man of Kendall's wit. It was known that he desired the office of post-master-general; that the president wished him to have it, and that the doubt was whether the Senate would confirm the appointment. Soon after this apparently fatal declaration, he was nominated, and the Senate confirmed his appointment. The declaration, no doubt, seated him in office. The southern members were won by it. Kendall calculated rightly for his immediate object. What is to become of him when the people shall at length recognise the peril and insult to themselves of one of their favoured servants declaring the will of an individual to be occasionally subversive of the law—i. e. of the will of the majority—remains to be seen. Meantime, the continuance in office of the person whose declaration to the above effect remains unretracted, may be regarded as one of the deepest wounds which has been inflicted on the liberties of the nation.

Another attempt, brought on, no doubt, by Kendall's success, to derange or stop the functions of the post-office, has failed. Mr. Calhoun's Bill, commonly called the Gag Bill, prohibiting postmasters from receiving and forwarding any papers whatsoever containing anything relating to slavery, actually was brought to a third reading by the casting vote of the president of the Senate. There was fear, at the time, that this casting vote might ensure the success of the bill, from the popularity of the vice-president. But the bill was thrown out on the third reading; and the effect of the casting vote has been, not to aid the bill, but to injure materially the popularity of the vice-president. This is so far well. It shows that the people are preparing to grapple honestly with the great, the hideous question, out of which arise these minor encroachments upon their liberties.

Out of the slavery question arose the last monstrous usurpation of Congress, for which the emphatic rebuke of the nation awaits the sinning members. The story deserves to be told at length, on account both of its peculiarities, and of its furnishing a fair illustration of certain relations between the state and general governments.

Great Britain was not very learned in the geography of the new world, in the early days of her colonies there. She gave Virginia a patent for lands, including what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and on to the Pacific. Other colonies obtained grants of equal moderation as to size, and wisdom as to disposition. This absurd partition, it was found, must occasion irreconcilable quarrels among the members of the confederation; and Washington proposed that all, after fixing their own boundaries, should throw into the common stock the huge unoccupied domain. Virginia led the way in making this honourable sacrifice. She fixed her own boundary; and the articles of compact between the United States and the people of the territory north-west of the Ohio river, declared that the territory should be divided into not more than five, nor less than three States. This was in 1787. The boundary prescribed for Ohio and Michigan, was found to be "not convenient." That is, Ohio found it so; and Michigan was not in a situation, at the time when Ohio was admitted into the Union, to insist upon the ancient boundary, prescribed at the time of the cession of land by Virginia. When Ohio was made a State, the boundary she desired was, among other particulars, ratified by Congress.

In 1816, another portion of land, lying within what Michigan supposed to be her own territory, was taken from her, and added to Indiana, on the latter being made a State. An equivalent is offered to Michigan in a portion of land, to be taken out of Wisconsin, on the western side of Lake Michigan, which is the natural boundary of the territory. Michigan alleges that the inconvenience of a part of her territory lying on the other side of the lake would be so great, that the inhabitants would prefer belonging to Wisconsin; and the land would be ceded, as soon as Wisconsin becomes a State. The decision of the right of this case is the proper business of the Supreme Court, whenever the contesting parties shall have all come into the Union. Meantime, all parties are interested in bearing down the claims of Michigan. Ohio and Indiana desire to keep the lands Congress has authorised them to take. The slave States are anxious to hinder the increase in number of the free States; and by the ordinance of 1787, slavery is prohibited for ever, north-west of the Ohio. The slave States hope, by giving to Michigan a slice of Wisconsin, to make Wisconsin too small to be hereafter divided into two States. In this object, the south will be foiled. Even if slavery should exist till Wisconsin is ready for admission into the Union, there are two ways by which the desire of the south may and will be foiled. By the re-cession of the inconvenient portion by Michigan, as mentioned above; and by the willingness of these northern States to make themselves smaller, and add one to their number, as, by a proviso in the original compact, they have power to do, than let themselves be overborne by the south. This part of the contest, for "a balance of power," arises altogether out of the slavery question.

Soon after I entered the country, Michigan became qualified to request admission into the Union. She did so, declaring her discontent with the boundaries prescribed to her by Congress, and her intention to demand, in the Supreme Court, on her admission, the re-establishment of the old ones. I was amused with the different views of the affair presented to me in different parts of the country. At Cincinnati, in June, 1835, I was told that the President had just transmitted a threat to Ohio, that if she did not yield the boundary claimed by Michigan, he would send the United States troops to fight it out. It was added that the vice-president had thus far prevailed with the President; it being of importance to Mr. Van Buren, that Michigan, which he considered in his interest, should be admitted into the Union in time to vote for him in the presidential election of 1836. There was much talk at Cincinnati of the resources of Ohio. The people would turn out, to a man. The legislature had instantly voted 300,000 dollars to raise troops; and one hundred and fifty thousand men would immediately be in the field: while Michigan had neither men nor money;—had absolutely nothing to depend upon but the six thousand United States' soldiers. This seemed to me to be too clear a case to be a very true one: and the event belied the story in almost every particular. Michigan did raise men; (though there was no war:) she had not the United States' troops: she is not in the interest of Van Buren; and Ohio could bring no troops into the field.

Michigan proceeded to organise her state government, and sent her senators to Washington, during the session of 1835 and 1836. They were allowed to witness the proceedings, but not, of course, to vote. When I arrived at Detroit, the capital of Michigan, in the middle of June, 1836, the Governor told me that the Michiganians were in the singular position of having a state government in full operation, while they were excluded from the Union. The general opinion seemed to be that some concession must be made about the boundary line; in which case, Michigan would be admitted, in time to vote at the presidential election. I pursued my travels through and around the Territory; and when I returned to Detroit, a month afterwards, I found the place in a state of high excitement: an excitement fully warranted by the circumstances which had occurred.

Congress had acknowledged Michigan to be a sovereign State; and had offered to admit her into the Union, on condition of her surrendering all claim to the disputed portions of territory.

A grosser usurpation of power can hardly be conceived. Congress here usurped the function of the Supreme Court in passing sentence against Michigan: passing sentence, too, without hearing, or having a right to listen to, evidence on the case. Congress here required of Michigan to lay down her rights on the threshold of the Union, if she meant to be admitted. Mr. Adams intrepidly declared in the House of Representatives, that Michigan had more cause to ply the Nullification doctrine than South Carolina ever had. A South Carolina nullifier declared in conversation, that he believed the Michiganians' claims to be just: but that, sooner than give her the means of summoning another sovereign State before the Supreme Court, he would vote for her exclusion from the Union as long as he lives. A strange posture of affairs, where all justice seemed to be set aside, and the constitution to have become a dead letter!

The anxiety next was to know what Michigan would do. There seemed too many symptoms of yielding. It was mournful to those who felt that now was the time, now the opportunity, so often sighed for in the best moments of the best men, for making a heroic stand for the right, to hear the forebodings about the canal shares, the lake trade, the probable pecuniary loss in various ways, if there should be delay in the admission of Michigan into the Union. If we spoke of the constitution, we were answered with the canal. If we spoke of patriotism, we were answered with the surplus revenue—the share of it that would be lost. Then, there were fears of war. We were told that the alternative was—admission, with its advantages, and a surrender of the contested lands; and exclusion, with war between infant Michigan and Ohio, backed by the United States. The alternative was rather, admission, with submission to unconstitutional force; or exclusion, with the lonely enjoyment of an honest sovereignty. But this was not the only alternative. Remaining out of the Union did not involve war. Michigan might remain out of the Union, peaceably, and under protest, till the people of the United States should become fully possessed of her case, and aroused to do her justice. It was with heartfelt delight that I found, at length, that this last honest course is that which Michigan has determined to pursue. It is so common for communities, as for individuals, to miss the moment for doing the greatest of their deeds, to have the bright object of their preceding worship eclipsed at the critical moment, to pray incessantly that they may be honest, and then stand aghast, after all, at an honest deed, that the meeting of the Convention which was to consider of this affair, was watched with deep anxiety by the friends of Michigan. We, their visitors, gathered hope from the tone of the Governor, and others with whom we conversed; from the aspect of the legislators who were assembled to discuss the Governor's message;—men with earnest and sensible faces, who looked as if they were aware that their liberties were at stake; and from the spirited conduct of Michigan from the beginning of the quarrel. Still, we were doubtful whether the canal, the surplus revenue, and the probable war, would not be too much for the fortitude of so young a people. They have shamed our fears, and made a stand for constitutional liberty, which will secure to them the gratitude of the Union, to the latest day of its existence. They have refused to enter the Union on the unconstitutional terms proposed. The people will see that they are honourably admitted, and that Congress is duly rebuked.

SECTION II.
THE EXECUTIVE.

The principle which is professed in the appointment of a chief magistrate in the United States is, that his removal is to be as easy as possible, and effected without disturbing for a moment the proceedings of government. Under the idea that this last must be impossible, some of the patriots of 1789 were opposed to the institution of the office of President altogether; and there are now some who desire that the chief magistrate should be, as nearly as possible, a cipher; that, for this purpose, his election should be annual; and that, if this cannot be, the term should continue to be four years, but without renewal. Such declare that the office was made for the man, Washington, who was wanted, to reconcile all parties. They maintain that, though it was, for a considerable time, well filled, it must become, sooner or later, dangerous to the public welfare: that it comprehends too much power for a citizen of a republic to hold, presents too high a stake, occupies too much thought, and employs too much endeavour, to the exclusion of better objects.

Some desire that the office should have a duration of six years, without renewal.

No one dreams of an attempt to hold the office for a third term; and there is every prospect that, if any President should be ambitious enough to desire a second re-election, he would fail, and descend from his high station with a total loss of honour.

Some think so highly of the dignity of the chief magistracy, as to propose that ex-presidents should be debarred from holding lower offices. This looks too like an approximation to the monarchical principle to be, or to become, a popular way of viewing the subject. It is a proposition of the high federalists. I was far more gratified than amused at seeing Mr. Adams daily in his seat in the House of Representatives, while the history of his administration was perpetually referred to by those who discussed the politics of the country with me. I am aware that two interpretations may be put upon the fact of an ex-president desiring a lower office. It may occur from a patriotism which finds its own dignity in the welfare of its country, or from a restless ambition to be in the public eye. In either case, it seems to be no matter for a fixed rule. The republican principle supposes every man to be at all times ready to serve his country, when called upon. The rest must be left to the character of the man, and the views of his constituents.

Others think so much more highly of the dignity of the Senate than of the executive, as to desire that senators should be ineligible for the office of President. The object here is two-fold: to exalt the Senate; and, by making half a hundred offices higher in honour than that of President, to drain off some of the eager ambition which flows in the direction of the executive function. But power is more alluring than honour; and executive offices will always be objects of choice, in preference to legislative, except with a very small class of men. Besides, the Senate is already further removed from the control of the people, than consistency with the true republican principle allows: and if the people are to be precluded from choosing their chief magistrate from among the fifty wisest men (as the senators are in theory) that the States can choose for the guardianship of their interests, the dignity of both functions would be much lowered. In theory, the people's range of choice for their chief magistrate is to extend from the vice-president's chair to the humblest abode which nestles in the rocks of their eastern coasts, or overlooks the gulf of Mexico. The honour in which the Senate is held must depend on its preserving the character, which, on the whole, it has hitherto maintained. A nobler legislative body, for power and principle, has probably never been known. Considering the number of individuals of whom it is composed, its character has, perhaps, been as remarkable as that of the noble array of Presidents, of which the United States have to boast. If, amidst its indirect mode of election, and long term of office, it should prove equally stable in principle, and flexible in its methods of progress, it may yet enjoy a long term of existence, as honourable as could be secured by any exclusion of its members from other offices in the commonwealth.

By far the greatest apprehension connected with the President's office, relates to the extent of his patronage. It was highly alarming, at first, to hear all that was said about the country being ridden with administration-officers, and office-expectants. A little arithmetic, however, proved very cheering. The most eminent alarmist I happened to converse with, stated the number of persons directly and indirectly interested in the bestowment of office by the executive, to be 150,000. No exact calculation can be made, since no one can do more than conjecture how many persons at a time are likely to be in expectation of any one office. But the above may be taken as the widest exaggeration which an honest alarmist can put forth. This class of interested persons is, after all, but a small section of the population. There is every reason to fear that official corruption is abundant under all governments; and, for some reasons which will be easily apprehended, remarkably so under the government of the United States; but, when it is considered how small a proportion of the people is, at any time, interested in office, and how many persons in office are to be, in fairness, supposed honest, the evil of executive patronage diminishes to the imagination so rapidly as to induce a suspicion that many who say the most about it are throwing a tub to the whale. The watchfulness on the executive power thus induced is a benefit which will set off against a great amount of alarm. It will assist the people to find the true mean between their allowing the President too much power over the servants who are to transact their business, and their assuming too much control over the servants who are to transact his.

Difficult as it is to resist impressions on the spot, from all that is said about the power of the executive, and the character of the President of the time, the worst alarms are derided by the event. It does not appear as if the President could work any permanent effect upon the mind and destiny of the nation. It is of great consequence to the morals and prosperity of the season, that the chief magistrate should be a man of principle, rather than expediency; a frank friend of the people, rather than their cunning flatterer; a man of sense and temper, rather than an angry bigot; a man of business, rather than a blunderer. But the term of an unworthy or incapable President is pretty sure to be the shortest; and, if permitted to serve his eight years, he can do little unless he acts, on the whole, in accordance with the mind of the people. If he has any power, it is because the people are with him: in which case, he cannot be very destructive to their interests. If he does not proceed in accordance with public sentiment, he has no power. A brief review of the course of the American Presidents seems to show that their influence subsides into something very weak and transitory; always excepting that immeasurable and incalculable influence which is breathed forth through the remotest generations, by the personal character of conspicuous individuals.

Washington's influence is a topic which no one is ever hardy enough to approach, in the way of measurement or specification. Within the compass of his name lies more than other words can tell of his power over men. When the British officers were passing up the Potomac, in the last war, to perpetrate as dastardly a deed of spoliation at the capital as ever it was the cruel fate of soldiers to be ordered to do, they desired to be told when they were passing the burial place of Washington, and stood uncovered on deck as long as they were within sight of Mount Vernon. Any in England who happen to know how deeply disgraced their country was by the actors in this expedition, will feel what the power must have been which, breathing from that shore, humanised for the hour the cowardly plunderers as they floated by. But it was Washington, the man, not the President, who moved them to uncover their heads. It is Washington, the man, not the President, whose name is lovingly spoken, whose picture smiles benignly in every inhabited nook of his own congregation of republics. It is even Washington, the man, not the President, whose name is sacred above all others, to men of all political parties. It was Washington, the man, who united the votes of all parties in his presidentship, since, so far from pretending to agree with all, he took and left, without fear or favour, what convictions he could or could not adopt from each. The one impression which remains of his presidentship is its accordance with himself. Had it been, in any respect, a lower self, there would have been little left of Washington in the people now.

Adams came in by the strength of the federal party. Supported by the slave States, and all the federalism of the north, he had the means, if any President ever had, of leaving a strong and permanent impression on the face of affairs. He filled up his offices with federalists. Everything during his term of office favoured the influence of the federalists. The nation was almost beside itself with panic at the political convulsions of Europe. Yet, notwithstanding all this, and Mr. Adams's great weight of character, giving influence to his partialities, the people revealed themselves, in the choice of his successor, staunchly republican.

Jefferson's influence was greater than that of any other President, except Washington; and the reason is, that his convictions went along with the national mind. If Jefferson, with the same love of the people, the same earnestness of temper, and grace of manners, had been in any considerable degree less democratic, he might have gone creditably through his term, and have been well spoken of now; but he would not have been the honourable means of two successors of the same principles with himself, being brought in; nor would he have lain, as he now does, at the very heart of the people. At the outset, his state-rights principle secured him the south, and his philanthropic, democratic principles, the north. He was popular, almost beyond example. His popularity could scarcely be increased; but it has never declined. The common charges against him, of irreligion, of oppression in the management of his patronage, of disrespect to his predecessors, are falling into oblivion, while his great acts remain. As to his religion, whatever might be his creed, its errors or deficiencies, these are still matters of disagreement among the wise and good; and it is certain that Jefferson viewed all the realities that came within his ken, with that calm earnestness which is the true religious spirit. As to the removals from office, which are still complained of, it should be remembered that his predecessor had filled as many offices as possible with high federalists, many of whom provoked their own discharge by their activity against the government they professed to serve. There is no evidence that Jefferson went beyond his own principle; and a principle is no matter of reproach, though it may be of controversy. He says, "Mr. Adams's last appointment, when he knew he was naming counsellors and aids for me and not for himself, I shall set aside as far as depends on me. Officers who have been guilty of gross abuses of office, such as marshals packing juries, &c., I shall now remove, as my predecessor ought in justice to have done. The instances will be few, and governed by strict rule, and not party passion. The right of opinion shall suffer no invasion from me."—"The remonstrance laments that a change in the administration must produce a change in the subordinate officers; in other words, that it should be deemed necessary for all officers to think with their principal. But on whom does this imputation bear? On those who have excluded from office every shade of opinion which was not their's? or on those who have been so excluded? I lament sincerely that unessential differences of opinion should ever have been deemed sufficient to interdict half the society from the rights and blessings of self-government, to proscribe them as unworthy of every trust. It would have been to me a circumstance of great relief, had I found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the majority. I would gladly have left to time and accident to raise them to their just share. But their total exclusion calls for prompter corrections. I shall correct the procedure: but, that done, return with joy to that state of things, when the only questions concerning a candidate shall be, Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the constitution?"[5]

As to his disrespect to Washington and Adams, it should be remembered what the party heats of the day were; how Washington's cabinet was divided between France, war, and general liberty; and neutrality, peace, and care of the people at home. With such a theme of quarrel, it would have been a wonder if hasty words had not been sometimes spoken on all sides. Jefferson's ultimate opinion of Washington, written in confidence to a friend, in 1814, has happily come to light. At the close, he says, "These are my opinions of General Washington, which I would vouch at the judgment-seat of God, having been formed on an acquaintance of thirty years." One extract is enough: "On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect; in nothing bad, in few things indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance."[6] The friendship in old age between himself and Mr. Adams, and the moral and intellectual beauty of their close correspondence, are a spectacle in sight of which all prior party misunderstandings should be forgotten. There is one infallible test by which to try old men who have had much to do in the world. If their power and privilege of admiration survive their knowledge of the world, they are true-hearted; and they occasion as much admiration as they enjoy. Jefferson stands this test.

His great acts are much heard of. The reduction of taxes and correction of abuses with which he began his administration; his having actually done something against slavery; his invariable decision for advocacy or opposition, in accordance with the true democratic principle, are now spoken of more frequently than things less worthy to be remembered. His influence has been greater than that of any other President since Washington, exactly in proportion to his nearer approach to the national idea of a chief magistrate.

No great change took place during the administration of his two successors, Madison and Monroe. They were strong in the strength of his principles, and of their own characters. Madison's term of office would have been memorable in history, if he had not immediately followed his friend Jefferson. Their identity of views, put into practice by Madison, with the simplest honesty and true modesty, caused less observation than the same conduct immediately succeeding a federal administration would have done. Hence the affectation, practised by some, of calling Madison a tool of Jefferson. Those who really knew Mr. Madison and his public life, will be amused at the idea of his being anybody's tool.

The reason why John Quincy Adams's administration is little notorious is somewhat of the same nature. He was a pure President; a strictly moral man. His good morality was shown in the devotion of his fine powers to the faithful conduct of evanescent circumstances. His lot was that of all good Presidents in the quiet days of the republic. He would not use his small power for harm; and possessed no very great power for political good.

General Jackson was brought into office by an overpowering majority, and after a series of strong party excitements. If ever there was a possibility of a President marking his age, for good or for evil, it would have been done during Jackson's administration. He is a man made to impress a very distinct idea of himself on all minds. He has great personal courage, much sagacity, though frequently impaired by the strength of his prejudices, violent passions, an indomitable will, and that devotion to public affairs in which no President has ever failed. He had done deeds of war which flattered the pride of the people; and in doing them, he had acquired a knowledge of the people, which has served him instead of much other knowledge in which he is deficient. He has known, however, how to obtain the use, though not the reputation, of the knowledge which he does not possess. Notwithstanding the strength of his passions, and the awkward positions in which he has placed himself by the indulgence of his private resentments, his sagacity has served him well in keeping him a little way a-head of the popular convictions. No physician in the world ever understood feeling the pulse, and ordering his practice accordingly, better than President Jackson. Here are all the requisites for success in a tyrannical administration. Even in England, we heard rumours in 1828, and again in 1832, about the perils of the United States, under the rule of a despotic soldier. The cry revived with every one of his high-handed deeds; with every exercise of the veto,—which he has used oftener than all the other Presidents put together,—with every appointment made in defiance of the Senate; with the removal of the deposites; with his messages of menace to the French government. Yet to what amounts the power now, at the close of his administration, of this idol of the people, this man strong in war, and subtle in council, this soldier and statesman of indomitable will, of insatiable ambition, with the resources of a huge majority at his disposal? The deeds of his administration remain to be justified in as far as they are sound, and undone if they are faulty. Meantime, he has been able to obtain only the barest majority in the Senate, the great object of his wrath: he has been unable to keep the slavery question out of Congress,—the introduction of which is by far the most remarkable event of his administration. One of the most desponding complaints I heard of his administration was, not that he had strengthened the general government—not that his government had tended to centralisation—not that he had settled any matters to his own satisfaction, and left the people to reconcile themselves to his pleasure as they best might,—but that every great question is left unsettled; that it is difficult now to tell any party by its principles; that the principles of such affairs as the currency, land, slavery, internal improvements, &c. remain to be all argued over again. Doubtless, this will be tiresome to such public men as have entirely and finally made up their minds on these subjects. To such, nothing can well be more wearisome than discussion and action, renewed from year to year. But the very fact that these affairs remain unsettled, that the people remain unsatisfied about them, proves that the people have more to learn, and that they mean to learn it. No true friend of his country would wish that the questions of slavery and currency should remain in any position that they have ever yet occupied in the United States; and towards the settlement of the latter of the two, as far as light depends on collision of opinions, it is certain that no man has done so much, whether he meant it or not, as President Jackson. The occasional breaking up and mingling of parties is a necessary circumstance, whether it be considered an evil or a good. It may be an evil, in as far as it affords a vantage-ground to unprincipled adventurers; it is a good, in as far as it leads to mutual understanding, and improves the candour of partisans. For the rest, there is no fear but that parties will soon draw asunder, with each a set of distinctive principles as its badge. Meantime, men will have reason to smile at their fears of the formidable personage, who is now descending from the presidential chair; and their enthusiasm will have cooled down to the temperature fixed by what the event will prove to have been his merits. They will discuss him by their firesides with the calmness with which men speak of things that are past; while they keep their hopes and fears to be chafed up at public meetings, while the orator points to some rising star, or to some cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Irish emigrants occasionally fight out the battle of the Boyne in the streets of Philadelphia; but native Americans bestow their apprehensions and their wrath upon things future; and their philosophy upon things past. While they do this, it will not be in the power of any President to harm them much or long.

SECTION III.
STATE GOVERNMENTS.

Never, perhaps, did statesmen begin their task of constitution-making with so much aid from preceding circumstances as the great men of the Revolution. A social neighbourhood of colonies, all suffering under colonial grievances, and all varying in their internal government, afforded a broad hint of the present system, and fine facilities for putting it in practice. There was much less speculation in the case than might appear from a distance; and this fact so far takes away from the superhuman character of the wisdom which achieved the completion of the United States' constitution, as to bring the mind down from its state of amazement into one of very wholesome admiration.

The state governments are the conservative power, enabling the will of the majority to act with freedom and convenience. Though the nation is but an aggregation of individuals, as regards the general government, their division into States, for the management of their domestic affairs, precludes a vast amount of confusion and discord. Their mutual vigilance is also a great advantage to their interests, both within each State, and abroad. No tyrant, or tyrannical party, can remain unwatched and unchecked. There is, in each State, a people ready for information and complaint, when necessary; a legislature ready for deliberation; and an executive ready to act. Many States, in other ages and regions, have been lost through the necessity of creating their instruments when they should have been acting. State organisation is never managed without dispute; and it makes the entire difference in the success of resistance to aggression whether the necessary apparatus has to be created in haste and confusion, or whether everything is in readiness for executing the will of the majority.

Under no other arrangement, perhaps, could the advantage be secured of every man being, in his turn, a servant of the commonwealth. If the general government managed everything, the public service would soon become the privilege of a certain class, or a number of classes of men; as is seen to be the case elsewhere. The relation and gradation of service which are now so remarkable a feature in the United States commonwealth, could never then happen naturally, as they now do. Almost every man serves in his township in New England, and in the corresponding ward or section elsewhere; and has his capability tried; and, if worthy, he serves his county, his State, and finally the Union, in Congress. Such is the theory: and if not followed up well in practice, if some of the best men never get beyond serving their township, and some of the worst now and then get into Congress, the people are unquestionably better served than if the selection of servants depended on accident, or the favour of men in power. Whatever extraneous impediments may interfere with the true working of the theory, every citizen feels, or ought to feel, what a glorious career may lie before him. In his country, every road to success is open to all. There are no artificial disqualifications which may not be surmounted. All humbug, whether of fashion and show, of sanctimoniousness, of licentiousness, or of anything else, is there destined to speedy failure and retribution. There is no hereditary humbug in the United States. If the honest, wise man, feels himself depressed below the knave, he has, if he did but know it, only to wait patiently a little while, and he will have his due. Though truth is equally great everywhere, and equally sure ultimately to prevail, men of other countries have often to wait till they reach the better country than all, before they witness this ultimate prevalence, except with the eye of faith. The young nation over the Atlantic, is indulged, for the encouragement, with a speedier retribution for her well or ill doings; and almost every one of her citizens, if he be truly honourable, may trust to be fitly honoured before he dies.

Another conservative effect of the state governments is the facilities they afford for the correction of solecisms, the renovation of institutions as they are outgrown, and the amendment of all unsuitable arrangements. If anything wants to be rectified in any State, it can be done on the mere will of the people concerned. There is no imploring of an uninterested government at a distance—a government so occupied with its foreign relations as to have little attention to spare for domestic grievances which it does not feel. There is no waiting any body's pleasure; nobody's leave to ask. The remedy is so close at hand, those who are to give it are so nearly concerned, that it may always, and, for the most part, speedily, be obtained, upon good cause being shown. No external observance is needed, except of the few and express prohibitions which the general and state governments have interchanged.

It is amusing to look over the proceedings of the state legislatures for any one year. Maine amends her libel law, decreeing that proof of truth shall be admitted as justification. Massachusetts decrees a revision and consolidation of her laws, and the annihilation of lotteries. Rhode Island improves her quarantine regulations. Connecticut passes an act for the preservation of corn-fields from crows. Vermont decrees the protection of the dead in their graves. New York prohibits the importation of foreign convicts. New Jersey incorporates a dairy company. Pennsylvania mitigates the law which authorises imprisonment for debt. Maryland authorises a geological survey. Georgia enlarges her law of divorce. Alabama puts children, in certain circumstances, under the protection of chancery. Mississippi decrees a census. Tennessee interdicts barbacues in the neighbourhood of camp meetings. Ohio regulates the care of escheated lands. Indiana prohibits a higher rate of interest than ten percent. Missouri authorises the conveyance of real estate by married women. And so on. It seems difficult to imagine how many abuses can reach an extreme, or be tardy of cure, where the will of the majority is not only speedily made known, but where the division of employment is so skilfully arranged that the majority may be trusted to understand the case on which they are to decide.

It has always appeared to me that much misapprehension is occasioned by its being supposed that the strength of the general government lies in the number of its functions; and its weakness in the extent of its area. To me it appears directly the reverse. A government which has the management of all the concerns of a people, the greater and the smaller, preserves its stability by the general interest in its more important functions. If you desire to weaken it, you must withdraw from its guardianship the more general and important of its affairs. If you desire to shield it from cavil and attack, you must put the more local and partial objects of its administration under other management. If the general government of the United States had to manage all legislation and administration within their boundaries, it could hardly hold together one year. If it had only one function, essential to all, and impossible to be otherwise fulfilled, there seems no reason why it should not work prosperously till there are fifty States around it, and longer. The importance of the functions of the general government depends partly upon the universality of the interest in them; and partly upon the numbers included under them. So far, therefore, from the enlargement of the area of the United States being perilous to the general government, by making it "cumbrous," as many fear, it seems to me likely to work a directly contrary effect. There are strong reasons why an extension of her area would be injurious to her, but I cannot regard this as one. A government which has to keep watch over the defence, foreign policy, commerce, and currency, of from twenty-five to fifty small republics, is safer in the guardianship of its subjects than if it had to manage these same affairs for one large republic, with the additional superintendence of its debtors, its libellers, and the crows of its corn-fields.

Little or no room for rebellion seems to be left under the constitution of the United States. In the progress of human affairs, familiar evils expire with worn-out institutions, and new dangers arise out of the midst of renovated arrangements. Assassinations are the form which resistance to government assumes in pure despotisms. Rebellion is the name it bears under governments somewhat more liberal. In the United States, nothing worse than professed Nullification has yet been heard of—unless Colonel Burr's secret schemes were indeed treasonable. A brief account of the South Carolina Nullification may exhibit the relations, and occasional enmities of the general and states government in a clearer way than could be done, otherwise than by a narrative of facts. This little history shows, among many other things, that America follows the rest of the world in quoting the constitution as a sanction of the most opposite designs and proceedings: what different sympathies respond to the word "patriotism;" and of how little avail is the letter of the constitution, when there is variance as to its spirit.

Georgia laid claim, some years ago, to the Cherokee territory, on the ground that the United States had no right to make the laws and treaties by which the Cherokees were protected; that such legislation was inconsistent with the reserved rights of the sovereign state of Georgia. Georgia thus acted upon the supposition, that she was to construe the federal compact in her own way, and proceed according to her own construction. Congress checked her in this assumption, and rejected her pretensions by an almost unanimous vote. Soon after the accession of General Jackson to the presidentship, Georgia, either presuming upon his favour, or wishing to test his dispositions, began to encroach upon the Cherokee lands. The Cherokees appealed to the federal government for protection, under the laws and treaties framed for that very purpose. The President replied, that Georgia was right in annulling those laws and treaties, and that the executive could not interfere. The Indian cause was brought before the Supreme Court. There was difficulty about the character in which the plaintiffs were to sue, and as to whether they could sue at all, under that provision of the constitution which authorises foreign nations to demand justice from the federal tribunals. The court expressed a strong, opinion however, that the Cherokees were entitled to protection from the Executive.

The Supreme Court and Georgia were thus brought into opposition, while the Executive took the part of Georgia. Compassion for the Cherokees was now swallowed up in anxiety about the decision of the question of state rights. The Executive had, as yet, only negatively declared himself, however; and the Supreme Court had not been driven on to deliver a verdict against the Georgian laws, by which the Cherokees were oppressed. The topic of the right of a State to annul the laws and treaties of the federal government was meantime generally discussed; and reconsideration was forced upon the President.

South Carolina presently followed the example of Georgia. She annulled the acts of Congress, which regarded such revenue laws as she considered contrary to general principles, and to her own interests. The President now perceived that if every State proceeded to nullify the acts of Congress, upon its own construction of the federal constitution, the general government could not be secure of its existence for a day. While the Executive was still in a position of observation, the Supreme Court pronounced, in another case, a verdict against the unconstitutional laws of Georgia. In 1829, the legislature of Virginia asserted the right of each State to construe the federal constitution for itself: and thus there appeared to be three States already in the course of withdrawing from the Union.

Congress went on legislating about the tariff, without regard to this opposition; and the protests of certain States against their proceedings were quietly laid on the table, as impertinences. The South Carolina advocates of Nullification worked diligently in their own State to ripen the people sufficiently to obtain a convention which should proclaim their doctrine as the will of the State: in which case, they doubted not that they should secure the countenance and co-operation of most or all of the southern States. A convention in favour of free trade met at Philadelphia; another in favour of the tariff met at New York; and the nullifiers saw reason to turn the discussion of the quarrel as much as possible from the principle of Nullification to the principle of free trade. They perceived the strength of the latter ground, whether or not they saw the weakness of the former; and by their skilful movement upon it, they eventually caused a greater benefit to the nation, than their discontent did harm to themselves.

The President was invited to dine at Charleston on the 4th of July, 1831; and in his answer, he thought fit to announce that he should do his duty in case of any attempt to annul the laws of the Union. This was a virtual retractation of his encouragement to Georgia. A committee of the legislature of South Carolina reported the letter to be at variance with the duties of the President, and the rights of the States. The heat was rising rapidly. The nullifiers were loud in their threats, and watchful in observing the effect of those threats abroad. North Carolina repudiated the whole doctrine of Nullification: other neighbouring States showed a reluctance to sanction it. The President's next message recommended a modification of the tariff, which was known to be no favorite of his; but the modification he proposed had no other bearing than upon the amount of the revenue.

During the session of Congress of 1832, various alterations were made in the duties, which it was hoped would be to the satisfaction of South Carolina: but the complaint of her representatives was, that the reductions which were ordained were on those articles in which she had no interest; while her burdens were actually increased. These representatives met at Washington, and drew up an address to the people of South Carolina, in which they declared their wrongs, and inquired whether they were to be tamely submitted to.

The legislature of South Carolina, after the next election, exhibited a large majority in both houses in favour of Nullification. A convention was called at Columbia, in consequence of whose proceedings an ordinance was prepared, and speedily passed through the legislature, declaring all the acts of Congress imposing duties on imported goods, to be null and void within the state of South Carolina. It prohibited the levying of all such duties within the State, and all appeals on the subject to the Supreme Court. A number of minor provisions were made to hinder the levy of import duties. The governor was empowered to call the militia into service against any opposition which might be made by the general government to this bold mode of proceeding. The entire military force of the State, and the services of volunteers, were also placed at his disposal. Arms and ammunition were ordered to be purchased.

This was too much for the President's anxiety about consistency. He ordered all the disposable military force to assemble at Charleston; sent a sloop of war to that port, to protect the federal officers in the discharge of their duties; and issued a vigorous proclamation, stating the constitutional doctrine, about the mutual relations of the general and state governments, and exhorting the citizens of South Carolina not to forfeit their allegiance. Governor Hayne issued a counter proclamation, warning the citizens of the State against being seduced from their state allegiance by the President. This was at the close of 1832.

Everything being thus ready for an explosion, South Carolina, appeared willing to wait the result of another session. This was needful enough; for she was as yet uncertain whether she was to have the assistance of any of her sister States. Mr. Calhoun, the vice-president, resigned his office, and became a senator in the room of governor Hayne: and thus the nullification cause was in powerful hands in the senate. Its proceedings were watched with the most intense anxiety by the whole Union. The crisis of the Union was come.

In the discontented State, the union party, which was strong, though excluded from the government, was in great sorrow and fear. Civil war seemed inevitable; and they felt themselves oppressed and insulted by the imposition of the oath of allegiance to the State. The nullifiers justified this requisition by saying that many foreigners resident in Charleston, who did not understand the case, believed that their duty to the general government required them to support it, while its vessels of war and troops were in port; however well they might be disposed to the nullification cause. It was merely as a method of enlightenment, it was protested, that this oath was imposed.

The ladies, meanwhile, had a State Rights ball at the arsenal, and contributed their jewels for the support of the expected war. I could not learn that they made lint—the last test of woman's earnestness for war; but I was told by a leading nullifier that the ladies were "chock full of fight." The expectation of war was so nearly universal that I could hear of only one citizen of Charleston who discouraged the removal of his wife and children from the city, in the belief that a peaceful settlement of the quarrel would take place.

The legislatures of the States passed resolutions, none of them advocating nullification; (even Georgia forsaking that ground;) many condemned the proceedings of South Carolina; but some, while doing so, made strong remonstrances against the tariff. Five of the States, in which manufactures had been set up, declared their opposition to any alteration of the tariff. It is amusing now to read the variety of terms in which the South Carolina proceedings were condemned; though, at the time, the reports of these resolutions must have carried despair to the hearts of the citizens of the solitary discontented State. The effect of these successive shocks is still spoken of in strong and touching language by those who had to sustain them.

While the South Carolina militia were training, and the munitions of war preparing, the senators and representatives of the State were wearing stern and grave faces at Washington. The session was passing away, and nothing but debate was yet achieved. Their fellow legislators looked on them with grief, as being destined to destruction in the field, or on the scaffold. They were men of high spirit and gallantry; and it was clear that they had settled the matter with themselves and with each other. They would never submit to mere numbers; and would oppose force to force, till all of their small resources was spent. No one can estimate their heroism, or desperation, whichever it may be called, who has not seen the city and State which would have been the theatre of the war. The high spirit of South Carolina is of that kind which accompanies fallen, or inferior fortunes. Pride and poverty chafe the spirit. They make men look around for injury, and aggravate the sense of injury when it is real. In South Carolina, the black population outnumbers the white. The curse of slavery lies heavy on the land, and its inhabitants show the usual unwillingness of sufferers to attribute their maladies to their true cause. Right as the South Carolinians may be as to the principle of free trade, no tariff ever yet occasioned such evils as they groan under. If not a single import duty had ever been imposed, there would still have been the contrasts which they cannot endure to perceive between the thriving States of the north and their own. Now, when they see the flourishing villages of New England, they cry "We pay for all this." When the north appears to receive more favour from the general government, in its retrospective recompenses for service in war, the greater proportion of which service was rendered by the north, the south again cries, "We pay for all this." It is true that the south pays dearly; but it is for her own depression, not for others' prosperity. When I saw the face of the nullifiers' country, I was indeed amazed at their hardihood. The rich soil, watered by full streams, the fertile bottoms, superintended by the planters' mansions, with their slave quarter a little removed from the house, the fine growth of trees, and of the few patches of pasturage which are to be seen, show how nourishing this region ought to be. But its aspect is most depressing to the traveller. Roads nearly impassable in many parts, bridges carried away and not restored, lands exhausted, and dwellings forsaken, are spectacles too common in South Carolina. The young men, whose patrimony has deteriorated, migrate westward with their 'force;' selling their lands, if they can; if not, forsaking them. There are yet many plantations of unsurpassed fertility; but there are many exhausted: and it is more profitable to remove to a virgin soil than to employ slave labour in renovating the fertility of the old. There is an air of rudeness about the villages, and languor about the towns, which promise small resource in times of war and distress. And then, the wretched slave population is enough to paralyse the arm of the bravest community, and to ensure defeat to the best cause. I saw the soldiers and the preparations for war at Charleston, two years after the crisis was past. When I was to be shown the arms and ammunition, it appeared that "the gentleman that had the key was not on the premises." This showed that no immediate invasion was expected; but it was almost incredible what had been threatened with such resources. The precautionary life of the community, on account of the presence of so large a body of slaves, may be, in some sort, a training for war; but it points out the impediments to success. If South Carolina had, what some of her leading men seem to desire, a Lacedemonian government, which should make every free man a soldier, she would be farther from safety in peace, and success in war, than any quaker community, exempt from the curse of a debased and wronged servile class. One glance over the city of Charleston is enough to show a stranger how helpless she is against a foreign foe, if unsupported. The soldiers met, at every turn, the swarms of servile blacks, the very luxuries and hospitalities of the citizens, grateful as these luxuries are to the stranger, and honourable as these hospitalities are to his entertainers, betoken a state of society which has no strength to spare from the great work of self-renovation. Those who remained at home during the winter of 1832 and 1833, might be hopeful about the conflict, from being unaware of the depressed condition of their State, in comparison with others: but the leaders at Washington might well look stern and grave. It is no impeachment of their bravery, if their hearts died within them, day by day.

The session was within fourteen days of its close, when Mr. Clay brought in a bill which had been carefully prepared as a compromise between the contending parties. It provided that all import duties exceeding twenty per cent. should be gradually reduced, till, in 1842, they should have declined to that amount; leaving liberty to augment the duties again, in case of war. This bill, with certain amendments, not affecting its principle, was passed, as was the Enforcing Bill,—for enforcing the collection imposed by act of Congress. A convention was held in South Carolina: the obnoxious ordinance was repealed; the Enforcing Bill was, indeed, nominally nullified; but no powers were offered to the legislature for enforcing the nullification; and the quarrel was, to all intents and purposes, at an end.

The triumph remained,—if triumph there were,—with South Carolina. This was owing to the goodness of her principle of free trade; and in no degree, to the reasonableness of her nullifying practices. The passage of the Compromise Bill was a wise and fortunate act. Its influence on the planting and manufacturing interests is a subject to be considered in another connexion. Its immediate effect in honourably reconciling differences which had appeared irreconcileable, was a blessing, not only to the United States, but to the world. The lustre of democratic principles would have been shrouded to many eyes by a civil war among the citizens of the Union; while now, the postponement of a danger so imminent, the healing of a breach so wide, has confirmed the confidence of many who feared that the States remained united only for want of a cause of separation.

Some ill effects remain,—especially in the irritation of South Carolina. There is still an air of mystery and fellowship about the leading nullifiers, and of disquiet among the Union men of Charleston. But there is cause enough for restlessness in Charleston, as I have before said; and much excuse for pique.

Meanwhile, these events have proved to thousands of republicans the mischief of compromise conveyed in vague phraseology, in so solemn an instrument as a written constitution.

There could not have been a doubt on this case, if the question of construction had not had place, from the unfortunate clause ordaining that the general government shall have all powers necessary for the fulfilment of certain declared purposes. While this provision, thus worded, remains, the nullification theory will be played off, from time to time. The good consequence will arise from this liability, that a habit will be formed of construing the constitution liberally, with regard to the States, wherever there is a doubt as to the exercise of its powers; but this collateral good is no justification of the looseness of language by which the peace and integrity of the Union have been made to hang on a point of construction. The people of the United States will probably show their wisdom in henceforth accepting the benefit by shunning the evil.

In the privacy of their houses, many citizens have lamented to me, with feelings to which no name but grief can be given, that the events of 1832—3 have suggested the words "use" or "value of the Union." To an American, a calculation of the value of the Union would formerly have been as offensive, as absurd, as an estimate of the value of religion would be to a right-minded man. To Americans of this order, the Union has long been more than a matter of high utility. It has been idealised into an object of love and veneration. In answer to this cui bono, many have cried in their hearts, with Lear, "O reason not the need!" I was struck with the contrast in the tone of two statesmen, a chief nullifier and one of his chief opponents. The one would not disguise from me that the name of the Union had lost much of its charm in the south, since 1830. The other, in a glow, protested that he never would hear of the Union losing its charm.

But the instances of carelessness, of levity about the Union, are very rare; and this is the reason why more show of attachment to it is not made. The probabilities of the continuance of the Union are so overwhelming, that no man, not in a state of delusion, from some strong prejudice, can seriously entertain the idea of a dissolution within any assignable period. I met with one gentleman in the north, a clergyman, who expects and desires a dissolution of the Union, saying that the north bore all the expense of the war, and has had nothing but obstruction and injury from the south. I saw, also, one gentleman in South Carolina, who sees no use in the Union, but much expense and trouble. He declares the only effect of it to be the withdrawing of the best men from each State to dawdle away their time at Washington. Another, who desponds about the condition of England, and whose views are often embellished, and sometimes impaired, by his perceptions of analogy, expressed his fears that his own country, an offset from mine, would share the fate of offsets, and perish with the parent. But these are examples of eccentricity.

There are many among the slave-holders of the south who threaten secession. Such of these as are in earnest are under the mistake into which men fall when they put everything to the hazard of one untenable object. The untenable object once relinquished, the delusion will clear away with the disappearance of its cause, and the Union will be to them, with good reason, dearer than it has ever been. The southern States could not exist, separately, with their present domestic institutions, in the neighbourhood of any others. They would have thousands of miles of frontier, over which their slaves would be running away, every day of the year. In case of war, they might be only too happy if their slaves did run away, instead of rising up against them at home. If it was necessary to purchase, Florida because it was a retreat for runaways; if it was necessary, first to treat with Mexico for the restitution of runaways, and then to steal Texas, the most high-handed theft of modern times; if it is necessary to pursue runaways into the northern States, and to keep magistrates and jails in perpetual requisition for the restitution of southern human property, how would the southern States manage by themselves? Only by ridding themselves of slavery; in which case, their alleged necessity of separation is superseded. As for their resources,—the shoe-business of New York State is of itself larger and more valuable than the entire commerce of Georgia,—the largest and richest of the southern States.

The mere act of separation could not be accomplished. In case of war against the northern States, it would be necessary to employ half the white population to take care of the black; and of the remaining half, no one would undertake to say how many are at heart sick and weary of slavery, and would be, therefore, untrustworthy. The middle slave States, now nearly ready to discard slavery, would seize so favourable an opportunity as that afforded them by the peril of the Union. The middle free States, from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, having everything to lose by separation, and nothing to gain, would treat the first overt act as rebellion; proceeding against it, and punishing it as such. The case is so palpable as scarcely to need even so brief a statement as this. The fact which renders such a statement worth making is, that most of those who threaten the dissolution of the Union, do it in order to divert towards this impracticable object the irritation which would otherwise, and which will, ere long, turn against the institution of slavery. The gaze of the world is fixed upon this institution. The world is shouting the one question about this anomaly which cannot be answered. The dwellers in the south would fain be unconscious of that awful gaze. They would fain not hear the reverberation of that shout. They would fain persuade themselves and others, that they are too busy in asserting their rights and their dignity as citizens of the Union, to heed the world beyond.

This self and mutual deception will prove a merely temporary evil. The natural laws which regulate communities, and the will of the majority, may be trusted to preserve the good, and to remove the bad elements from which this dissension arises. It requires no gift of prophecy to anticipate the fate of an anomaly among a self-governing people. Slavery was not always an anomaly; but it has become one. Its doom is therefore sealed; and its duration is now merely a question of time. Any anxiety in the computation of this time is reasonable; for it will not only remove a more tremendous cause than can ever again desolate society, but restore the universality of that generous attachment to their common institutions which has been, and will be, to the American people, honour, safety, and the means of perpetual progress.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The Federalist, vol. i. p. 277.

[4] Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 396.

[5] Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 467-476.

[6] Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 236.

CHAPTER III. MORALS OF POLITICS.

"'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends

Upon that law as on the best of friends;

Whence, in a state where men are tempted still

To evil for a guard against worse ill,

And what in quality or act is best,

Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,

He fixes good on good alone, and owes

To virtue every triumph, that he knows."

Wordsworth.

Under a pure despotism, the morals of politics would make but a very short chapter. Mercy in the ruler; obedience in his officers, with, perhaps, an occasional stroke of remonstrance; and taxpaying in the people, would comprehend the whole. Among a self-governing people, who profess to take human equality for their great common principle, and the golden rule for their political vow, a long chapter of many sections is required.

The morals of politics are not too familiar anywhere. The clergy are apt to leave out its topics from their list of subjects for the pulpit. Writers on morals make that chapter as brief as if they lived under the pure despotism, supposed above. An honest newspaper, here and there, or a newspaper honest for some particular occasion, and therefore uninfluential in its temporary honesty, are the only speakers on the morals of politics. The only speakers; but not the only exhibitors. Scattered here and there, through a vast reach of ages, and expanse of communities, there may be found, to bless his race, an honest statesman. Statesmen, free from the gross vices of peculation, sordid, selfish ambition, cruelty and tergiversation, are not uncommon. But the last degree of honesty has always been, and is still, considered incompatible with statesmanship. To hunger and thirst after righteousness has been naturally, as it were, supposed a disqualification for affairs; and a man, living for truth, and in a spirit of love, "pure in the last recesses of the mind," who should propose to seek truth through political action, and exercise love in the use of political influence, and refine his purity by disinfecting the political atmosphere of its corruptions, would hear it reported on every hand that he had a demon. Yet one who is aware of the enthusiasm with which the Germans hail the words of Posa at every representation of Don Carlos; one who has seen how American officials are supported by the people, on the supposition that they are great men, (however small such men may really be,) one who has watched the acceleration, within our own time, of the retribution which overtakes untrustworthy public men, whatever may be their talents and their knowledge, in contrast with the comparative stability of less able, but more honest men, can doubt no longer that the time is at hand for the advent of political principle. The hour is come when dwellers in the old world should require integrity of their rulers; and dwellers in the new world, each in his turn a servant of society, should require it of each other and of themselves. The people of the United States are seeking after this, feebly and dimly. They have retained one wise saying of the fathers to whom they owe so much; that the letter of laws and constitutions is a mere instrument; with no vitality; no power to protect and bless; and that the spirit is all in all. They have been far from acting upon this with such steadiness as to show that they understand and believe it. But the saying is in their minds; and, like every other true thing that lies there, it will in time exhibit itself in the appointed mode—the will of the majority.

SECTION I.
OFFICE.

I was told two things separately, last year, which, if put together, seem to yield an alarming result. I was told that almost every man holds office, some time during his life; and that holding one is the ruin of moral independence. The case is not, however, nearly so bad as this. There is a kind of public life which does seem to injure the morals of all who enter it; but very few are affected by this. Office in a man's own neighbourhood, where his character and opinions are known, and where the honour and emolument are small, is not very seductive: and these are the offices filled by the greater number of citizens who serve society. The temptation to propitiate opinion becomes powerful when a citizen desires to enter the legislature, or to be the chief magistrate of the State. The peril increases when he becomes a candidate for Congress; and there seems to be no expectation whatever that a candidate for the presidentship, or his partizans, should retain any simplicity of speech, or regard to equity in the distribution of places and promises. All this is dreadfully wrong. It originates in a grand mistake, which cannot be rectified but by much suffering. It is obvious that there must be mistake; for it can never be an arrangement of Providence that men cannot serve each other in their political relations without being corrupted.

The primary mistake is in supposing that men cannot bear to hear the truth. It has become the established method of seeking office, not only to declare a coincidence of opinion with the supposed majority, on the great topics on which the candidate will have to speak and act while in office, but to deny, or conceal, or assert anything else which it is supposed will please the same majority. The consequence is, that the best men are not in office. The morally inferior who succeed, use their power for selfish purposes, to a sufficient extent to corrupt their constituents, in their turn. I scarcely knew, at first, how to understand the political conversations which I heard in travelling. If a citizen told another that A. had voted in a particular manner, the other invariably began to account for the vote. A. had voted thus to please B., because B.'s influence was wanted for the benefit of C., who had promised so and so to A.'s brother, or son, or nephew, or leading section of constituents. A reason for a vote, or other public proceeding, must always be found; and any reason seemed to be taken up rather than the obvious one, that a man votes according to the decision of his reason and conscience. I often mentioned this to men in office, or seeking to be so; and they received it with a smile or a laugh which wrung my heart. Of all heart-withering things, political scepticism in a republic is one of the most painful. I told Mr. Clay my observations in both kinds. "Let them laugh!" cried he, with an honourable warmth: "and do you go on requiring honesty; and you will find it." He is right: but those who would find the highest integrity had bettor not begin their observations on office-holders, much less on office-seekers, as a class. The office-holder finds, too often, that it may be easier to get into office than to have power to discharge its duties when there: and then the temptation to subservience, to dishonest silence, is well nigh too strong for mortal man. The office-seeker stands committed as desiring something for which he is ready to sacrifice his business or profession, his ease, his leisure, and the quietness of his reputation. He stands forth as either an adventurer, a man of ambition, or of self-sacrificing patriotism. Being once thus committed, failure is mortifying, and the allurement to compromise, in order to success, is powerful. Once in public life, the politician is committed for ever, whether he immediately perceives this, or not. Almost every public man of my acquaintance owned to me the difficulty of retiring,—in mind, if not in presence,—after the possession of a public trust. This painful hankering is part of the price to be paid for the honours of public service: and I am disposed to think that it is almost universal; that scarcely any man knows quiet and content, from the moment of the success of his first election. The most modest men shrink from thus committing themselves. The most learned men, generally speaking, devote themselves, in preference, to professions. The most conscientious men, generally speaking, shun the snares which fatally beset public life, at present, in the United States.

A gentleman of the latter class, whose talents and character would procure him extensive and hearty support, if he desired it, told me, that he would never serve in office, because he believes it to be the destruction of moral independence: he pointed out to me three friends of his, men of remarkable talent, all in public life. "Look at them," said he, "and see what they might have been! Yet A. is a slave, B. is a slave, and C. is a worm in the dust." Too true.

Here is a grievous misfortune to the republic! My friend ascribes it to the want of protection from his neighbours, to which a man is exposed from the want of caste. This will never do. A crown and sceptre would be about as desirable in a republic as caste. If men would only try the effect of faith in one another, I believe they would take rank, and yield protection, with more precision and efficacy than by any manifestation of the exclusive spirit that was ever witnessed. Of course, this proposal will be called "Quixotic;" that convenient term which covers things the most serious and the most absurd, the wisest and the wildest. I am strengthened in my suggestion by a recurrence to the first principles of society in the United States, according to which I find that "rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and that the theory is, that the best men are chosen to serve. Both these pre-suppose mutual faith. Let the governed once require honesty as a condition of their consent; let them once choose the best men, according to their most conscientious conviction, and there will be an end of this insulting and disgusting political scepticism. Adventurers and ambitious men there will still be; but they will not taint the character of the class. Better men, who will respect their constituents, without fearing or flattering them, will foster the generous mutual faith which is now so grievously wanting; and the spirit of the constitution, now drooping in some of its most important departments, will revive.

I write more in hope than in immediate expectation. I saw much ground for hope, but very much also for grief. Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them. Nothing can be more disgusting than the contrast between the drawing-room gentleman, at ease among friends, and the same person courting the people, on a public occasion. The only comfort was a strong internal persuasion that the people do not like to be courted thus. They have been so long used to it, that they receive it as a matter of course; but, I believe, if a candidate should offer, who should make no professions but of his opinions, and his honest intentions of carrying them out; if he should respect the people as men, not as voters, and inform them truly of his views of their condition and prospects, they would recognise him at once as their best friend. He might, notwithstanding, lose his election; for the people must have time to recover, or to attain simplicity; but he would serve them better by losing his election thus, than by the longest and most faithful service in public life.

I have often wondered whether a gentleman at Laporte, in Indiana, who advertised his desire to be sheriff, gained his election. He declared in his advertisement that he had not been largely solicited, but that it was his own desire that he should be sheriff: he would not promise to do away with mosquitoes, ague, and fever, but only to do his duty. This candidate has his own way of flattering his constituents.

A gentleman of considerable reputation offered, last year, to deliver a lecture, in a Lyceum, in Massachusetts. It was upon the French Revolution; and on various accounts curious. There was no mention of the causes of the Revolution, except in a parenthesis of one sentence, where he intimated that French society was not in harmony with the spirit of the age. He sketched almost every body concerned, except the Queen. The most singular part, perhaps, was his estimate of the military talents of Napoleon. He exalted them much, and declared him a greater general than Wellington, but not so great as Washington. The audience was large and respectable. I knew a great many of the persons present, and found that none of them liked the lecture.

I attended another Lyceum lecture in Massachusetts. An agent of the Colonisation Society lectured; and, when he had done, introduced a clergyman of colour, who had just returned from Liberia, and could give an account of the colony in its then present state. As soon as this gentleman came forward, a party among the audience rose, and went out, with much ostentation of noise. Mr. Wilson broke off till he could be again heard, and then observed in a low voice, "that would not have been done in Africa;" upon which, there was an uproar of applause, prolonged and renewed. All the evidence on the subject that I could collect, went to prove that the people can bear, and do prefer to hear, the truth. It is a crime to withhold it from them; and a double crime to substitute flattery.

The tone of the orations was the sole, but great drawback from the enjoyment of the popular festivals I witnessed. I missed the celebration of the 4th of July,—both years; being, the first year, among the Virginia mountains, (where the only signs of festivity which I saw, were some slaves dressing up a marquee, in which their masters were to feast, after having read, from the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, and that rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;) and the second year on the lakes, arriving at Mackinaw too late in the evening of the great day for any celebration that might have taken place. But I was at two remarkable festivals, and heard two very remarkable orations. They were represented to me as fair or favourable specimens of that kind of address; and, to judge by the general sum of those which I read and heard, they were so.

The valley of the Connecticut is the most fertile valley in New England; and it is scarcely possible that any should be more beautiful. The river, full, broad, and tranquil as the summer sky, winds through meadows, green with pasture, or golden with corn. Clumps of forest trees afford retreat for the cattle in the summer heats; and the magnificent New England elm, the most graceful of trees, is dropped singly, here and there, and casts its broad shade upon the meadow. Hills of various height and declivity bound the now widening, now contracting valley. To these hills, the forest has retired; the everlasting forest, from which, in America, we cannot fly. I cannot remember that, except in some parts of the prairies, I was ever out of sight of the forest in the United States and I am sure I never wished to be so. It was like the "verdurous wall of Paradise," confining the mighty southern and western rivers to their channels. We were, as it appeared, imprisoned in it for many days together, as we traversed the south-eastern States. We threaded it in Michigan; we skirted it in New York and Pennsylvania; and throughout New England it bounded every landscape. It looked down upon us from the hill-tops; it advanced into notice from every gap and notch in the chain. To the native it must appear as indispensable in the picture-gallery of nature as the sky. To the English traveller it is a special boon, an added charm, a newly-created grace, like the infant planet that wanders across the telescope of the astronomer. The English traveller finds himself never weary by day of prying into the forest, from beneath its canopy: or, from a distance drinking in its exquisite hues: and his dreams, for months or years, will be of the mossy roots, the black pine, and silvery birch stems, the translucent green shades of the beech, and the slender creeper, climbing like a ladder into the topmost boughs of the dark holly, a hundred feet high. He will dream of the march of the hours through the forest; the deep blackness of night, broken by the dun forest-fires, and startled by the showers of sparks, sent abroad by the casual breeze from the burning stems. He will hear again the shrill piping of the whip-poor-will, and the multitudinous din from the occasional swamp. He will dream of the deep silence which precedes the dawn; of the gradual apparition of the haunting trees, coming faintly out of the darkness; of the first level rays, instantaneously piercing the woods to their very heart, and lighting them up into boundless ruddy colonnades, garlanded with wavy verdure, and carpeted with glittering wild-flowers. Or, he will dream of the clouds of gay butterflies, and gauzy dragon-flies, that hover above the noon-day paths of the forest, or cluster about some graceful shrub, making it appear to bear at once all the flowers of Eden. Or the golden moon will look down through his dream, making for him islands of light in an ocean of darkness. He may not see the stars but by glimpses; but the winged stars of those regions,—the gleaming fire-flies,—radiate from every sleeping bough, and keep his eye in fancy busy in following their glancing, while his spirit sleeps in the deep charms of the summer night. Next to the solemn and various beauty of the sea and the sky, comes that of the wilderness. I doubt whether the sublimity of the vastest mountain-range can exceed that of the all-pervading forest, when the imagination becomes able to realise the conception of what it is.

In the valley of the Connecticut, the forest merely presides over the scene, giving gravity to its charm. On East Mountain, above Deerfield, in Massachusetts, it is mingled with grey rocks, whose hue mingles exquisitely with its verdure. We looked down from thence on a long reach of the valley, just before sunset, and made ourselves acquainted with the geography of the catastrophe which was to be commemorated in a day or two. Here and there, in the meadows, were sinkings of the soil, shallow basins of verdant pasturage, where there had probably once been small lakes, but where cattle were now grazing. The unfenced fields, secure within landmarks, and open to the annual inundation which preserves their fertility, were rich with unharvested Indian corn; the cobs left lying in their sheaths, because no passer-by is tempted to steal them; every one having enough of his own. The silvery river lay among the meadows; and on its bank, far below us, stretched the avenue of noble trees, touched with the hues of autumn, which shaded the village of Deerfield. Saddleback bounded our view opposite, and the Northampton hills and Green Mountains on the left. Smoke arose, here and there, from the hills' sides, and the nearer eminences were dotted with white dwellings, of the same order with the homesteads which were sprinkled over the valley. The time is past when a man feared to sit down further off than a stone's throw from his neighbours, lest the Indians should come upon him. The villages of Hadley and Deerfield are a standing memorial of those times, when the whites clustered together around the village church, and their cattle were brought into the area, every night, under penalty of their being driven off before morning. These villages consist of two rows of houses, forming a long street, planted with trees; and the church stands in the middle. The houses, of wood, were built in those days with the upper story projecting; that the inhabitants, in case of siege, might fire at advantage upon the Indians, forcing the door with tomahawks.

I saw an old house of this kind at Deerfield,—the only one which survived the burning of the village by the French and Indians, in 1704, when all the inhabitants, to the number of two hundred and eighty, being attacked in their sleep, were killed or carried away captive by the Indians. The wood of the house was old and black, and pierced in many parts with bullet-holes. One had given passage to a bullet which shot a woman in the neck, as she rose up in bed, on hearing the tomahawk strike upon the door. The battered door remains, to chill one's blood with the thought that such were the blows dealt by the Indians upon the skulls of their victims, whether infants or soldiers.

This was not the event to commemorate which we were assembled at Deerfield. A monument was to be erected on the spot where another body of people had been murdered, by savage foes of the same race. Deerfield was first settled in 1671; a few houses being then built on the present street, and the settlers being on good terms with their neighbours. King Philip's war broke out in 1675, and the settlers were attacked more than once. There was a large quantity of grain stored up at Deerfield; and it was thought advisable to remove it for safety to Hadley, fifteen miles off. Captain Lothrop, with eighty men, and some teams, marched from Hadley to remove the grain; his men being the youth and main hope of the settlements around. On their return from Deerfield, on the 30th of September 1675, about four miles and a half on the way to Hadley, the young men dispersed to gather the wild grapes that were hanging ripe in the thickets, and were, under this disadvantage, attacked by a large body of Indians. It was afterwards discovered that the only way to encounter the Indians is in phalanx. Captain Lothrop did not know this; and he posted his men behind trees, where they were, almost to a man, picked off by the enemy. About ninety-three, including the teamsters, fell. When all was over, help arrived. The Indians were beaten; but they appeared before the village, some days after, shaking the scalps and bloody garments of the slain captain and his troop, before the eyes of the inhabitants. The place was afterwards abandoned by the settlers, destroyed by the Indians, and not rebuilt for some years.

This was a piteous incident in the history of the settlement; but it is not easy to see why it should be made an occasion of commemoration, by monument and oratory, in preference to many others which have a stronger moral interest attaching to them. Some celebrations, like that of Forefather's Day, are inexpressibly interesting and valuable, from the glorious recollections by which they are sanctified. But no virtue was here to be had in remembrance; nothing but mere misery. The contemplation of mere misery is painful and hurtful; and the only salutary influence that I could perceive to arise from this occasion was a far-fetched and dubious one,—thankfulness that the Indians are not now at hand to molest the white inhabitants. Then occurs the question about the Indians,—"where are they?" and the answer leaves one less sympathy than one would wish to have with the present security of the settler. The story of King Philip, who is supposed to have headed, in person, the attack on Lothrop's troop, is one of the most melancholy in the records of humanity; and sorrow for him must mingle with congratulations to the descendants of his foes, who, in his eyes, were robbers. With these thoughts in my mind, I found it difficult to discover the philosophy of this celebration. A stranger might be pardoned for being so slow.

One of the then candidates for the highest office in the State, is renowned for his oratory. He is one of the most accomplished scholars and gentlemen that the country possesses. It was thought, "by his friends," that his interest wanted strengthening in the western part of the State. The people were pleased when any occasion procured them the éclat of bringing a celebrated orator over to address them. The commemoration of an Indian catastrophe was thought of as an occasion capable of being turned to good electioneering purposes.—Mr. Webster was invited to be the orator, it being known that he would refuse. "Not I," said he. "I won't go and rake up old bloody Indian stories." The candidate was next invited, and, of course, took the opportunity of "strengthening his interest in the western part of the State." I was not aware of this till I sometime after heard it, on indisputable authority. I should have enjoyed it much less than I did, if I had known that the whole thing was got up, or its time and manner chosen, for electioneering objects; that advantage was taken of the best feelings of the people for the political interest of one.

The afternoon of the 29th we went to Bloody Brook, the fearfully-named place of disaster. We climbed the Sugar-loaf; a high, steep hill, from whose precipitous sides is obtained a view of the valley which pleases me more than the celebrated one from Mount Holyoke, a few miles off. Each, however, is perfect in its way; and both so like heaven, when one looks down upon the valley in the light of an autumn afternoon,—such a light as never yet burnished an English scene,—that no inclination is left to make comparisons. The ox team was in the fields, the fishers on the banks of the grey river,—banks and fishers reflected to the life,—all as tranquil as if there was to be no stir the next day.

On descending, we went to the Bloody Brook Inn, and saw the strange and horrible picture of the slaughter of Lothrop's troop; a picture so bad as to be laughable; but too horrible to be laughed at. Every man of the eighty exactly alike, and all looking scared at being about to be scalped. We saw, also, the long tables spread for the feast of to-morrow. Lengths of unbleached cotton for table cloths, plates and glasses, were already provided. Some young men were bringing in long trails of the wild vine, clustered with purple grapes, to hang about the young maple trees which overshadowed the tables; others were trying the cannon. We returned home in a state of high expectation.

The morning of the 30th was bright, but rather cold. It was doubtful how far prudence would warrant our sitting in an orchard for several hours, in such a breeze as was blowing. It was evident, however, that persons at a distance had no scruples on the subject, so thickly did they throng to the place of meeting. The wagon belonging to the band passed my windows, filled with young ladies from the High School at Greenfield. They looked as gay as if they had been going to a fair. By half-past eight, our party set off, accompanied by a few, and passing a great number of strangers from distant villages.

After having accomplished our drive of three or four miles, we warmed ourselves in a friendly house, and repaired to the orchard to choose our seats, while the ceremony of laying the first stone of the monument was proceeding at some distance. The platform from which the orator was to address the assemblage was erected under a rather shabby walnut-tree, which was rendered less picturesque by its lower branches being lopped off, for the sake of convenience. Several men had perched themselves on the tree; and I was beginning to wonder how they would endure their uncomfortable seat, in the cold wind, for three hours, when I saw them called down, and dismissed to find places among the rest of the assemblage, as they sent down bark and dust upon the heads of those who sat on the platform. Long and deep ranges of benches were provided; and on these, with carriage cushions and warm cloaks, we found ourselves perfectly well accommodated. Nothing could be better. It was a pretty sight. The wind rustled fitfully in the old walnut-tree. The audience gathered around, it were sober, quiet; some would have said dull. The girls appeared to me to be all pretty, after the fashion of American girls. Every body was well-dressed; and such a thing as ill-behaviour in any village assemblage in New England, is, I believe, unheard of. The soldiers were my great amusement; as they were on the few other occasions when I had the good fortune to see any. Their chief business, on the present occasion, was to keep clear the seats which were reserved for the band, now absent with the procession. These seats were advantageously placed; and new-comers were every moment taking possession of them, and had to be sent, disappointed, into the rear. It was moving to behold the loving entreaties of the soldiers that these seats might be vacated. I saw one, who had shrunk away from his uniform, (probably from the use of tobacco, of which his mouth was full,) actually put his arm round the neck of a gentleman, and smile imploringly in his face. It was irresistible, and the gentleman moved away. It is a perfect treat to the philanthropist to observe the pacific appearance of the militia throughout the United States. It is well known how they can fight, when the necessity arises: but they assuredly look, at present, as if it was the last thing in their intentions:—as I hope it may long be.

The band next arrived, leading the procession of gentlemen, and were soon called into action by the first hymn. They did their best; and, if no one of their instruments could reach the second note of the German Hymn, (the second note of three lines out of four,) it was not for want of trying.

The oration followed. I strove, as I always did, not to allow difference of taste, whether in oratory, or in anything else, to render me insensible to the merit, in its kind, of what was presented to me: but, upon this occasion, all my sympathies were baffled, and I was deeply disgusted. It mattered little what the oration was in itself, if it had only belonged in character to the speaker. If a Greenfield farmer or mechanic had spoken as he believed orators to speak, and if the failure had been complete, I might have been sorry or amused, or disappointed; but not disgusted. But here was one of the most learned and accomplished gentlemen in the country, a candidate for the highest office in the State, grimacing like a mountebank before the assemblage whose votes he desired to have, and delivering an address, which he supposed level to their taste and capacity. He spoke of the "stately tree," (the poor walnut,) and the "mighty assemblage," (a little flock in the middle of an orchard,) and offered them shreds of tawdry sentiment, without the intermixture of one sound thought, or simple and natural feeling, simply and naturally expressed. It was equally an under estimate of his hearers, and a degradation of himself.

The effect was very plain. Many, I know, were not interested, but were unwilling to say so of so renowned an orator. All were dull; and it was easy to see that none of the proper results of public speaking followed. These very people are highly imaginative. Speak to them of what interests them, and they are moved with a word. Speak to those whose children are at school, of the progress and diffusion of knowledge, and they will hang upon the lips of the speaker. Speak to the unsophisticated among them of the case of the slave, and they are ready to brave Lynch-law on his behalf. Appeal to them on any religious or charitable enterprise, and the good deed is done, almost as soon as indicated. But they have been taught to consider the oratory of set persons on set occasions as a matter of business or of pastime. They listen to it, make their remarks upon it, vote, perhaps, that it shall be printed, and go home, without having been so much moved as by a dozen casual remarks, overheard upon the road.

All this would be of little importance, if these orations consisted of narrative,—or of any mere matter of fact. The grievance lies in the prostitution of moral sentiment, the clap-trap of praise and pathos, which is thus criminally adventured. This is one great evil. Another, as great, both to orators and listeners, is the mis-estimate of the people. No insolence and meanness can surpass those of the man of sense and taste who talks beneath himself to the people, because he thinks it suits them. No good parent ventures to do so to his youngest child; and a candidate for office who will do it, shows himself ignorant of that which it is most important he should know,—what fidelity of deference every man owes to every other man. Is such a one aware that he is perpetually saying in his heart, "God! I thank thee that I am not as other men are?"

The other festival, to which I have alluded, was the celebration of Forefathers' Day;—of the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. I trust that this anniversary will be hailed with honour, as long as Massachusetts overlooks the sea. A more remarkable, a nobler enterprise, was never kept in remembrance by a grateful posterity, than the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers; and their posterity are, at least, so far worthy of them as that they all, down to the young children, seem to have a clear understanding of the nature of the act, and the character of the men. I never beheld the popular character in a more cheering light than on this occasion; and, if I happened to be acquainted with a misanthrope, I would send him to Plymouth, to keep Forefathers' Day. Every fact that I review, every line that I write, brings back delightful feelings towards some of the affectionate and hospitable friends through whose kindness I saw and learned whatever I learned of their country; but to none am I more thankful than to those who took me to Plymouth, and those who welcomed me there. It was an occasion when none could be on any other terms than pure brotherhood with all the rest. It was the great birth-day of the New England people; and none could fail to wish the people joy.

My party and I reached Plymouth from Hingham the day before the celebration. As we drew near the coast, I anxiously watched the character of the scenery, trying to view it with the eyes of the first emigrants. It must have struck a chill to their hearts;—so bare, so barren, so wintry. The firs grew more and more stunted, as we approached the sea; till, as one of my companions observed, they were ashamed to show themselves any smaller, and so turned into sand. Mrs. Hemans calls it, in her fine lyric, a rock-bound coast; naturally enough, as she was told that the pilgrims set their feet on a rock, on landing; but that rock was the only one. The coast is low and sandy. The aspect of the bay was, this day, most dreary. We had travelled through snow, all the way behind; snowy fields, with here and there a solitary crow stalking in the midst; and now, there was nothing but ice before us. Dirty, grey ice, some sheeted, some thrown up by the action of the sea into heaps, was all that was to be seen, instead of the blue and glittering sea. A friend assured me, however, that all would be bright and cheering the next morning; informing me, with a smile, that in the belief of the country people, it never did rain or snow, and never would rain or snow, on Forefathers' Day. This is actually a superstition firmly held in the neighbourhood. This friend pointed out to me, in the course of the afternoon, how the green grass was appearing through the snow on Burial Hill, on whose slope the descending sun, warm for December, was shining. We mounted Burial Hill; and when I trod the turf, after some weeks' walking over crisp snow, I began to feel that I might grow superstitious too, if I lived at Plymouth.

Upwards of half the pilgrim company died the first winter. Fifty-one dropped in succession; and the graves of most of them are on this hill. Burial Hill was probably chosen to be a memento mori to the pious pilgrims; its elevation, bristling with grave-stones, being conspicuous from every part of the town. But, lest it should exhibit their tale of disaster to their foes, the Indians, the colonists sowed the place of their dead with corn; making it, for honest purposes, a whited sepulchre. From this eminence, we saw the island in the harbour where the fathers landed for service on the first Sunday after their arrival; also, the hill on which stood a wigwam, from whence issued an Indian to hold the first parley. A brook flowed between the two hills, on which stood the Indian and the chief of the intruders. Governor Winslow descended to the brook; bridged it with stepping-stones, in sight of the Indian; laid down his arms, and advanced. The meeting was friendly; but there was so little feeling of security, for long after, that when half the colonists had perished, the rest were paraded round and round a hut on Burial Hill, to conceal the smallness of their numbers from the vigilant Indians.

We went to the Registry Office, and saw the earliest records of the colony,—as far back as 1623,—in the handwriting of the fathers. Among them is a record of the lots of land appointed to those who came over in the Mayflower. (Little did the builders of that ship dream how they were working for immortality!) Sometimes a cow is appointed, with a lot, to six families. Sometimes a black goat. The red cow is ordained to be kept for the poor, to calve.

The rock on which the pilgrims first landed, has been split, and the top part, in order to its preservation, removed within an iron railing, in front of Pilgrim Hall. The memorable date of the landing, 1620, is painted upon it; and the names of the fathers, in cast-iron, are inserted into the railing which surrounds the rock.

Within the Hall, a plain, spacious building, erected within ten years, to serve as the scene of the festivities of Forefathers' Day, and also as a Museum of Pilgrim curiosities, is a picture, by Sargent, of the Landing of the Pilgrims. Samosat, the Indian chief, is advancing, with English words of greeting,—"Welcome, Englishmen!" Elder Brewster, and the other fathers, with their apprehensive wives and wondering children, form an excellent group; and the Mayflower is seen moored in the distance. The greatest defect in the picture is the introduction of the blasted tree, which needlessly adds to the desolation of the scene, and gives a false idea, as far as it goes. I could not have anticipated the interest which these memorials would inspire. I felt as if in a dream, the whole time that I was wandering about with the rejoicing people, among the traces of the heroic men and women who came over into the perilous wilderness, in search of freedom of worship.

Forefathers' Day rose bright and mild. I looked out towards the harbour. Every flake of ice was gone, and the deep blue sea rippled and sparkled in the sun. The superstition was fated to endure another year, at least. All Plymouth was in a joyous bustle, with lines of carriages, and groups of walkers. After breakfast, we proceeded to the church, to await the orator of the day. We were detained on the steps for a few minutes, till the doors should be opened; and I was glad of it, for the sun was warm, and the coup d'œil was charming. There was one long descent from the church down to the glittering sea; and on the slope were troops of gay ladies, and lines of children; with here and there a company of little boys, playing soldiers to the music of the band, which came faintly from afar. Of real soldiers, I saw two during the day. There might be more; but none were needed. The strangest association of all was of a Pilgrim Ode sung to the tune of "God save the King!" an air which I should have supposed no more likely to be chosen for such an occasion than as an epilogue to the Declaration of Independence. It did very well, however. It set us all singing so as to drown the harmony of the violins and horns which acted as instigation.

The oration was by an ex-senator of the United States. It consisted wholly of an elaboration of the transcendent virtues of the people of New England. His manner was more quiet than that of any other orator I heard; and I really believe that there was less of art than of weakness and bad taste in his choice of his mode of address. Nothing could be imagined worse,—more discordant with the fitting temper of the occasion,—more dangerous to the ignorant, if such there were,—more disgusting to the wise, (as I know, on the testimony of such,)—more unworthy of one to whom the ear of the people was open. He told his hearers of the superiority of their physical, intellectual, and moral constitution to that of their brethren of the middle and southern States, to that of Europeans, and all other dwellers in the earth; a superiority which forbade their being ever understood and appreciated by any but themselves. He spoke especially of the intensity of the New England character, as being a hidden mystery from all but natives. He contrasted the worst circumstances of European society, (now in course of correction,) with the best of New England arrangements, and drew the obvious inferences. He excused the bigotry of the Pilgrim Fathers, their cruel persecution of the Quakers, and other such deeds, on the ground that they had come over to have the colony to themselves, and did not want interlopers. He extenuated the recent mobbing practices in New England, on the ground of their rarity and small consequences, and declared it impossible that the sons of the pilgrims should trust to violence for the maintenance of opinion. This last sentiment, the only sound one that I perceived in the oration, was loudly cheered. The whole of the rest, I rejoice to say, fell dead.

The orator was unworthy of his hearers. He had been a senator of the United States, and had, I was told, discharged his duty there; but he was little fit for public life, if he did not know that it is treason to republicanism to give out lower morals in public than are held in private; to smile or sigh over the vanity of the people by the fireside, and pamper it from the rostrum; to use the power of oratory to injure the people, instead of to save. In this case, the exaggeration was so excessive as to be, I trust, harmless. No man of common sense could be made to believe that any community of mortal men has ever been what the orator described the inhabitants of New England to have attained. I was deeply touched by the first remark I heard upon this oration. A lady, who had been prevented from attending, asked me, on my return, home, how I liked the address. Before I could open my lips to reply, her daughter spoke. "I am heart-sick of this boasting. When I think of our forefathers, I want to cry, 'God be merciful to us sinners!'" If the oration awakened in others, as I believe it did, by force of contrast, feelings as healthful, as faithful to the occasion as this, it was not lost, and our pity must rest upon the orator.

I am aware,—I had but too much occasion to observe,—how this practice of flattering the people from the rostrum is accounted for, and, as a matter of fact, smiled at by citizens of the United States. I know that it is considered as a mode, inseparable from the philosophy of politics there. I dissent from this view altogether. I see that the remedy lies, not wholly where remedies for the oppression of severe natural laws lie,—in a new combination of outward circumstances,—but in the individual human will. The people may have honest orators if they choose to demand to hear the truth. The people will gladly hear the truth, if the appointed orator will lay aside selfish fears and desires, and use his high privilege of speaking from the bottom of his soul. If, in simplicity, he delivers to the people his true and best self, he is certain to gain the convictions of many, and the sympathies of all; and his soul will be clear of the guilt of deepening the pit under the feet of the people, while trying to persuade them that they are treading on firm ground. What is to be said of guides who dig pitfalls?

The day closed delightfully. Almost everybody went to pay respect to an aged lady, then eighty-eight, a regular descendant of one of the pilgrims. She was confined to the sofa, but retained much beauty, and abundant cheerfulness. She was delighted to receive us, and to sympathise in those pleasures of the day which she could not share. I had the honour of sitting in the chair which her ancestor brought over from England, and of feeling the staple by which it was fastened in the Mayflower.

The dinner being over, the gentlemen returned to their several abodes, to escort the ladies to the ball in Pilgrim Hall. I went, with a party of seven others, in a stage coach; every carriage, native and exotic, being in requisition to fill the ball-room, from which no one was excluded. It was the only in-door festival, except the President's levee, where I witnessed an absolutely general admission; and its aspect and conduct were, in the highest degree, creditable to the intelligence and manners of the community. There were families from the islands in the bay, and other country residences, whence the inhabitants seldom emerge, except for this festival. The dress of some of the young ladies was peculiar, and their glee was very visible; but I saw absolutely no vulgarity. There was much beauty, and much elegance among the young ladies, and the manners of their parents were unexceptionable. There was evidence in the dancing, of the "intensity" of which we had heard so much in the morning. The lads and lasses looked as if they meant never to tire; but this enjoyment of the exercise pleased me much more than the affectation of dancing, which is now fashionable in the large cities. I never expect to see a more joyous and unexceptionable piece of festivity than the Pilgrim ball of 1835.

The next day, the harbour was all frozen over; and the memory of the blue, rippling sea of Plymouth, is therefore, with me, sacred to Forefathers' Day.

I was frequently reminded by friends of what is undoubtedly very true, the great perils of office in the United States, as an excuse for the want of honesty in officials. It is perfectly true that it is ruin to a professional man without fortune, to enter public life for a time, and then be driven back into private life. I knew a senator of the United States who had served for nearly his twice six years, and who then had to begin life again, as regarded his profession. I knew a representative of the United States, a wealthy man, with a large family, who is doubting still, as he has been for a few years past, whether he shall give up commerce or public life, or go on trying to hold them both. He is rich enough to devote himself to public life; but at the very next election after he has relinquished his commercial affairs, he may be thrown out of politics. I see what temptations arise in such cases, to strain a few points, in order to remain in the public eye; and I am willing to allow for the strength of the temptation.

But the part for honest men to take is to expose the peril, to the end that the majority may find a remedy; and not to sanction it by yielding to it. Let the attention of the people be drawn towards the salaries of office, that they may discover whether they are too low; which is best, that adventurers of bad character should now and then get into office, because they have not reputation enough to obtain a living by other means, or that honest and intelligent men should be kept out, because the prizes of office are engrossed by more highly educated men; and whether the rewards of office are kept low by the democratic party, for the sake of putting in what their opponents call 'adventurers,' or by the aristocratic, with the hope of offices being engrossed by the men of private fortune. Let the true state of the case, according to each official's view of it, be presented to the people, rather than any countenance be given to the present dreadful practice of wheedling and flattery; and the perils of office will be, by some means, lessened.

The popular scandal against the people of the United States, that they boast intolerably of their national institutions and character, appears to me untrue: but I see how it has arisen. Foreigners, especially the English, are partly to blame for this. They enter the United States with an idea that a republic is a vulgar thing: and some take no pains to conceal their thought. To an American, nothing is more venerable than a republic. The native and the stranger set out on a misunderstanding. The English attacks, the American defends, and, perhaps, boasts. But the vain-glorious flattery of their public orators is the more abundant source of this reproach; and it rests with the people to redeem themselves from it. For my own part, I remember no single instance of patriotic boasting, from man, woman, or child, except from the rostrum; but from thence there was poured enough to spoil the auditory for life, if they had been simple enough to believe what they were told. But they were not.

SECTION II.
NEWSPAPERS.

Side by side with the sinners of the rostrum, stand the sinners of the newspaper press. The case is clear, and needs little remark or illustration. The profligacy of newspapers, wherever they exist, is a universal complaint; and, of all newspaper pressed I never heard any one deny that the American is the worst. Of course, this depravity being so general throughout the country, it must be occasioned by some overpowering force of circumstances. The causes are various; and it is a testimony to the strength and purity of the democratic sentiment in the country, that the republic has not been overthrown by its newspapers.

While the population is so scattered as it now is, throughout the greater part of the Union, nothing is easier than to make the people know only one side of a question; few things are easier than to keep from them altogether the knowledge of any particular affair; and, worse than all, on them may easily be practised the discovery that lies may work their intended effect, before the truth can overtake them.

It is hard to tell which is worst; the wide diffusion of things that are not true, or the suppression of things that are true. It is no secret that some able personage at Washington writes letters on the politics and politicians of the general government, and sends them to the remotest corners of the Union, to appear in their newspapers; after which, they are collected in the administration newspaper at Washington, as testimonies of public opinion in the respective districts where they appear. It is no secret that the newspapers of the south keep out of their columns all information which might enlighten their readers, near and afar, as to the real state of society at home. I can testify to the remarkable events which occur in the southern States, unnoticed by any press, and transpiring only through accident. Two men were burned alive, without trial, by the gentlemen of Mobile, just before my arrival there; and no newspaper even alluded to the circumstance, till, many months after, a brief and obscure paragraph, in a northern journal, treated it as a matter of hearsay.

It is no secret that the systematic abuse with which the newspapers of one side assail every candidate coming forward on the other, is the cause of many honourable men, who have a regard to their reputation, being deterred from entering public life; and of the people being thus deprived of some better servants than any they have. Though a faithful public servant should be able to endure all the consequences of faithful service, yet there are many cases where men, undecided as to their choice of public and private life, are fixed in favour of the latter by this one circumstance. It is the one obstacle too much. A public man in New England gave me the history of an editor of a newspaper, who began his professional course by making an avowed distinction between telling lies in conversation and in a newspaper, where every body looks for them. Of course, he has sunk deeper and deeper in falsehood; but retribution has not yet overtaken him. My informant told me, that this editor has made some thousands of dollars by his abuse of one man; and jocosely proposed, that persons who are systematically railed at by any newspaper, should lay claim to a proportion of the profits arising out of the use of their names and characters.

The worst of it is, that the few exceptions to this depravity,—the few newspapers conducted by men of truth and superior intelligence, are not yet encouraged in proportion to their merits. It is easy to see how a youth, going into the wilds, to set up a newspaper for the neighbouring villages, should meet with support, however vicious or crude his production maybe; but it is discouraging to perceive how little preference is given, in the Atlantic cities, to the best journals over the worst. Still, there is a preference; and it appears to be on the increase; and that increase, again, is in proportion to the intrepidity of the paper in discussing affairs as they arise.

There will be no great improvement in the literary character of the American newspapers till the literature of the country has improved. Their moral character depends upon the moral taste of the people. This looks like a very severe censure. If it be so, the same censure applies elsewhere, and English morals must be held accountable for the slanders and captiousness displayed in the leading articles of British journals, and for the disgustingly jocose tone of their police reports, where crimes are treated as entertainments, and misery as a jest. Whatever may be the exterior causes of the Americans having been hitherto ill-served in their newspapers, it is now certain that there are none which may not be overpowered by a sound moral taste. In their country, the demand lies with the many. Whenever the many demand truth and justice in their journals, and reject falsehood and calumny, they will be served according to their desire.

This desire is beginning to awaken. Some months before I left the United States, a man of colour was burned alive, without trial, at St. Louis, in Missouri; a large assemblage of the "respectable" inhabitants of the city being present. No one supposed that anybody out of the State of Missouri was any further implicated with this deed, than as men have an interest in every outrage done to man. The interest which residents in other States had in this deed, was like that which an Englishman has in a man being racked in the Spanish Inquisition; or a Frenchman, in a Turk being bastinadoed at Constantinople. He is not answerable for it, or implicated in it, as a fellow-citizen; and he speaks his humane reprobation as a fellow-man. Certain American citizens, out of Missouri, contrived, however, to implicate themselves in the responsibility for this awful outrage, which, one would have thought, any man would have been thankful to avoid. The majority of newspaper editors made themselves parties to the act, by refusing, from fear, to reprobate it. The state of the case was this, as described to me by some inhabitants of St. Louis. The gentlemen of the press in that city dared not reprobate the outrage, for fear of the consequences from the murderers. They merely announced the deed, as a thing to be regretted, and recommended that the veil of oblivion should be drawn over the affair. Their hope was widely different from their recommendation. They hoped that the newspapers throughout the Union would raise such a chorus of execration as would annihilate the power of the executioners. But the newspapers of the Union were afraid to comment upon the affair, because they saw that the St. Louis editors were afraid. The really respectable inhabitants of that disgraced city were thrown almost into despair by this dastardly silence, and believed all security of life and property in their State to be at an end. A few journals were honest enough to thunder the truth in the ears of the people; and the people awoke to perceive how their editors had involved themselves in this crime, by a virtual acquiescence,—like the unfaithful mastiff, if such a creature there be, which slinks away from its master's door, to allow a passage to a menacing thief. The influence of the will of the awakening people is already seen in the improved vigour in the tone of the newspapers against outrage. On occasion of the more recent riots at Cincinnati, the editorial silence has been broken by many voices.

There is a spirited newspaper at Louisville which has done its duty well, on occasions when it required some courage to do it; informing the Cincinnati people of the meanness of their conduct in repressing the expression of opinion, lest it should injure the commerce between Ohio and Kentucky; and also, justifying Judge Shaw of Massachusetts, against the outcries of the South, for a judgment he lately gave in favour of the release of a slave, voluntarily carried into a free State. Two New York papers, the New York American and the Evening Post, have gained themselves honour by intrepidity of the same kind, and by the comparative moderation and friendliness of their spirit. I hope that there may be many more, and that their number may be perpetually on the increase.

The very best newspaper that I saw in the United States was a single number of the Cleveland Whig, which I picked up at an hotel in the interior of Ohio. I had seen spirited extracts from it in various newspapers. The whole of this particular number was valuable for the excellence of its spirit, and for its good sense. It had very important, and some very painful subject matter,—instances of overbearing the law,—to treat of. It was so done as nearly to beguile me, hungry traveller as I was, of my dinner, and of all thought of my journey.

One other remarkable paper lies before me: remarkable for its professing to be conducted on principles of exact justice, and for its accordance with its principles to a degree which has hardly been dreamed of in a publication of its kind. There is something heroic in the enterprise, which inspires a strong hope of its success. If the ability be but sufficient to sustain it,—of which there seems no reason to doubt,—there can be no question of its acceptableness. The just and gentle construction of human actions, and the cheerful and trustful mood in surveying natural events, are more congenial with the general mind, than captiousness and distrust towards men, and despondency under the government of God. Such men as the editor of the Boston Reformer are sure to command the sympathies of men, however they may appear to run counter to the supposed tastes of newspaper readers. The following notice to correspondents is a novelty in its place,—more striking than any announcements in the news columns.

"To correspondents.—Our paper is no vehicle of vulgar abuse, or spiteful attacks on persons or institutions. Our design is to avoid everything which appeals to or pleases any bad propensity in our nature. Doubtless there are a thousand petty annoyances somewhat grievous to be borne; but we cannot go about to redress them. The best way is to forgive and forget them. We cannot waste our strength on little matters. We know no way to do good to man, to make society really better, but to suppress our anger, keep our temper, show an elevated mind and a good heart. We must look for the good, not for the bad in men, and always put the best construction we can on all their doings."—Boston Reformer.

SECTION III.
APATHY IN CITIZENSHIP.

In England the idea of an American citizen is of one who is always talking politics, canvassing, bustling about to make proselytes abroad, buried in newspapers at home, and hurrying to vote on election days.

There is another side to the object. A learned professor of a western college told me abundance of English news, but declared himself ignorant of everything that had passed in the home portion of the political world. He never took any interest in politics. What would be the use of his disturbing himself? How far does one man's vote go? He does more good by showing himself above such affairs.

It was communicated to me that there are more modes of political action than one: and that, though this professor does not vote, he uses his utmost influence with the students of his college, in favour of his own political opinions; and with entire success. If this be true, the gentleman falls short of his duty in one respect, and exceeds it in another.

A clergyman in the north was anxious to assure me that elections are merely personal matters, and do not affect the happiness of the people. It matters not to him, for instance, who is in office, and what party in politics is uppermost: life goes on the same to him. This gentleman had probably never heard of the old lady who said that she did not care what revolutions happened, as long as she had her roast chicken, and her little game at cards. But that old lady did not live in a republic, or perhaps even she might have perceived that there would have been no security for roast chickens and cards, if all were to neglect political action but those who want political power and profit. In a democracy, every man is supposed to be his own security for life and property: and, if a man devolves his political charge upon others, he must lay his accounts for not being so well taken care of as he might be. So much for the selfish aspect of the case;—the view which might have been presented, with illustrations, to the old lady, if she had happened to live in a republic.

The clergyman ought to see further. He ought to see, in virtue of his office, how public morals must suffer under the neglect of public duty by respectable men. If such men were to perform the duties of citizens as conscientiously as they do those of husbands, fathers, and pastors, and leave it to the knaves to neglect the duties of citizenship, the republic might go on as well as a republic with knaves in it can go on. But if the case is reversed,—if the knaves are eager to use their political rights for selfish purposes, and the conscientious in other respects are remiss in the duties of citizenship, the pastors may almost as well leave off preaching. All good pastoral influence will be borne down by the spread of corruption. The clergy may preach themselves hoarse to little purpose, if they live, and encourage others to live, in the avowed neglect of the first duty of any one relation; and the exercise of the suffrage is the first duty of republican citizenship.

A naval officer, a man of an otherwise sound head and heart, told me, very coolly, that he had never voted more than twice in his life. His defence, in answer to my remonstrance, was, that he had served his country in other ways. In as far as this might be meant to convey that he could not vote at New York when in India, the excuse must be admitted as valid: but, if it was meant to apply to elections going on before his eyes, it was much the same as if he had said, "there is no occasion for me to be a good father, because I have been a good son."

A member of Congress gave me instances of what would have been the modifications of certain public affairs, but for the apathy of the minority about the use of their suffrage. If citizens regulate their exertions by the probabilities of immediate success, instead of by their faith in their own convictions, it is indeed no wonder if the minority leave everything to their adversaries; but this is not the way for men to show themselves worthy of the possession of political rights. This is not the way that society has advanced. This is not the way that security for life and property has been obtained for those idle citizens who are now leaving that security to the mercy of those whom they believe to be the enemies of society.

A public man told me that it would be a great point gained, if every citizen could be induced to vote, at least once a year. So far is it from being true that all Americans are the bustling politicians the English have been apt to suppose. If such political bustle should be absurd, the actual apathy is something worse. If it were only borne in mind that rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, surely all conscientious men would see the guilt of any man acquiescing in the rule of governors whom he disapproves, by not having recorded his dissent. Or, if he should be in the majority, the case is no better. He has omitted to bear his testimony to what he esteems the true principles of government. He has not appointed his rulers; and, in as far as he accepts their protection, he takes without having given, he reaps without having sown; he deprives his just rulers of a portion of the authority which is their due—of a portion of the consent of the governed.

There is another cause for the reluctance to vote which is complained of by the best friends of the people; but it is almost too humbling and painful to be discussed. Some are afraid to vote!

This happens not in the country, nor among the strength of the population in the towns: but among the feeble aristocracy. There is not, in the United States, as with us, a system of intimidation exercised by the rich over the poor. In the country, there are no landlords and tenants at will. In the towns, the tradesmen do not stand in need of the patronage of the rich. Though they vote by ballot, and any man who chooses it may vote secretly, (and many do upon occasion,) there is rarely any need of such protection. But there is no reason why the gentry, who may be afraid of hurting one another's feelings, should not use their power of secret voting, rather than neglect the duty of giving their suffrage. If the educated and principled men of the community, as they are esteemed, fall back into idleness and silence, when the time comes for a struggle for principles, and there is a danger of disappointing expectations, and hurting feelings, their country has little to thank them for. They are the men from whom the open discharge of duty is looked for; they are the men who should show that political obligation is above private regards. If they have not the virtue to do this, and take the consequences, let them avail themselves of the secrecy of the ballot-box, which in England is desired for the protection of those whom bad arrangements have made dependent for bread on the rich and powerful. At all events, let them vote, or be ashamed to accept the privileges of citizenship without having discharged the duties.

The fear of opinion sometimes takes the form of an almost insane dread of responsibility. There are occasions when public men, unable to judge for themselves of particular classes of circumstances, are obliged to ask advice of their friends and supporters. Happy he who obtains a full and true answer from any one! The chances against this are in proportion to the importance of the case. I knew of one such instance, the result of which more than one is, I trust, now grieving over in his inmost heart. An eminent statesman was hesitating whether to offer himself as a candidate for a very high office. He requested the opinion and advice of a number of gentlemen in public life, his supporters. All were of the same opinion; that he should not stand. No one of them chose to take the responsibility of telling him so. Some of them wrote ambiguous answers, hoping that he would infer that they thought ill of his chance. Others rather encouraged the enterprise. The illustrative details which might be given,—showing the general uniformity, with particular diversity, of the conduct of the advisers,—would be amusing if they were not too sad. Suffice it that no one, as far as I could learn, could get over his fear of responsibility so as to be faithful. They allowed their idol to make a fool of himself. If he should henceforth be sunk in political scepticism, perhaps these gentlemen may find that in shunning one kind of responsibility, they have incurred another, far heavier.

It is felt, and understood, in the United States, that their near future in politics is indiscernible. Odd, unexpected circumstances, determining the present, are perpetually turning up. Almost every man has his convictions as to what the state of affairs will be, in the gross, a century hence. Scarcely any man will venture a conjecture as to what will have happened next spring. This is the very condition, if the people could but see it, for the exercise of faith in principles. With a dark and shifting near future, and a bright and fixed ultimate destiny, what is the true, the only wisdom? Not to pry into the fogs and thickets round about, or to stand still for fear of what may next occur in the path; but to look from Eden gate behind to heaven gate before, and press on to the certain future. In his political as in his moral life, man should, in the depth of his ignorance and the fallibility of his judgment, throw himself, in a full sense of security, upon principles; and then he is safe from being depressed by opposition, or scared by uncertainty, or depraved by responsibility.

SECTION IV.
ALLEGIANCE TO LAW.

It is notorious that there is a remarkable failure in this department of political morals among certain parties in the United States. The mobbing events of the last few years are celebrated; the abolition riots in New York and Boston; the burning of the Charleston Convent; the bank riots at Baltimore; the burning of the mails at Charleston; the hangings by Lynch-law at Vickesburgh; the burning alive of a man of colour at St. Louis; the subsequent proceedings there towards the students of Marion College; and the abolition riots at Cincinnati. Here is a fearful list!

The first question that arises is, who has done these things? Whose hands have lighted green fagots round a living man? and strung up a dozen or twenty citizens on the same gallows? and fired and razed houses; and sent a company of trembling nuns flying for their lives at midnight? Here is evidence enough of ignorance,—of desperate, brutal ignorance. Whose ignorance?

In Europe, the instantaneous and natural persuasion of men who hear the tidings is, that the lowest classes in America have risen against the higher. In Europe, desperate, brutal ignorance is the deepest curse in the cursed life of the pauper and the serf. In Europe, mobbing is usually the outbreak of exasperated misery against laws which oppress, and an aristocracy which insults humanity. Europeans, therefore, naturally assume that the gentry of the United States are the sinned against, and the poor the sinners, in their social disturbances. They draw conclusions against popular government, and suppose it proved that universal suffrage dissolves society into chaos. They picture to themselves a rabble of ragged, desperate workmen, with torches in their hands; while the gentry look on in dismay, or tremble within their houses.

It is not so. I was informed, twenty times over, by gentlemen, that the Boston mob of last year was wholly composed of gentlemen. The only working man in it was the truck-man who saved the victim. They were the gentlemen of St. Louis who burned the black man, and banished the students of Marion College. They were the gentlemen of Cincinnati who denounced the abolitionists, and raised the persecution against them. They were the magistrates and gentry of Vickesburgh who hanged way-farers, gamblers, and slaves in a long row. They were the gentlemen of Charleston who broke open the Post Office, and violated its sacred function, to the insult and injury of the whole country.

The case is plain. There are no paupers to rise against oppressive laws in a country, where the laws are made by all, and where pauperism is thereby excluded. There is no degraded class, subject to insults from the highest, which can be resented only by outrage. The assumption is a false one, that ignorance and poverty, knowledge and wealth, go together. Mobbing for European causes, and in European modes, is absolutely precluded where political rights are universal, and political power equally diffused through all classes.

The very few European causes which are in analogy with United States mobbing, are those riots for opinion, which bear only a subordinate relation to politics; such as the Birmingham riots, and the attempt of the Liverpool merchants to push Clarkson into the dock. The cases are very similar. The mobs of America are composed of high churchmen, (of whatever denomination,) merchants and planters, and lawyers.