In a society devoted to production and traffic, money must be regarded
with other eyes, than among a people of military spirit, or nourished
in classical studies and scientific speculations. Among the latter,
it must be looked upon, theoretically at least, as vile metal. With
them honour and glory are more powerful and more common motives of
action than interest; they are the coin with which many persons are
content, the only coin which many persons are ambitious to acquire.
In an industrious society, on the other hand, money, the fruit and
object of labour, is not to be despised; a man's wealth is the measure
of his capacity and of his consideration among his fellow-citizens.
Whatever may be the cause, the fact is certain, that money is not
the same thing here that it is with us; that it weighs here where
with us it has no weight; that it appears openly here, where with us
it would hide itself. When I was in England, I was surprised at the
number of notices in the docks, threatening, for instance, a fine
for certain offences, with a promise of half to the informer. If a
prefect of the police should offer such a premium to informers among
us, our blood would boil with indignation. In this country the same
practice prevails, and seems to be still more frequent. When a crime
is committed, the authorities offer a reward of 100 or 200 dollars to
whoever will make known or deliver up the criminal. In Philadelphia, I
saw the governor of the State and the mayor of the city endeavouring to
outbid each other in promises; a murder had been committed during one
of the preliminary elections, and those officers, who were of different
parties, endeavoured to prove by the greatness of their offers, that
the opposite party was guilty of the act. In some cases of incendiarism
or poisoning, a reward of 1000 dollars has been offered. It should be
observed, however, that in England, out of London, and in this country,
there is no organised police like ours, and it, therefore, becomes
necessary that the citizens themselves should act as a police.
The maxim here is that everything is to be paid for. Museums and
institutions for higher instruction to which admission is gratuitous,
are here unknown. Nor are those unpaid offices, which take a citizen
from his business, and would make it impossible for him to provide for
the support of his family, if he discharged them faithfully, known
here. The municipal offices in the country have no pay attached to
them, because they take up little time and require little attention,
and because a man in the country has more leisure than the busy
inhabitant of the city. But in the cities all officers are paid, as
soon as their functions come to occupy much of their time. The custom
of paying by the day, which prevails in England, is very general here.
Members of Congress are paid at the rate of eight dollars a day, and
if a legislative committee prolongs its sessions beyond those of the
legislative body, the pay is continued on the same footing. All the
State legislatures are paid by the day. Canal commissioners, who are
generally men of some distinction, that is, rich men, are generally
paid in the same way, an account being kept of the number of days they
are employed in the public service; for them the pay amounts merely
to the payment of their expenses. Those, however, who are permanently
occupied, receive an annual salary. In some offices, the incumbents
are paid by fees for each affair in which they become engaged; this
is generally the case with the States' Attorneys and the Justices of
Peace, and with the Aldermen in some of the cities. The public officers
who are regularly employed, such as the Governors of the States, and
the Mayors of the principal cities have a fixed annual salary. It is a
settled principle here that all work should stand on the same footing
with industrial labour, and be paid in the same manner. Intellectual
merchandise and material merchandise, capital and talent, dollars
and science, are here placed on the same level; this practice puts
every one at his ease, and facilitates, abridges, and simplifies all
operations. No one feels the least embarrassment in asking for a
service, which he knows will be paid for. Everything is settled plainly
and easily, because in an industrious and prosperous society every one
has the power to be liberal.
Money is also made an instrument of punishment, as well as of reward.
It is well known that, in England, a conviction for adultery enriches
the wronged husband at the expense of the guilty paramour, and the same
practice would prevail here, if the crime were not extremely rare.
The American law is very sparing of bodily punishments for simple
misdemeanours, but it makes very free use of fines. On most bridges,
there are notices forbidding the passing with horses at any other pace
than a walk, under penalty of a fine of 2, 3, or 5 dollars. When a man
is suspected or even accused of a crime, such as forgery, arson, or
murder, it is not his person, but his purse that is secured; that is,
instead of being arrested, he is obliged to give bail in a sum which
is left to the discretion of the Judicial authority. Last year, while
a convention for revising the constitution of Tennessee was in session
in Nashville, one of the members, a militia general, of whom there are
thousands in the country, a man of large property, and therefore very
respectable, got into a quarrel with an editor of a newspaper, and
uttered violent threats against him. Some days afterward, in company
with another violent fellow, he actually discharged a pistol at his
adversary in the bar-room of a hotel, and wounded him dangerously. The
affair was brought before the proper authorities, and the assassin was
admitted to bail, being thus left at full liberty on depositing some
thousand dollars, continuing to sit in the Convention and to assist
in the formation of the new constitution of the State.[CP] So much
tenderness towards an assassin, and similar proceedings which I have
witnessed relative to incendiaries and persons guilty of forgery,
recall to mind those times of barbarism, in which criminals were
redeemed at a price. It will be readily imagined, after what has been
said, that imprisonment for debt is very abhorrent from American ideas;
in fact, a general clamour has been raised against it; most of the
States have already abolished it, and others will not long delay to
follow the example.
Money, is therefore, the sanction of the laws and of the most simple
police regulations. If a magistrate has good reason for believing that
an individual has intentions to break the peace, instead of taking him
into custody as a measure of prevention, he requires him to give bail
for his good behaviour. It is by money-penalties, also, that chartered
companies are obliged to conform to the provisions of their charters.
It is by fines, that even the magistrates are punished for neglect of
duty. To remedy the inconveniences arising from the minute subdivision
and dispersion of administrative authority in the New England States,
resort is also had to money. In that part of the Union, the repair of
roads is left to the care of the towns, and it is plain that the travel
through a whole State might be seriously incommoded by the neglect
of one town. It is, therefore, provided by law, that every town shall
be responsible for any accidents to travellers within its limits,
which may be owing to the bad state of the roads; it is not uncommon
to read accounts in the newspapers of a town being condemned to pay
a traveller, who has been overturned on its roads or bridges, 500 or
1000 dollars damages. The city of Lowell was very lately condemned to
pay 6,000 dollars to two travellers, who had broken their legs by such
an accident. The judge charged that the plaintiffs should not only be
reimbursed for the expenses of the cure, but also for the estimated
probable earnings of their industry during their confinement.
Amongst us, it is not money, but honour, that occupies the most
conspicuous place, and if it be admitted that the sentiment of honour
lies at the foundation of monarchies, and if every thing turn upon
this one principle, this is very well. The principle of honour is
quite as good in every view, whether logically, morally or practically
considered, as the principle of money. It is, indeed, more congenial to
the generosity of the French character; but then it is necessary that
the honour should be something real, that the consideration it gives,
should be incontestable; it is necessary that the authority which
is the source of honour, should be itself respected. If the supreme
authority is insulted and despised, public functions become not a
source of consideration, but of contempt. If jealousy and suspicion of
power are admitted and consecrated by the modern spirit of legislation
and administration, is it not true that your pretended recompense of
public service by the consideration and dignity they confer, is a
mockery, and that your whole system is founded upon a contradiction? If
royalty still sat all-powerful on the magnificent throne of Versailles,
amidst its guards glittering with steel and gold, surrounded by the
most brilliant court of which history preserves the record, and by
the fascinations with which the homage of the arts invested it; or if
the prince were a saviour of his country, raised on the buckler by his
victories, and dating his decrees from the palace of vassal kings,
or from the Schoenbrunn of the conquered Kaisers; if he crowned and
uncrowned kings, as our ministers now make and unmake sub-prefects; if
at a breath of his mouth, victorious veterans calmly met death; if the
world did him homage; if he were the anointed of the Lord, the choice
and idol of the people; if you had yet the monarchy of Louis XIV.,
or of Napoleon, you would be welcome to speak of consideration and
honour! It was then distinction enough to be noticed by a royal look.
The favour of the sovereign then secured the confidence, or at least
the outward homage of the people. The point of precedence was worthy
of being a subject of envy in the days of the splendour of Versailles,
or when one might lose oneself in the crowd of kings in the Tuileries.
But what does it signify now-a-days, when royalty has lost its poetical
attributes, when public ceremonies are abolished, when there is no
longer a court or court-dress? Titles have been profaned and degraded
by the ignorance and stupidity of those who ought to have supported
their dignity, or sullied by the jealousy of the commons. As for your
ribands you have been obliged to scatter them under the hoofs of
horses. The system of honour is, therefore, gone by; to restore it, a
revolution would be necessary; not a revolution like that of July, but
a revolution like that which was going on during the three centuries
between Luther and Mirabeau, and which, ripe at last, has been shaking
both worlds during the last fifty years; a revolution in the name of
authority, like that which our fathers accomplished in the name of
liberty.
Among the sayings attributed to M. de Talleyrand, the following is
often quoted; "I don't know an American that hasn't sold his horse
or dog." It is certain that the Americans are an exaggeration of the
English, whom Napoleon used to call a nation of shop-keepers. The
American is always bargaining; he always has one bargain afoot, another
just finished, and several more in meditation. All that he has, all
that he sees, is merchandise in his eyes. The poetical associations
which invest particular spots or objects with a character of sanctity,
have no place in his mind. The spire of his village church is no more
than any other spire to him, and the finest in his view, is the newest,
the most freshly painted. To him a cataract is a motive power for his
machinery, _a mill privilege_; an old building is a quarry of bricks
and stones, which he works without the least remorse. The Yankee will
sell his father's house, like old clothes or rags. In his character of
pioneer, it is his destiny to attach himself to nothing, to no place,
edifice, object, or person, except his wife, to whom he is indissolubly
bound night and day, from the moment of marriage till death parts them.
At the bottom, then, of all that an American does, is money; beneath
every word, money. But it would be a mistake to suppose that he is
not capable of making pecuniary sacrifices; he is in the habit of
subscribing to all useful objects, and he does so without reluctance or
regret, oftener than we are accustomed to do, and more liberally also;
but his munificence and his donations are systematic and calculated. It
is neither enthusiasm nor passion that unties his purse strings, but
motives of policy or considerations of propriety, views of utility and
regard for the public good, in which he feels his own private interests
to be involved. The American, therefore, admits some exceptions to
his general commercial rule of conduct. He gives money, he attends
committee-meetings, he draws up in haste a report or an opinion; he
even goes in person, at high speed, to Washington, in order to present
a set of resolutions to the President, or he hastens to a neighbouring
city to attend a public dinner, and returns in equal haste; but he
requires in this case that the exception to the general rule should be
sharply defined and the cause strongly marked, that the public interest
should be at stake. And he particularly insists that the sacrifice
should be of money only, once for all, and that his time should be
respected. To everything of a private nature, to everything that takes
up his time and demands his attention, he applies the mercantile
principle, nothing for nothing. He pays the services of others with
dollars, and he expects others to do the same by him, because he looks
upon compliments as too hollow and light to be put in the scale against
labour, and because distinctions, such for instance as precedence, are
unknown and incomprehensible to him. With him it is an indisputable
maxim, that the labourer is worthy of his hire. The ideas of service
and salary are so inseparably connected in his mind, that in American
almanacs it is common to see the rate of pay annexed to the lists of
public officers. He is of opinion that nobody can live on a dry crust
and glory; he thinks of the welfare of his wife and children, of a
provision for his old age, and if he were told that there is a country
in which these considerations are disregarded, for the purpose of
obliging a neighbour or paying a courtesy to a magistrate, such a thing
would appear absurd to him.
High pay is not, however, consonant with the spirit of democracy,
because it is incapable of discerning its propriety. The mechanic who
makes 500 dollars a year, thinks himself generous towards a public
officer to whom he gives 1,500 or 2,000; just as our citizens of the
middling class in Paris, who have an income of 10,000 francs, cannot
see why a public functionary should not be content with 12,000. The
Americans thought that among them, as elsewhere, there would be
two kinds of coin, money and public consideration, and they were
persuaded, on the authority of Franklin, that it would be easy to
find able public officers, whose salary should chiefly consist in the
honour of public station. But they were mistaken; for office is here
no title to respect, but quite the contrary; and as public services
are neither paid by dollars nor consideration, only a Hobson's choice
is left to the people. With the exception of a very small number of
places, which the delights of power still cause to be sought after,
notwithstanding the cost of the pleasure of commanding and having
dependents or subordinates, office is generally sought for only by
the floating part of the population, which has been unsuccessful in
business, and tried one occupation after another in vain. It is not
even, strictly speaking, a profession, but rather the temporary resort
of persons who have no settled pursuit, who, as soon as they find a
more eligible employment in industry or speculation, take leave of the
State. The West Point Academy sends out about forty lieutenants for
the army annually; about one third of these resign their commissions
before two or three years of service, because the pay of the officers,
although much higher than with us, is very inconsiderable compared with
the profits of a merchant or the salary of an engineer.
The duties of a public officer are generally less difficult in the
United States than in France. Among us every question that arises,
embraces a great complication of interests, and requires more
knowledge. The powers and duties of the government in France are much
more extensive and more various, and more care is exacted of persons
in the public employ among us, than in this country. Yet the average
of salaries here is much greater than with us. When the Congress and
the States shall stand in need of able men for functionaries, they will
do as the American merchants do to their clerks, they will pay them.
Congress, having lately become sensible of the importance of securing
the services of good naval officers, has just raised the pay of that
corps.[CQ] It may even be said that the number of office-holders who
are treated with illiberality, is very small.[CR] Out of 158 persons
employed in the service of the Treasury department at Washington, there
are only 5 who receive less than 1,000 dollars, and there are only two
who receive more than 2,000; this is the application of the principle
of equality to pay. As the price of common objects of consumption, that
is, bread, meat, coffee, tea, sugar, and fuel, is generally lower in
the United States than in France, and especially in Paris, a salary
of 1,500 or 2,000 dollars is sufficient in most cases to support a
family in comfort and abundance. An officer of the government, who
receives from 400 to 600 dollars in Paris, lives only by practising the
strictest economy if he is a bachelor, and suffers great privations
if he is a married man. At Washington he would receive from 1,000 to
1,200 dollars, and would live in abundance and comfort, if not in
style and luxury. Nor would he here, as with us, be condemned to the
punishment of Tantalus, for the pomp and splendour of the privileged
classes in the European capitals is unknown in the United States. In
Paris, the _employé_ is bespattered with mud by the equipage of a man
who spends his 20,000 dollars a year; in the streets of Philadelphia,
he would elbow a rich capitalist who kept no coach because he would not
know what to do with it, and who, with a revenue of 30,000 or 60,000
dollars, cannot spend more than 8,000 or 10,000 at the most. The ratio
of conditions, which in Paris is as one to forty, is here not more than
one to eight.
Here the condition of the richest merchant, and that of a mechanic and
a farmer, are not essentially different; the difference is merely in
degree and not in kind. All have similar houses, built on a similar
plan; only that one has a front five or six feet wider, and is one
or two stories higher than another; the distribution of apartments,
and the furniture are similar. All have carpets from the cellar to
the garret, all sleep in large high-post bedsteads very much like
each other, projecting out into a chamber without closets, alcoves,
or double door, and with bare walls; only the carpets of the one are
coarse, and those of the other are fine, the bedstead of the rich is
of mahogany, and that of the mechanic of cherry or walnut. In general
the table is served much alike; there is the same number of meals,
and there is nearly the same number of dishes. This is so much the
case, that, if my French palate had to decide between the dinner of a
great city hotel (excepting those of Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
and Baltimore), and that of a country inn, at which I should sit by
the side of the blacksmith of the place, with sooty visage and with
sleeves rolled up, I think that I should really pronounce in favour of
the latter. This is especially the case in the North, and particularly
in New England, the land of the Yankees. In the South, the condition
of the planter on his estate gains all that is taken from the mass
of the population, or the slaves. And even at the North, of late
years, commerce, which has collected men into large cities, has also
accumulated capital in single hands, and created great fortunes. The
inequality of condition is, therefore, beginning to manifest itself;
the style of the new houses in Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, with
their first story of white marble, is a blow at equality. The same
innovation is creeping in in New York; the anti-democratical tendency
of commerce is revealing itself.[CS]
It might be expected that among a people so deeply absorbed in material
pursuits, misers would abound; but it is not so. There is never any
niggardliness in a Southerner; it is sometimes found in the Yankee,
but nowhere do you see specimens of that sordid avarice, of which
examples are so common among us. The American has too high a notion
of the dignity of human nature, to be willing to deprive himself and
his children of those comforts which soften the asperities of life;
he respects his own person too much not to surround it with a certain
degree of decency. Harpagon is never to be met with in the United
States, and yet Harpagon is not by a great deal the most wretchedly
degraded miser, that European society exhibits. The American is
devoured with a passion for money, not because he finds a pleasure in
hoarding it up, but because wealth is power, because it is the lever by
which he governs nature. I ought also to do the Americans justice on
another point. I have said that with them every thing was an affair of
money, and yet there is one thing, which among us, a people of lively
affections, prone to love, and generous by nature, takes the mercantile
character very decidedly, and which among them has nothing of this
character; I mean marriage. We buy woman with our fortune, or we sell
ourselves to her for her dower. The American chooses her, or rather
offers himself to her, for her beauty, her intelligence, or her amiable
qualities, and asks no other portion. Thus, whilst we make a traffic
of what is most sacred, these shop-keepers exhibit a delicacy and
loftiness of feeling, which would have done honor to the most perfect
models of chivalry. It is to industry that they are indebted for this
superiority. Our idle cits, not being able to increase their patrimony,
are obliged in taking a wife to calculate her portion, in order to
decide if their joint income will be enough to support a family. The
American, having the taste and the habits of industry, is sure of being
able to provide amply for his household, and is therefore, free from
the necessity of making this melancholy calculation. Is it possible to
doubt, that a race of men, which thus combines in a high degree the
most contradictory qualities, is reserved for lofty destinies?