The present aspect of this country is, in a high degree, calculated
to encourage the friends of peace in their hopes and wishes with
respect to a rupture with France. The Americans of all parties conduct
themselves in their private affairs like men who are convinced that
business will experience no interruption from that quarter. A person
who landed at New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, on the day that news
was received of the effect produced in France by the President's
message, and had since played Epimenides, would not now recognise
the United States; the most unlimited confidence has succeeded to
the general anxiety. Every body is speculating, and every thing has
become an object of speculation. The most daring enterprises find
encouragement; all projects find subscribers. From Maine to the Red
River, the whole country has become an immense _rue Quincampoix_. Thus
far every one has made money, as is always the case when speculation is
in the ascendant. And as soon-come soon goes, consumption is enormously
increased, and Lyons feels the effect. I said that every thing has
become an object of speculation; I was mistaken. The American,
essentially practical in his views, will never speculate in tulips,
even at New York, although the inhabitants of that city have Dutch
blood in their veins. The principal objects of speculation are those
subjects which chiefly occupy the calculating minds of the Americans,
that is to say, cotton, land, city and town lots, banks, railroads.
The amateurs in land at the north, dispute with each other the
acquisition of the valuable timber-lands of that region; at the
southern extremity, the Mississippi swamps, and the Alabama and the
Red River cotton lands, are the subject of competition, and in the
West, the corn fields and pastures of Illinois and Michigan. The
unparallelled growth of some new towns has turned the heads of the
nation, and there is a general rush upon all points advantageously
situated; as if, before ten years, three or four Londons, as many
Parises, and a dozen Liverpools, were about to display their streets
and edifices, their quays crowded with warehouses, and their harbours
bristling with masts, in the American wilderness. In New York building
lots[CT] have been sold sufficient for a population of two million
souls, and at New Orleans, for at least a million. Pestilential
marshes and naked precipices of rock have been bought and sold for
this purpose. In Louisiana, the quagmires, the bottomless haunts of
alligators, the lakes and cypress-swamps, with ten feet of water or
slime, and in the North, the bed of the Hudson with 20, 30, or 50 feet
of water, have found numerous purchasers.
Take the map of the United States; place yourself on the shore of Lake
Erie, which twenty years ago was a solitary wilderness; ascend it to
its head; pass thence to Lake St. Clair, and from that lake push on
towards the north, across Lake Huron: go forward still, thread your
way through Lake Michigan, and advance southwards till the water fails
you; here you will find a little town by the name of Chicago, one of
the outposts of our indefatigable countrymen when they had possession
of America. Chicago seems destined, at some future period, to enjoy
an extensive trade; it will occupy the head of a canal, which is to
connect the Mississippi with the lakes and the St. Lawrence; but at
present it hardly numbers two or three thousand inhabitants. Chicago
has in its rear a country of amazing fertility; but this country is yet
an uncultivated wild. Nevertheless the land for ten leagues round has
been sold, resold, and sold again in small sections, not, however, at
Chicago, but at New York, which, by the route actually travelled, is
2,000 miles distant. There you may find plans of Chicago lots numerous
enough for 300,000 inhabitants; this is more than any city of the New
World at present contains. More than one buyer will, probably, esteem
himself fortunate, if, on examination, he shall find not more than six
feet of water on his purchase.
Speculations in railroads have hardly been less wild than those in
land. The American has a perfect passion for railroads; he loves
them, to use Camille Desmoulins' expression in reference to Mirabeau,
as a lover loves his mistress. It is not merely because his supreme
happiness consists in that speed which annihilates time and space;
is also because he perceives, for the American always reasons, that
this mode of communication is admirably adapted to the vast extent of
his country, to its great maritime plain, and to the level surface
of the Mississippi valley, and because he sees all around him in the
native forest, abundance of materials for executing these works at a
cheap rate. This is the reason, why railroads are multiplied in such
profusion, competing not only with each other, but entering into a
rivalry with the rivers and canals. If the works now in process of
construction are completed (and I think that they will be,) there
will be, within two years, three distinct routes between Philadelphia
and Baltimore, exclusive of the old post-route; namely, two lines
consisting wholly of railroads, and a third consisting in part of
steamboats, and in part of railroad. The line that has the advantage of
half an hour over its rivals, will be sure to crush them.
The manner of establishing banks here is this; an act authorising
the opening of books in a public place, for subscription of stock,
is obtained from the legislature, and all persons have the right
to subscribe on payment of a certain sum, say five, ten, or twenty
per cent. on the amount of stock taken by them respectively. The
affair of opening the books becomes a matter of the greatest moment.
In France, we form lanes (_on fait queue_) round the doors of the
theatres; but in the United States, during the last year, the doors of
the sanctuaries in which the books for registering the subscriptions
for bank-stock have been deposited, have been thronged with the
most intense solicitude. In Baltimore, the books were opened for a
new bank, the Merchants' Bank, with a capital of two millions; the
amount subscribed was nearly fifty million. At Charleston, for a
bank of the same capital, ninety millions were subscribed, and as
the act in this instance required the advance of 25 per cent., the
sum actually paid in, in paper money to be sure, but yet in current
bills at par, amounted to twentytwo and a half millions, or more
than eleven times the capital required. This rage for bank-stock is
easily explained. Most of the banks here are, in fact, irresponsible
establishments, which have the privilege of coining money from paper.
The share-holders, by means of a series of ingenious contrivances,
realise 8, 9, 10, and 12 per cent. interest on capital, which they do
not actually hold; and this in a country where the five per cents. of
Pennsylvania and New York, and the six per cents. of Ohio are at 110 to
115. The Ohio sixes! What would the heroes of Fort Duquesne think of
that, if they should come back?
Most of these speculations are imprudent, many of them are foolish.
The high prices of to-day may and needs must be followed by a crisis
tomorrow. Great fortunes, and many of them too, have sprung out of the
earth since the spring; others will, perhaps, return to it before the
fall of the leaf. The American concerns himself little about that;
violent sensations are necessary to stir his vigourous nerves. Public
opinion and the pulpit forbid sensual graduations, wine, women, and the
display of a princely luxury; cards and dice are equally prohibited;
the American, therefore, has recourse to business for the strong
emotions which he requires to make him feel life. He launches with
delight into the ever-moving sea of speculation. One day, the wave
raises him to the clouds; he enjoys in haste the moment of triumph.
The next day he disappears between the crests of the billows; he is
little troubled by the reverse, he bides his time coolly, and consoles
himself with the hope of better fortune. In the midst of all this
speculation, whilst some enrich and some ruin themselves, banks spring
up and diffuse credit, railroads and canals extend themselves over
the country, steamboats are launched into the rivers, the lakes, and
the sea; the career of the speculators is ever enlarging, the field
for railroads, canals, steamers, and banks goes on expanding. Some
individuals lose, but the country is a gainer; the country is peopled,
cleared, cultivated; its resources are unfolded, its wealth increased.
_Go ahead!_
If movement and the quick succession of sensations and ideas constitute
life, here one lives a hundred fold more than elsewhere; all is
here circulation, motion, and boiling agitation. Experiment follows
experiment; enterprise succeeds to enterprise. Riches and poverty
follow on each other's traces, and each in turn occupies the place of
the other. Whilst the great men of one day dethrone those of the past,
they are already half overturned themselves by those of the morrow.
Fortunes last for a season; reputations, during the twinkling of an
eye. An irresistible current sweeps away everything, grinds everything
to powder, and deposits it again under new forms. Men change their
houses, their climate, their trade, their condition, their party,
their sect;[CU] the States change their laws, their officers, their
constitutions. The soil itself, or at least the houses, partake in
the universal instability.[CV] The existence of social order, in the
bosom of this whirlpool seems a miracle, an inexplicable anomaly. One
is tempted to think, that such a society, formed of heterogeneous
elements, brought together by chance, and following each its own
orbit according to the impulse of its own caprice or interest,--one
would think, that after rising for one moment to the heavens, like a
water-spout, such a society would inevitably fall flat in ruins the
next; such is not, however, its destiny. In the midst of this general
change, there is one fixed point; it is the domestic fire-side, or, to
speak more correctly, the conjugal bed. An austere watchman, sometimes
harsh even to fanaticism, wards off from this sacred spot everything
that can disturb its stability; that guardian is the religious
sentiment. Whilst that fixed point shall continue invariable, whilst
that sentinel shall persist in his vigilant watch over it, the social
system may make new somersets, and undergo new changes without serious
risk; it may be pelted by the storm, but while it is made fast to
that hold, it will neither split nor sink. It may even be divided into
separate and independent masses, but it will still grow in energy, in
resources, in extent.
The influence of the democracy is so universal in this country, that
it was quite natural for it to raise its head amidst the speculators.
There have, therefore, been strikes on the part of the workmen, who
wish to have a share in the profits of speculation, and who have
demanded higher wages and less work. The former demand was just, for
all provisions, all articles of consumption have risen in price. These
coalitions are by no means timid in this country; for the English
practice of haranguing in public and getting up processions prevails
here, and the working class here feels its strength, is conscious of
its power, and knows how to make use of it. The different traders
have held their meetings in Philadelphia, New York, and other places,
discussed their affairs publicly, and set forth their demands.
The women have had their meeting as well as the men. That of the
seamstresses of Philadelphia attracted notice; Matthew Carey, known
as a political writer, presided, assisted by two clergymen. Among the
demands of the trades, that of the journeymen bakers, who, by virtue
of the rights of man and the sanctity of the seventh day, would not
make bread Sundays, is worthy of attention. The principal trades have
decided that all work shall be suspended until the masters,[CW] if this
name can be applied here except in derision, have acceded to their
_ultimatum_. That every one may know this, they have caused their
resolutions to be published in the newspapers, signed by the president
and secretaries of the meeting. These resolutions declare that those
workmen, who shall refuse to conform to their provisions, will have
to abide the _consequences_ of their refusal. The _consequences_ have
been, that those refractory workmen, who persisted in their labours,
have been driven, with stones and clubs, from their workshops, without
any interference on the part of the magistrates. The _consequence_ is,
that at this very moment, a handful of boatmen on the Schuylkill canal,
prevent the coal boats from descending to the sea, lay an embargo upon
them, and thus interrupt one of the most lucrative branches of the
Pennsylvania trade, deprive the mariners and ship-owners, who transport
the coal to all parts of the coast, of wages and freights, and expose
the miners to the danger of being dismissed from the mines. Meanwhile
the militia looks on; the sheriff stands with folded arms. If this
minority of the boatmen, for these acts of disorder are the work of a
small minority, persists in their plans, a fight between them and the
miners is to be apprehended.[CX] In Philadelphia, the _consequence_
has been, that the carpenters, in order to reduce some contractors
to terms, have set fire to several houses, which these latter were
building. In this case, the authorities at length interfered, the
mayor issued a proclamation, reciting that, whereas there is reason
to believe these fires to be the work of some evil-minded persons, he
offers 1000 dollars reward to whoever shall disclose the authors of the
same. But it is too late. The municipal authorities, for the purpose,
it is said of gaining a few votes on the side of the Opposition,
instead of interposing their power between the workmen and the masters,
hastened, from the first, to comply with all the demands of the former
who were employed on the municipal works.
The philosopher, in whose eyes the present is but a point, may find
reason to rejoice in considering these facts. Workmen and domestics
in Europe live in a state of absolute dependence, which is favourable
only to him who commands. Legitimists, republicans, the _juste-milieu_,
all comport themselves toward the operative whom they employ, or the
domestic who is in their service, as if he were a being of an inferior
nature, who owes his master all his zeal and all his efforts, but who
has no claim for any return beyond a miserable pittance of wages.
One may be permitted to wish for the establishment of a juster scale
of rights and duties. In the United States, the absolute principle
of the popular sovereignty having been applied to the relations of
master and servant, of employer and operative, the manufacturer
and the contractor, to whom the workmen give the law, endeavour to
dispense with their aid as much as possible, by substituting more and
more machinery for human force; thus the most painful processes in
the arts become less burdensome to the human race. The master, whose
domestics obey him when they please, and who pays dear[CY] for being
badly and ungraciously served, favours, to the extent of his power, the
introduction of mechanical contrivances for simplifying work, in order
to spare himself the inconveniences of such a dependence.
It would be worth while to study not only the great manufacturing
machinery, but the common hand tools and domestic utensils, in this
country. These utensils, tools, and machines exert a powerful influence
upon the practical liberty of the greatest number; it is by means of
them, that the most numerous class of society gradually frees itself
from the yoke which tends to crush and abase it. In this point of view,
the present relations between the employer and the employed, between
the master and the servant, in this country, tend to hasten the coming
of a future, which every friend of humanity must hail with joy. But
if the philosophical satisfaction is ample, present, physical comfort
is almost absolutely wanting. But whoever is neither operative nor
domestic, whoever, especially, has tasted and enjoyed the life of the
cultivated classes in Europe, he will find the actual practical life in
America, the mere bone and muscle, as it were, of life, to consist of a
series of jars, disappointments, mortifications, I had almost said, of
humiliations. The independence of the operatives is sometimes the ruin
of the masters; the independence of servants involves the dependence of
the women, condemns them to household labours little consonant with the
finished education which many of them have received, and nails them to
the kitchen and the nursery from the day of their marriage to the day
of their death.
When the innovating force, acting without check or balance, operates
with an excess of energy, all classes suffer equally from the
derangement. Not only what in Europe are called the higher classes,
(but which here must take another name,) are deprived of a thousand
little enjoyments, which it is a matter of convention to despise in
books and set speeches, although every one sets a high value on them in
practice; but the whole social machine gets out of order, discomfort
becomes general, and the extravagant claims of the lower classes, to
speak as a European, recoil violently on themselves. At this very
moment, for example, the Sybarites of Philadelphia, whose hearts are
set upon having fresh bread on Sunday, are not the only persons who
suffer or are threatened with suffering. If the exaggerated pretensions
of the working classes are persisted in, they will lose their custom,
there will be no demand for labour. Speculations, if not made solid
by labour, will burst like soap-bubbles, and if a reaction comes, the
operative, who is little used to economise, will feel it more sensibly
than others.