It is impossible to foresee the time when the blacks in this country
shall be set free; there is here a great gulf between the black and
the white. The difficulty here is not exactly of a pecuniary kind;
for, to apply to the two million and a half of American negroes the
process which the English have applied to their colonies, only 300
millions would be required, a sum which is not beyond the means of
North America. By rendering the process of emancipation more gradual,
so as to render it more slow and safe than in the English Islands, a
much less sum would be sufficient; but another obstacle occurs, against
which money can do nothing. The English nature is exclusive; English
society is divided into an endless number of little coteries, each
jealous of its superior, and despising its inferior. The Englishman is
in his own country, what his country is in reference to the rest of the
world, an islander.
This spirit of exclusiveness which prevails in society at home, appears
again in the relations of the English with other people. The Englishman
cannot fraternise with the Red Skins or the blacks; between him, and
them there is no sympathy, no mutual confidence. The Anglo-Americans
have retained and even exaggerated this trait of their fathers; and to
the men of the North as well as to those of the South, to the Yankee
as well as to the Virginian, the negro is a Philistine, a son of Ham.
In the States without slaves, as well as in those in which slavery is
admitted, the elevation of the black seems impossible. An American
of the North or of the South, whether he be rich or poor, ignorant or
learned, avoids a contact with the negro, as if he were infected with
the plague. Free or slave, well or meanly clad, the black or the man of
colour is always a Pariah; he is denied a lodging at the inns; at the
theatre or in the steamboats he has a distinct place allotted him far
from the whites; he is excluded from commerce, for he cannot set his
foot on 'Change nor in the banking rooms. Everywhere and always, he is
eminently unclean. Thus treated as vile, he almost always becomes so.
In Europe, blacks or coloured persons have sometimes filled high
stations; there is not an instance of the kind in the United States.
The republic of Hayti has its accredited representatives at the court
of France; it has none in Washington. An anecdote was told me at New
York of the disappointment of a young Haytian, who was a near relation
of one of Boyer's ministers, and who had received a good education in
France; having arrived in New York, he could not get admittance into
any hotel, his money was refused at the door of the theatre, he was
ordered out of the cabin of a steamboat, and was obliged to quit the
country without being able to speak to any body. At Philadelphia, I
heard of a man of colour who had acquired wealth, a rare thing among
that class, who used sometimes to invite whites to dine with him, and
who did not sit at table, but waited upon his guests himself. At the
dessert, however, upon their pressing him to be seated with them,
he would yield to their urgency. At the end of 1833, in one of the
New England States, and I think it was in Massachusetts,[DL] a man
of colour being on board a steamer with his wife, wished to get her
admitted into the ladies' cabin; the captain refused her admission.
A suit was, therefore, brought against the captain, by the man, who
was desirous of having it decided by the courts, whether free people
of colour, conducting themselves with propriety, could enjoy the same
privileges with whites in a State, in which they were recognised as
citizens by the laws. He gained his cause on the first hearing, but was
cast on appeal.
The different nations of the great Christian family, after having for
ages received the doctrines taught by the successors of St. Peter, have
selected out of the Christian scheme, some one principle most congenial
to their nature, and made it the basis of their character. The French,
a most Christian people, have chosen the principle of universal
charity. In our eyes, there are no longer Gentiles; our prepossessions
in favour of foreigners increase as the square of the distance that
separates their country from ours. The Spanish, a chivalric people,
have adopted with enthusiasm the adoration of the Virgin, which is of
a more modern origin. The Protestants have taken up the principle of
individual conscience, and this is nearly all that they have accepted
from Christianity; they have renounced the successive additions of the
church to the faith of the Apostles, and they have even rejected a part
of what Christ himself had engrafted on the Jewish theology. Among
Protestants, the Yankees have carried this retrograde tendency to the
greatest extreme; they have, except in some few points, relapsed into
Judaism, and returned to to the Mosaic law. They appeal in preference
to the maxims and doctrines of the Old Testament; they borrow their
names from it, and amongst the peculiarities that strike a Frenchmen
in New England, one of the strongest is the great prevalence of Hebrew
names, such as Phineas, Ebenezer, Judah, Hiram, Obadiah, Ezra, &c., on
the signs and in advertisements.
As the religion of the people exercises a controlling influence over
the general tone of its feeling and character, the Yankees, having
thus fallen back into Judaism, possess, like the Jews, that exclusive
spirit which was already inherent in their insular origin. The fact
is, that their religious notions square exactly with this depression
of the blacks. The blacks seem to them inferior beings; they revolt
against the thought of any assimilation with them, even in the
slightest degree; a mixture of the two races, or, as they call it,
_amalgamation_, is in their eyes an abomination, a sacrilege, which
would deserve to be punished, as the sin of the Hebrews with the
daughters of Moab was punished. The emancipation of the negro comprises
two things; the one, formal; that is manumission by the master, which
it would not be difficult to effect, if a sufficient indemnity were
offered to the planters and the country could pay it; and the other,
moral, that is, a real acknowledgment of the rights of the black, by
admitting him to the personal privileges of the white man, which would
meet with insurmountable obstacles at the North as well as the South,
and would, perhaps, be even more repugnant to the former than to the
latter.
The principal difficulty of emancipation, so far as regards the slave
himself, is also of a moral character. To render him fit for the
enjoyment of liberty, it is necessary that he should be initiated
in the duties and dignity of man, that he should labour in order to
pay his tax to society, and maintain his family with decency, that he
should learn to obey other motives than the fear of the lash. He must
learn the sentiment of self-respect; he must wish and know how to be a
father, son, husband. He only can have a perfect right to liberty, who
is in a condition to enjoy it with profit to himself and to society.
Slavery, odious as it is, is one form of social order, and should be
preserved where no better form can be substituted for it, as it must
disappear where the inferior is ripe for a better state of things.
In regard to the lower orders in Europe, the difficulty is of the same
kind with that which stands in the way of the emancipation of the
American slaves; it is only different in degree, and it is already half
overcome. In order that the hireling should be raised from his present
abject state, the higher classes must be ready to treat him as a being
of the same nature with themselves, and he himself must have acquired
higher sentiments than such as belong to his present condition. He
must not only be inspired with the desire of being happier, but also
with the ambition of being better. To establish new relations between
the different classes, both parties must labour with that firm will,
which recasts ideas and habits. The question of the improvement of
the condition of the lower classes is essentially a moral question. A
moral remodelling of society is the necessary preliminary. Now, whoever
pronounces the world moral in the wider sense of the term, means
religion. Philanthropy and philosophy have no hold on the moral nature
of man, unless they borrow it from religion. Religion only can move
the hearts of all classes deep enough, and enlighten the minds of all
strongly enough, to cause the rich and the poor to conceive new ideas
of their mutual relations, and to realize them in practice.
History teaches us, that civilisation, in its successive phases, has
gradually improved the condition of the lower classes; it proves also
that each of the great changes that have taken place in the condition
of the multitude, has been consummated or prepared by religion, and
accompanied by a change in religion itself. It was religion that struck
off the fetters of the slave, that gradually freed the serf from the
glebe. The free principles of the French revolution were only the
precepts of the Christian religion practised by persons who were no
longer Christians, and the revolutionary actors themselves gave to
Christ the title of _sans-culotte_, in their eyes a title of honour.
To render the efforts of the higher classes in favour of the people
vigourous and sustained, they must, then, be directed by religion.
To raise the lower orders effectually from their abasement, religion
must fix them steadily on that high moral level, to which they have
occasionally soared by sublime, but fitful and soon drooping flights.
Now, the higher classes have not faith. If among the highest, the
irreligious philosophy of the 18th century has of late lost adherents,
it restores and increases its numbers from among the lower ranks.
Incredulity has lowered its aim a peg; its train has lost in quality,
but gained in quantity. Irreligion is at work among the populace of
the cities, disposes them to revolt, and would make them unfit for the
regular enjoyment of liberty. When we have roads, when schools have
taught the whole population to read, which will be soon, you will see
irreligion infecting the country people, if you do not provide against
its approaches beforehand.
Christianity, or at least Catholicism, seems to be on the eve of
suffering a general desertion amongst us. And yet how far are we
from having drawn from the Christian principles, which some among us
affect to consider as exhausted, all the elements of popular liberty
and happiness which they contain! We are a most Christian people in
this sense, that we believe in the unity of the whole human family,
and we prove it by our good will to all nations; but it seems as if
we expend abroad all the heat that Christianity has developed in our
souls. We, the apostles of the brotherhood of nations, we have not
yet breathed into our relations to each other the principle of the
fraternity of men. We of the middle class, the sons of freedmen, think
that labourers, the sons of slaves, are of a different nature from
ourselves. We have still a remnant of the old pagan leaven at the
bottom of our hearts. We do not, indeed, with Aristotle, teach the
doctrine of two distinct natures, the free nature and the slave nature,
but we act in practice as if we were brought up in that faith. We are
not yet become the fathers and elder brothers of the peasant and the
operative; but in our relations to them, we are still their _masters_,
and hard masters too.
And unfortunately, whilst society, driven about by the waves, at the
mercy of chance and without a compass, is exposed to disasters, which
the control of religion alone can prevent, religion makes no effort
to resume the helm and recover her authority. In the midst of nations
which are rushing onward at every risk, Catholicism stands still,
silently shrouded in her mantle, with her arms folded, and her eyes
bent on heaven. The Church bore all the shocks of the revolutionary
storm with a heroic resignation; she meekly submitted to be scourged
with rods, like the Just One; like him she has been fixed to the cross,
and has opened her mouth only to pray for her executioners. But the
sufferings of the Just have saved sinners and changed the face of the
world; nothing betokens that the recent sufferings of the Catholic
church will have any saving power. From the tomb where it was laid for
dead, we see it bring back no scheme for the restoration of suffering,
longing humanity.
The Roman Church is yet what it was four hundred years ago; but within
that period the world has become quite another thing; it has made great
progress, and freed itself from the meshes of the past, with the firm
purpose not to be again involved in them. If civilisation, then, is
about to assume a new form, as every thing forebodes, religion, which
is at once the beginning and end of society, the key-stone and the
corner-stone, religion, must also re-cast herself. Would it be the
first time that Christianity has modified her forms and rules, to adapt
herself to the instincts and the tendencies of the nations she has
sought to bless?
In this country, religion has wrought the elevation of the lower
classes. Puritanism has been the starting point of the democratic
movement. The Puritans came to America, not in quest of gold, nor
to conquer provinces, but to found a church on the principle of
primitive equality. They were as I have before said, new Jews; they
wished to govern by the laws of Moses. In the beginning the state was
completely swallowed up by the church; they divided themselves into
religious congregations, in which all the heads of families were equal,
conformably to the Mosaic law, over which the elders and the saints
presided, and in which all earthly distinctions were abolished or
contemned. One of the first objects of their care, under the influence
of their religious views, was to establish schools, in which all the
children should be educated together and in the same manner. Although
unequal in respect to property, all adopted the same habits of life.
The physical exertions, to which all were obliged to devote themselves
in common, in order to defend themselves from famine and the savages,
strengthened their habits and feelings of equality. Now, New England,
which is inhabited exclusively by the sons of the Puritans, and in
which their traditions and their faith are still kept unchanged, has
ever been, and is yet, the focus of American democracy.
Thus American democracy has been enabled to organise and establish
itself. All our efforts, on the contrary, to found a democracy in
France in 1793, would have been vain, even had we not been unfitted for
democratic habits, because we wished to build on irreligion, on the
hatred of religion. Manners and feelings must prepare and inspire the
means of social improvement; the laws must express and prescribe them.
Politics and religion, then, must join hands in this difficult task.
Politics, as well as religion, must be transformed for the furtherance
of civilisation, and the safety of the world.
I admire the results, which the political system of the United
States has produced in America. But it seems to me impossible, that
the institutions by which the condition of the people has been so
much bettered here, can be naturalised amongst us. There must be
harmony between the political and religious schemes that are suited
to any one people. Protestantism is republican; puritanism is
absolute self-government in religion, and begets it in politics. The
United Provinces were Protestant; the United States are Protestant.
Catholicism is essentially monarchical; in countries, which are
Catholic, at least by recollections, habits, and education, if not
by faith, a regular democracy is impracticable. The anarchy of the
former Spanish colonies fully proves to what bitter regrets Catholic
nations expose themselves, when they attempt to apply to themselves the
political institutions of Protestant countries.
Under the influence of Protestantism and republicanism, the
social progress has been effected by the medium of the spirit of
individuality; for protestantism, republicanism, and individuality
are all one. Individuals stand apart from one another, or if they are
associated together, they have formed only limited associations, which
have no common bond of union. The republic of the United States is
indefinitely subdivided into independent republics of various classes.
The States are republics in the general confederation; the towns are
republics within the States; a farm is a republic in a county. Banking,
canal, and railroad companies, are so many distinct republics. The
family is an inviolable republic in the state; each individual is a
republic by himself in the family. The only effective militia consists
of volunteer companies, which have no connexion with each other. The
religious organisation of the country resembles its civil and political
organisation. The different sects are independent of each other, and
most of them tend to split up into completely detached fragments.
Our national genius, on the contrary, requires that in France we
should act chiefly under the influence of association and unity, which
are characteristic traits of Catholicism and monarchy. France is a
specimen of the completest political and administrative unity that
there is in the world. Our individual existence must be bound up with
others; we love independence, but we do not feel that we live unless
we make a part of a whole. Solitude overpowers us; the personality of
the Englishman or the American can sustain itself alone; ours must be
linked with that of others. For a people eminently social, like the
French, how is it possible that the spirit of association should not be
the best? But it must retain the distinction of ranks; for with us, a
republican association would degenerate into anarchy.
If, then, I should attempt to define the conditions most favourable
to the improvement of society in France, I should say that they
require it to be undertaken under the influences of religion; that
its accomplishment should be confided to the constituted authorities,
central and local, and particularly to royalty; that it should be
effected by means of institutions bearing the double impress of unity
and hierarchical association, and reposing immediately on the general
association, which is the state, or supported by powerful intermediary
associations, which should be themselves attached to the state. The
nearer we approach these conditions, the more complete will be our
success, the sooner shall we have the happiness of seeing our beloved
France, prosperous within, recover the high station which she ought to
occupy in the world.