It has been already shown (_Letter X._), that there are in the United
States two strongly marked types, the Yankee and the Virginian, the
mutual action and reaction of which have hitherto been the life of the
Union. A third is rising in the West, which seems destined to become
the bond and umpire of the two others, if it is able to preserve its
own unity; which will not, however, be easy, for the West comprises
slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. For the present, this
high office is filled by the Middle States, or rather by New York,
which is the most important State not only of this group, but of the
whole Union. To be a mediator between two types, it is necessary to
unite in one person the principal qualities of both; the State of
New York, then, should combine the large views of the South with
the spirit of detail that marks the North. To be, even imperfectly,
the personification of the principle of unity in the great American
confederation, it is indispensable that the claimant of that honour
should possess in a high degree the spirit of unity. To achieve the
work of centralisation or consolidation in America, even partially,
demands a high degree of the genius of centralisation. For some time
there has appeared in the administration of the State of New York, a
character of grandeur, unity, and centralisation, that has procured it
the title of the _Empire-State_. Although it is the nearest neighbour
of the New England States, and actually borders upon three of them,
although a large number of its inhabitants are of New England origin,
it has succeeded in freeing itself from the spirit of extreme division
that is characteristic of the Yankees, or rather in counterbalancing it
by a proportional development of the spirit of unity.
The Opposition, which is in the minority in the legislature in the
State, and does not, therefore, feel in good humour, endeavours to
create among the people a dislike to this control of the central power.
"You are led," it says, "by the Albany Regency; a half-dozen of the
friends of Mr Van Buren, taking their cue from Governor Marcy, make
you their puppets." The Opposition exaggerates; but it is certain,
that the organisation of the State, and the forms of administration,
which have been established of late years under the influence of Mr Van
Buren, and which form a precedent for the future, bear the impress of a
centralism, at which the friends of unlimited individual independence
have a right to take alarm, but which wise men must applaud; for it is
by means of it that the State of New York is become superiour to the
others, and it is by it alone that it can maintain its superiority.
This combination of expansive force, which prevails every where else in
the American confederacy, with a sufficient cohesive power, has given
to the constitution of New York an elasticity, which, for communities
as well as for individuals, is the condition of a long and prosperous
existence.
The organisation of the public schools and of public instruction in
general is centralised. Most of the States have a school-fund, the
income of which in New England is distributed among the towns, who
dispose of it according to their own good pleasure, without the State
having the right to exercise any real control over it, or imposing
any conditions in regard to it. New York proceeds more imperially;
it obliges the different towns to raise a sum equal to that to which
they are entitled from the State, under penalty of not receiving their
share of the State fund. This method is preferable to that followed
in Connecticut, which distributes annually among the towns about the
same sum as New York, but exacts no account of the manner in which it
has been employed, and cannot even be sure that it has been actually
devoted to the purpose of instruction.
In 1834, the public schools in New York were attended by 541,400
pupils; now the number of children between five and sixteen years of
age in the districts from which returns were received, comprising
very nearly the whole State, was only 543,085. The whole expenditure
for schools was 1,310,000 dollars, of which 750,000 dollars was for
pay of teachers. The amount expended in France for the same object is
only three times as great as that expended by New York, which has one
sixteenth of the population of France. The number of children in our
schools is 2,450,000, or one thirteenth of the population, which is
only one third of the proportion in New York.
All the common schools in New York are under the supervision and
control of a board of commissioners, mostly composed of several of
the chief officers of the government, and of which the Secretary of
State is the most active member. The commissioners make provision for
the instruction of teachers, require an account of the condition of
the school, and select the text books. Virginia, Ohio, and some other
States have adopted a similar system in this respect; but New York
has this peculiarity, that it has also a board, styled the board of
Regents of the University, who are appointed by the legislature, and
have the control of the higher schools called academies. There are
seven colleges in the State, one of which is styled the University of
New York, and corresponds, very remotely it is true, to the English and
German Universities.
The control of the government over the academies is at present very
limited; it is little more than an annual visit by one or more of the
Regents of the University, but it can easily be extended, whenever the
State shall think proper, by means of the system of pecuniary aid; in
1834, the sum distributed among these seminaries was 12,500 dollars.
The number of pupils in the Academies was a little more than 5,000, or
two and a half pupils out of each thousand souls. In France, there were
80,000 pupils in the colleges, which is the same ratio to the whole
population. It would appear from this comparison, that in the United
States, where the advantages of elementary instruction are universally
realised, the desire for a higher degree of instruction is less general
than with us, for the number of families that can afford to pay is
proportionably much greater in the United States than in France. Thus
in regard to a higher education, we recover, in some measure, the
superiority, which the Americans, at least in New York, have over us in
respect to elementary education.
The same spirit of unity and centralisation has dictated a general
regulation of a singular character in respect to the banks, which may
prove to be of great value in practice, and to which there is nothing
similar, either in the other States, or in any other country. The
Safety-Fund-Act establishes a bank fund appropriated to making good
any losses incurred by the failure of any of the banks. Each bank is
required to pay annually to the State treasurer, a sum equal to one
half of one per cent. on its capital, until it shall have so paid in
the sum of three per cent. on the capital stock. Whenever the bank
fund is reduced by paying the debts of an insolvent bank, it must be
restored to the proper amount by the same process. The banks, together
with the fund, are under the supervision of three Commissioners, one
of whom is appointed by the Governor, and the two others by the banks.
The Commissioners visit each bank at least once in four months, examine
into its operations, and satisfy themselves that it has conformed
itself to the provisions of its charter. They are beside required to
make a particular examination of any bank on the demand of three other
banks, and in case of detecting any violation of the charter, to apply
to the court of chancery for an injunction against it.
This law contains several sections designed to aid the Commissioners in
the execution of their duties, and to prevent their being imposed on by
the banks; it gives them the right to inspect the books, and to examine
the officers of the bank under oath. The salary of the Commissioners is
2,000 dollars, which is paid out of the bank fund. Any bank director
or officer who shall make false returns to the legislature, or false
entries in the books, or exhibit false papers with intent to deceive
the Commissioners, is subject to imprisonment for not less than three
nor more than ten years. Every bank subject to this act may receive
legal interest on loan and discounts; but on notes which shall be
mature in sixty-three days from the time of discount, it shall receive
only six per cent. per annum. It is further provided that the issues or
circulation of any bank shall not exceed twice its capital stock, and
that its loans and discounts shall never exceed twice and a half that
amount; but this provision has not hitherto been rigidly observed.
The number of banks in the State is eighty-seven, of which only
seventy-seven are subject to the provisions of the Safety-Fund-Act,
the others having been established before the date of the act. But as
all will be obliged to renew their charters within ten years, with the
exception of the Manhattan bank alone, which has a perpetual charter,
they will all, with one exception, be brought under the act. The
aggregate of the bank capital in the State is 31,280,000 dollars; the
bank fund amounts to above 538,000 dollars. The annual amount of the
loans and discounts of the banks is estimated at about 300 millions,
exclusive of the operations of the three branches of the United States
Bank; that of the banks of the city of New York alone, is about 180
million, or twice as much as that of the Bank of France.
Nothing, however, has contributed so much to give New York its
_imperial_ reputation, as the energy it has displayed in canalling its
territory. All the resources of the State were devoted to this object;
all the energies of its citizens were bent for eight years on the
accomplishment of this great work. In spite of the worst predictions
and earnest remonstrances of some of the most respected men in the
Union, the confidence of this young State never faltered for a moment.
Complete success attended its efforts; the great canal, begun in 1817,
was finished in 1825. The State has since executed a great number of
canals, at an expense of above twelve millions, the greater part of
which has been raised by loan. Several others are still in progress.
The Erie canal, the most important of these works, is simple in
construction, not very deep nor very wide. But if it is not peculiarly
interesting as an object of art, it is an object of admiration
considered as a great commercial artery. From our canals, which are
navigated by heavy and clumsy boats slowly and painfully dragged
forward by a man, you can get no idea of this great channel, with its
fleet of light, elegant, covered barks gliding along at a rapid rate,
and drawn by a powerful team. Every minute boats are passing each
other, and the boatman's horn warns the lock-master to be in readiness.
Each moment, the landscape varies; now you pass a river by an aqueduct,
now you traverse large new towns, fine as capitals, with all their
houses having pillared porticoes and looking externally like little
palaces; it is an admirable spectacle of life and variety. The amount
of property annually transported on the Erie Canal is 430,000 tons, on
the Champlain canal, 307,000 tons, at very moderate rates of toll. The
annual amount of tolls is 1,500,000 dollars; that on the French canals
and rivers is only 900,000 dollars.
In 1817, when it began the great canal, the State of New York contained
1,250,000 inhabitants, scattered over a surface about one fourth as
large as France. Whilst in Europe, grave publicists were discussing
the question, whether a State should undertake the execution of public
works, and the most powerful governments were listening scrupulously
to the debate, in order to determine whether they had the right to
enrich their subjects by productive enterprises,--the same governments
who never doubted their right to waste millions of men and treasure
in devastating Europe,--the modest authorities of this miniature
empire solved the question, without dreaming that it could embarrass
great potentates in other quarters. The State of New York undertook
the execution of public works, and has found its advantage in them;
after having executed them, it has managed them itself on its own
account, and found even greater advantages in this. The income from the
canals, with the aid of some slight additions, has been sufficient to
sink nearly half the debt contracted in their construction. Thus the
brilliant success of the Erie canal, became the signal for the greatest
undertakings of a similar character by the other States. Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and Indiana have followed the example of New
York, and have undertaken to open routes of communication of every
kind, through their territories, at their own expense, even at the risk
of incurring the reproaches of the timid economists of Europe.
New York has carried her interference in public works still further;
in all the charters for railroad companies, the State reserves to
itself the right of acquiring the property of the railroad, after the
expiration of ten years, and on certain conditions named in the act of
incorporation, which are truly liberal on the part of the State; they
stipulate the re-payment of the first cost and the sums expended in
repairs, and the supply of any deficiency in the dividends below ten
per cent.[DM]
Thus the State of New York, in its imperial humour, has laid hands
on public instruction, banks, and the means of communication, with
the purpose of centralising them; the design is already effected in
respect to public works; it is not yet fully accomplished in regard
to the schools and the banks; but its fulfilment approaches gradually
and surely. As I have already said, the spirit of centralisation has
penetrated more deeply into the administration of the State, than into
the acts of the legislature; a guarantee, that the laws of unity will
not remain paper rules.
The lessons of New York have turned to the profit of its neighbours;
like it, they also begin the work of centralisation, in embracing
schools, banks, and public works within the action of the State. They
see, by its example, that the spirit of individual enterprise does not
suffer, when the government subjects to its control and its authority
these three great springs of national prosperity, and even when it
sets them in action on its own account; for nowhere is the spirit of
enterprise more vigourous and clear-sighted than in New York. In spite
of the Safety-Fund-Act, there are nowhere more numerous applications
for the incorporation of banking companies. Notwithstanding the school
laws, nowhere do institutions of education increase more rapidly.
Nowhere are there more railroads in progress. The State contains 80
miles of canal and 100 of railroads, constructed by companies; from
150 to 200 miles of railroad are now in process of construction, and a
company has been organised for constructing a railroad from the Hudson
to Lake Erie through the southern counties, a distance of 350 miles.
It would be too much to suppose that a country like France, where
so much value is set on the principles of unity and centralisation,
would be less courageous than these little republics, born under the
influence of the individual principle, and that we should any longer
delay to take an _imperial_ course in regard to institutions of credit,
public works, and industrial education. The object to be accomplished
is not merely to increase the wealth of the country. But there are
other and more elevated motives to induce modern governments to take
part in such institutions, and thus to extend their control over the
interests and operations of industry.
The progress of civilisation, considered with reference to the
individual, consists in this; that each becomes more and more suited to
bear the weight of his individuality. Social order, being thus supplied
with stronger individual guarantees, seems to require less and less
of legal and public ones; but in this matter, there is an important
distinction to be kept in view. Civilisation gradually strips man of
the grosser habits and the brutal propensities of savage life. There
are many prohibitions and commands in the Deuteronomy, which in our day
would be perfectly superfluous. Mankind hardly has further need to be
taught: _Thou shalt not kill_. The lictor and the headsman are losing
their social importance; the constable, the sheriff, and the gaoler
are, it is to be hoped, on the eve of taking their places every where.
Public order has begun, and will continue more and more, to dispense
with the use of the sword; and thus individual reason substitutes its
voluntary sanction for the imperative sanction of political power and
the force of arms.
The human understanding is expanded and enlightened by cultivation;
the heart is elevated and purified; yet the elementary passions are
the same. They are combined under different forms, and are turned to
different objects; but if they are moderated, it is only in outward
appearances; if they are polished, it is only on the surface; within
all is as rough and fierce as ever.[DN] In politics, particularly,
jealousy and ambition exist in the same degree amongst us as they
did amongst the Greeks and Romans; they no longer wield the dagger
or administer the poison, they do not even employ an assassin or a
Locusta; but they are neither less unjust, nor less insatiable, nor
less bitter than in ancient times; they do not stab the body, but they
wound the honour; slander takes the place of the stiletto, and serves
them as well as the juices of venomous plants; civilisation furnishes
them a thousand new means of assuaging their thirst. I do not believe
that Sylla and Marius, Cæsar and Pompey, hated each other more
cordially than General Jackson, President of the United States, and Mr
Biddle, president of the United States' Bank. If one were to search out
the types of Cain and Abel among modern statesmen, the list would be of
frightful length.
To that force of dissolution, which increases instead of diminishing,
in proportion to the increasing number of individuals admitted to
a share of political influence, it is necessary to oppose cohesive
elements of equal activity and intensity. It is for this reason that
in the future, as well as in the past, the existence of society
involves that of religion. Even did not religion touch the tenderest
cords and stir the liveliest sensibilities of the human heart; if it
did not offer to the imagination a vast field in which to wander in
safety; even if it were not indispensable to peace of conscience and to
domestic tranquillity, it would be impossible to get along without it,
for it has also a political necessity. It has been rightly said, that
if there were no God, it would be necessary to feign one.
A single institution, however, would not suffice to regulate and govern
the passions at all times and in all places, unless it were to follow
men in all their movements, control them in all their acts, bind them
hands and feet, or, in a word, unless it were despotic, after the image
of the old theocracies. It is not, then, to be hoped, that, in our free
countries, religion alone can counterbalance human passions and confine
them within the limits, in which they subserve the progress of society;
or at least, if it can do this in one of the social hemispheres, the
family, it will always be insufficient in the other, the state. For
this reason, the Middle Ages established a salutary principle, when
they separated the temporal power from the spiritual authority, and
gave strength and independence to each. From that time, all efforts to
confound these two powers, or, which amounts to the same thing, to
dispense with one of them, have been completely unsuccessful; they have
generally resulted in establishing a tyranny.[DO]
A temporal authority, armed with ample prerogatives, is, then,
indispensable at the present day, even in behalf of liberty itself.
On the other hand it is impossible to deny that the tendency of
civilisation is to strip the throne of its ancient attributes, either
in whole or in part. On this head, our age has taken a decided stand.
The resistance of kings to the efforts of those who have assailed the
throne, has served to exasperate the latter to such a pitch, that a
party,--that of the republicans,--has been formed, the sole object
of which is the complete and radical abolition of monarchy, and the
singular doctrine of the inutility and even the danger of all power has
found numerous and warm adherents.
The people are right to desire the kings to lay down or to curtail
their old prerogatives; the governments, that are the heirs of
conquest, ought to abdicate whatever there is of violence and brutality
in their authority. It would be premature to assert that universal
peace is about to dawn on the earth; it is not so to affirm that war
is henceforth to be a secondary and accidental matter in the history
of nations. Industry, that is to say, the art of creating wealth,
multiplying the means of happiness, and adorning the globe, the
residence of the human family, will henceforth take precedence of the
art of slaying and wasting. The sword is ceasing to be the highest
emblem of power. But kings are right, in their turn, to prevent their
power being reduced to an empty shadow. Independently of all individual
ambition, from the lofty height on which they are placed, they see that
the preservation of the order of society demands the presence of a
power worthy of the name. And what proves the justness of their view is
the fact, that men of all parties who have taken part in the government
during our revolutionary crisis, have all agreed in this point whatever
may have been their former opinions; it is the only point on which they
have been unanimous.
The truth is, that while we are taking from governments, we must
also be giving to them. War is no longer the principal object of the
activity of nations; the employment of brute force becomes less and
less necessary to the preservation of society; let us then gradually
reduce, with a firm hand, those prerogatives of power which give it an
exclusively warlike character, and which leave our lives and liberties
at the discretion of its armed creatures! Since industry is occupying
a wider and wider space in the existence of the individual and the
nation, let us cause it to enter more and more completely into the
sphere of government, by including in the attributes of government
its three springs, banks, means of communication, and schools; on
condition, be it understood, that government shall use the new powers
with which it shall be thus invested, for the general good.
The banks, means of communication, and schools are instruments of
governments, which it would be unwise to leave wholly out of the
influence of the public authority, but which there could be no harm
in partially incorporating with it, in such a manner as not to stifle
the spirit of individual enterprise. The public authority would then
exercise its functions conformably with the tendencies of the national
character, and would preside over the most important events of the
national life; it would then really deserve the name of government; it
would possess a new means of coercion and restraint, which is the only
one compatible with the progress of the spirit of liberty. Instead of
having a hold on the body and blood of the subject, it would have a
hold on his industry and his purse. A new degree of inviolability would
thus be secured to the individual, without the social order losing
its needful guarantees. By this means in fine the political advent of
industry would be accomplished. Instead of being a cause of agitation
and change, once sure of its rank and secure in its seat, industry
would act an important conservative part in society.
Every thing is now ripe for this political transfiguration. Forty
years ago, the people looked for their own elevation in the overthrow
of the old order of things. Hatred has now ceased to be their chief
counsellor; the thirst for destruction is cooled; they think less of
shaking off the yoke of tyrants, more of freeing themselves from the
burdens of ignorance and poverty. The road to liberty which would now
be preferred in Europe, passes through competency, education, and
industry. Those who were once the temporal and spiritual heads of the
people would soon regain their lost rank, if calming the fears with
which the curses uttered against the last of kings and the last of
priests had filled them, they knew how to put themselves at the head
of such a march; for the people could follow them with joy. By what
fatality is it, that they still doubt and hesitate?
I know not if I deceive myself, but it seems to me, that, in this
matter, the example must come from France. Not that she has greater
sums in her treasury; not that she counts more soldiers under her
flag, more ships in her ports, more cannon in her fortresses, but that
she has the most sagacious intellect, and the noblest heart; that the
world is accustomed to receive the watchword from her. London, with
its thousands of ships, might be burnt to the ground, and the rest of
the world would be no otherwise affected by the event, than as by a
lamentable disaster which has befallen a foreigner; the recoil of a
mere riot in Paris is felt to the ends of the world. The revolution
of July gave birth to Parliamentary Reform; the Reform bill would
never have brought forth July. It is because France is the heart of
the world; the affairs of France interest all; the cause which she
espouses is not that of a selfish ambition, but that of civilisation.
When France speaks, she is listened to, because she speaks not her
own feelings merely, but those of the human race. When she acts, her
example is followed, because she does what all desire to do.
France was the first on the European continent to enthrone liberty;
it is for her to re-seat the principle of authority, for the fulness
of its time is come. She protected the people when protection was
necessary; it is now for her to protect kings; not by the edge of the
sword, although she must not break her own, which has done so much for
civilisation (for that would be sacrilege), but by the wisdom and the
moral superiority of her new principles of government, by the creative
power of the new attributes with which she invests authority.