Our old European societies have a heavy burden to bear; it is that of
the Past. Each age is the guarantee of the acts of those that have gone
before it, and imposes a similar obligation on those which follow it.
We are paying interest on our fathers' errors; we pay it in the first
place under the form of the public debt; we pay it also in the charges
for the support of our fine army, for among the causes which oblige all
Europe to keep the flower of its population under arms, we must reckon
the animosities of our fathers. We pay it, and at a higher rate, in all
those habits of distrust and suspicion, which have been bequeathed
to us from times of anarchy and despotism. The accumulated weight of
a long Past must, indeed, be an insupportable burden, since the Roman
empire, first in Rome, and afterwards in Constantinople, whither it was
removed to escape the load, crumbled and sunk beneath it. All nations,
which have been the glory of the world, have been ground to a lifeless
dust, like the ashes of the tombs, by the pressure of a Past, which
hemmed them in on every side. Will the Europe of our age undergo the
fate of its predecessors? There is reason to hope that it will be more
fortunate; for, having their example before its eyes, it must be wiser
than they, and it is at the same time more pliant in its temper, and
more elastic in its forms.
One of my friends, some time ago visiting the great iron-works of
Crawshay & Co., in Wales, was struck with the fact, that the numerous
railroads connected with the works, were constructed on an old and
very imperfect system. On inquiring the reason, and observing that the
saving in traction, would pay the expense of a re-construction with the
improved rail, "Nothing is more just," he was told; "but we retain our
old flat rails, and we shall do so for a long time, because it would
take two or three years to make a change; and in the mean while, it
being impossible to keep the wagons running on both rails at the same
time, we should have to stop operations, and to leave fifty thousand
workmen without work and without bread. The difficulty is merely in
the transition, but at present it seems to be insurmountable." So it
is in regard to society. It is easy to see that one system has decided
advantages over another, and that if society could be transported
from one to the other by a blow of the wand, much would be gained;
but between the two there is a great gulf. How can it be passed? How
is it possible to assure vested right, to which nothing seems to be
guarantied on the opposite side? How overcome the opposition of the
privileged class, who resist the change? How check the impatience of
the multitude, eager to enter into the enjoyment of the benefits which
it expects to find on the other shore?
In regard to social reforms, the question is wonderfully simplified,
by merely transplanting it, that is, by going into new countries to
resolve it. The old country is then abandoned to old interests and old
ideas, and the emigrant lands disengaged and unembarrassed, ready to
undertake every thing, and disposed to try every thing. He has left
behind him in the mother-country a thousand associations and relations,
which surround existence, and give it, if you please, its ornaments and
its charm, but which also tend to check its activity, and make society
slow to answer the demands for reform. The first of all innovations is
the change of soil, and this necessarily involves others. Vested rights
do not emigrate; they are bound to the old soil; they know no other,
and no other knows them. Privileges, which are respected because they
are consecrated by time, do not venture upon a new soil, or if they
hazard the trial, they cannot become acclimated there. A colony is like
a besieged city; each one must serve with his person; each one passes
only for what he is worth personally. In a society which has no Past,
the Past counts for nothing.
It is to be remarked, therefore, that projects of social reform,
conceived in the bosom of established societies, in which opportunity
is afforded for the calm exercise of thought, have generally been
obliged to be transported to other shores, and to take root in
barbarous lands, in order to be carried into execution, and to be
embodied under the form of a new society. Civilisation has advanced
from the East toward the West, increasing in vigour at every remove,
although the founders of new colonies have generally quitted a more
civilised country for a barbarous one. Thus Italy and Greece, daughters
of Asia and Egypt, have gone beyond their mothers; thus western Europe
has eclipsed the glories of Greece and Rome. Soon after having given
birth to the new nations, the old ones have perished violently, or
have fallen into an obscurity worse than death, merely from a want
of will or energy to apply the principles which gave vigour to their
offspring,--principles of a new social order, founded on the wider
extension of liberty and the greater diffusion of privileges,--to their
own wants.
Providence had done much to prepare the European races, when
transported across the ocean, for becoming the founders of great and
powerful nations. The English-Americans, who were the last comers, and
did not arrive until after the Spaniards had established their dominion
over equinoctial and southern America, left the Old World only after
it had been aroused and agitated by the intellectual revolution of
which Luther was the Mirabeau, and of which in England, Henry VIII.
was the Robespierre and the Napoleon. This great event had already
sown those seeds in the human breast, which were to swell and expand
through succeeding ages. England was already big with those habits of
industry and order, which were destined to make her the first nation
of the Old World in the sphere of industry and in political greatness.
Her children, therefore, carried with them the germ of those principles
and institutions, which were to secure to them the same supremacy
in the New. They embarked, at least this was the case with those of
New England, the pilgrims, the fathers of the Yankees, after having
undergone the ordeal of fire and water, after having been seven times
tried between the sledge and the anvil, between persecution and exile.
They arrived wearied out with political quarrels, and bent on devoting
their energies to pacific and useful purposes.
They seated themselves under a climate which differed little from
that of their native skies. Thus they escaped the danger of becoming
enervated by the influences of a warm and balmy atmosphere, like that
in which the fiery spirits of the Castilian race were tamed; they
landed on an almost uninhabited shore, and had only a few poor tribes
of Red Skins for enemies and neighbours, whilst the Spaniards had to
contend with the numerous armies of the brave Aztecs in Mexico, and
their successors, the Creoles, have had to keep in check on the one
side the Comanches and the _Indios Bravos_ of the north, and on the
other the Araucanians of the southern Cordilleras. If the English had
encountered a numerous population like that which resisted Cortez, they
would have had to conquer it, and doubtless they would have succeeded
in so doing; but after the victory, they would have been obliged to
keep it in subjection, and the yoke of the English race is harder than
that of the Spaniards. Their social organisation would then have been
founded on the servitude of the inferior castes, red and mixed; the
new society would have been tainted with a deep-seated disease, which
would have reduced it to a much lower state than European society, and
have sunk it to the level of ancient communities, which were founded on
personal slavery. It is not, indeed, completely free from this taint at
present; since negroes have been brought into the country, and twelve
States out of twentyfour are defiled with the pollution of slavery. The
portion of the country which has been left for the pure white race, is,
however, ample enough to receive a large community composed of the same
materials with the European nations, and affording great facilities for
combining them in a better order.
If they had found powerful enemies to combat, if war had been
constantly hanging over their heads, they would have been obliged to
submit themselves to a military aristocracy, spite of the instinct of
self-government and independence which runs in British veins, and of
which they had a double share. In that case, the Anglo-American society
would have been only a copy, and an inferior copy of the English; as
the Canadians, for example, were merely an imitation of the French,
under the old order of things. The English colonists sometimes had to
repel the attacks of the French, who had possession of the west and of
the basin of the St Lawrence; but after the capture of Quebec, they
found themselves completely delivered from the most momentous public
charge, that of defending their territory and their independence.
They were, therefore, able to dispense with a military establishment,
to turn all their thoughts and energies to their domestic concerns,
and to devote themselves exclusively to the work of colonisation.
They ceased to stand in need of the English guardianship, and they
freed themselves from it, that they might expand themselves and take
their own course without let or hindrance. Finally, yielding to their
natural impulse, they tried their great democratic experiment, which
is already shedding such a brilliant light upon the prospect of
improvement in the condition of the lower classes in all countries.
From these circumstances and influences, has resulted a new political
and physiological phenomenon, a hitherto unknown variety of the human
race, inferior to the English and French types in many respects,
particularly in taste and philosophy, but superiour to the rest of the
human family by its extraordinary combination of sagacity, energy of
will and hardy enterprise, by its admirable aptitude for business, by
its untiring devotion to work, and above all by its recognition and
protection of the rights of the labouring classes, hitherto treated as
the offscourings of society.
It seems, then, that the Americans are called to continue the series of
that succession of progressive movements which have characterised our
civilisation ever since it quitted its cradle in the East. This people
will become the founders of a new family, although perhaps the features
which now predominate in it will hereafter cease to be the prominent
traits; whilst the Spanish-Americans seem to be an impotent race, which
will leave no posterity behind it, unless by means of one of those
inundations which are called conquests, a current of richer blood from
the North or the East, shall fill its exhausted veins.
An eminent philosopher, who is an honour to the French name,[DY]
defines the progress of the human race in its slow and majestic
pilgrimage round our globe, by the term initiation. Following out this
thought, we may pronounce North America, at least the non-slave-holding
States, to be already in advance of us; for, in many respects, what
amongst us is accessible only to a small number of the elect, has
become common property in the United States, and is familiar to the
vulgar. The conquests of the human mind, to which the Reformation
gave the signal and the impulse, and the great discoveries of science
and art, which, in Europe are yet concealed from the general eye by
the bandage of ignorance and the mists of theory, are, in America,
exposed to the vulgar gaze and placed within the reach of all. There
the multitude touches and handles them at will. Examine the population
of our rural districts, sound the brains of our peasants, and you will
find that the spring of all their actions is a confused medley of the
Bible parables with the legends of a gross superstition. Try the same
operation on an American farmer, and you will find that the great
scriptural traditions are harmoniously combined, in his mind, with the
principles of modern science as taught by Bacon and Descartes, with the
doctrine of moral and religious independence proclaimed by Luther, and
with the still more recent notions of political freedom. He is one of
the _initiated_.
Amongst us the powerful instruments and machinery of science and art,
the steam-engine, the balloon, the voltaic pile, the lightning-rod,
inspire the multitude with a religious dread. In France, out of a
hundred peasants in the recesses of our provinces, you will not
find one, who, after having witnessed their effects, would dare to
lay his hand upon them; they would fear to be struck dead, like the
sacrilegious wretch who touched the ark of the Lord. But to the
American, on the contrary, these are all familiar objects; he knows
them all by name, at least, and he feels that they are his. To the
French peasant they are mysterious and terrible beings, like his fetish
to the negro, his manitou to the Indian; but to the cultivator of the
western wilds, they are, what they are to a member of the Institute,
tools, instruments of labour or science; again, therefore he is one of
the _initiated_.
There is no _profanum vulgus_ in the United States, at least amongst
the whites; and this is true not only in regard to steam-engines and
electrical phenomena, but the American multitude is also much more
completely _initiated_ than the European mass, in all that concerns the
domestic relations and the household. The marriage tie is held more
sacred amongst the lowest classes of American society, than among the
Middle Class of Europe. Although the marriage ceremony has fewer forms
than amongst us, and the connexion is more easily dissolved,[DZ] cases
of adultery are extremely rare. The unfaithful wife would be a lost
woman; the man, who should seduce a woman, or should be known to have
an illicit connexion, would be excommunicated by the popular clamour.
In the United States, even the man of the labouring class is more
completely _initiated_ in the obligations of the stronger sex toward
the weaker, than most of the men of the Middle Class in France. Not
only does the American mechanic and farmer spare his wife, as much as
possible, all the hard work and employments unsuitable to the sex, but
he exhibits towards her and every other woman, a degree of attention
and respect, which is unknown to many persons amongst us, who pride
themselves on their education and refinement. In public places and in
the public conveyances, in the United States, no man, whatever may be
his talents and his services, is treated with any particular attention;
no precedence or privilege is allowed him; for all men are equal. But
a woman, whatever may be the condition and fortune of her husband, is
sure of commanding universal respect and attention.[EA]
In political affairs, the American multitude has reached a much
higher degree of initiation than the European mass, for it does not
need to be governed; every man here has in himself the principle of
self-government in a much higher degree, and is more fit to take a
part in public affairs. It is also more fully _initiated_ in another
order of things, which are closely connected with politics and morals,
that is, in all that relates to labour. The American mechanic is a
better workman,[EB] he loves his work more, than the European. He is
_initiated_ not merely in the hardships, but also in the rewards, of
industry; he dresses like a member of Congress; his wife and daughters
are dressed like the wife and daughters of a rich New York merchant,
and like them, follow the Paris fashions. His house is warm, neat, and
comfortable; his table is almost as plentifully provided as that of the
wealthiest of his fellow citizens. In this country, the articles of
_the first necessity_ for the whites, embrace several objects, which,
amongst us, are articles of luxury, not merely among the lower, but
among some of the middle classes.
The American multitude is more deeply _initiated_ in what belongs
to the dignity of man, or, at least, to their own dignity, than the
corresponding classes in Europe. The American operative is full of
self-respect, and he shows it not only by an extreme sensibility,
by pretensions which to the European _bourgeoisie_ would appear
extraordinary,[EC] and by his reluctance to make use of the term
_master_, for which he substitutes that of _employer_, but also by
good faith and scrupulous exactness in his engagements; he is above
those vices of slavery, such as theft and lying, which are so prevalent
amongst hirelings with us, particularly amongst those of the towns
and their manufactories.[ED] The French operative is more respectful
and submissive in his manners, but hard-pressed by poverty, and
surrounded by temptations, he rarely neglects a chance of cheating
his _bourgeois_, when he can do it with impunity. The operative of
Lyons practises the _piquage d'onces_; those of Rheims secrete the
gold lace.[EE] There are, doubtless, frauds committed in America;
more than one smart fellow has his conscience oppressed with numerous
peccadilloes. How many strolling Yankee pedlers have sold charcoal for
indigo, and soapstone for soap to the rural housewives! But in the
United States these petty frauds are rare exceptions. The character of
the American workman is in a high degree honourable, and excites the
envy of the European when he compares the prospect here presented to
him with the aspect of things in his own country.[EF]
What has been said above applies still more strongly to the farmer;
not being obliged, like the operative, daily to contest the rate of
his wages with an employer, surrounded by his equals, and a stranger
to the seductions of the city, the American farmer possesses the
good qualities of the operative at least in an equal degree, and has
his faults in a much less degree. He is less unjust and less jealous
towards the richer or more cultivated classes.
If then we examine the condition of the American multitude, we find
it, taken as a whole, to be much superiour to that of the mass in
Europe. It is true that it appears to be almost completely destitute
of certain faculties, which are possessed by the European populace.
There are, for instance, at times, a hundredfold more gleams of taste
and poetical genius in the brain of the most beggarly _lazzarone_ of
Naples, than in that of the republican mechanic or farmer of the New
World. The houseless young vagabonds of Paris have transient flashes of
chivalric feeling and greatness of soul, which the American operative
never equals. This is because the national character of the Italians is
impregnated with a love of art, and that generous sentiments are one of
the distinguished traits of the French character, and the very lowest
classes of each nation have some portion of the national spirit. But
it does not belong to the multitude to be poets and artists, in Italy,
or models of chivalry, in France. Their perfection, above all and in
every country, consists in knowing and fulfilling their duties to
God, to their country, to their families, to themselves, in assiduous
and honest industry, in being good citizens, good husbands, and good
fathers, in providing for the welfare and guarding the virtue of those
dependent upon them. In order to make a fair comparison between the
multitude in Europe and the multitude in America, we should consider
them in reference to these qualities; for these belong to all varieties
of the human race and all forms of civilization, and upon their
development and stability in the greatest number, depends the strength
of empires. To render the parallel between the two hemispheres perfect,
it would be necessary to set against the mechanic and the farmer in the
United States, the members of a corresponding class among a people of
Teutonic origin, language, and religion, that is, the English operative
and farmer. European civilisation, setting aside the Sclavonians, who
have recently appeared with brilliant success upon the stage, divides
itself into two branches, that of the North, and that of the South, one
Teutonic, the other Latin, distinguished by different qualities and
tendencies. American society, being a scion of one of these branches,
can be more readily compared with it, than with any of the offsets of
the other. It is easy, therefore, to determine the superiority of the
American mechanic and farmer to those of England, but it is difficult
to decide how much inferior or superiour any class of American society
is to the corresponding Spanish, Italian, or French class; it is only
necessary, however, to open one's eyes to be convinced, that the
multitude among these three people are far from having reached, in
the direction in which nature points their career, the same degree of
progress that the Americans have done in theirs.
The American democracy certainly has its faults, and I do not think
that I can be accused of having extenuated them. I have not concealed
its rude demands upon the higher classes, nor its haughty airs
of superiority to other nations. I will even admit, that, in many
respects, it is rather as a class, and in the lump that it recommends
itself to favour; for the individuals that compose it, are destitute of
those hearty and affectionate qualities, by which our French peasantry
would be distinguished, if it were once delivered from the wretchedness
which now brutifies it; but it is in the mass and as a whole, that I
now judge the American multitude.
The American democracy is imperious and overbearing towards foreign
people; but is not a keen sensibility, a good quality rather than a
defect in a young nation as in a young man, provided that it is backed
by an energetic devotion to a great work? Pride is ridiculous in an
enervated and inert people, but in an enterprising, active, vigourous
nation, it is consciousness of power, and confidence in its high
destiny. The foreign policy of the American democracy is profoundly
egoistic, for national ambition is the characteristic of a growing
nation. Cosmopolitanism is generally a symptom of decline, as religious
tolerance is a sign that faith is on the decay. The pretensions of the
United States are unbounded: they aspire to the sovereignty over South
America; they covet one by one the provinces of Mexico; but in spite of
the rules of morality, it is might which makes right in the relations
between people and people. If the United States should wrest the
Mexican provinces from the Spanish race, partly by craft and partly by
force, they would be responsible to God and to man for the consequences
of the robbery; but they would not be alone guilty. If the country
which they had seized, flourished in their hands, posterity would
pardon the act; but, on the other hand, it would condemn the Mexicans,
if, with such neighbours at their doors, they should continue as at
present, to stagnate in stupid security and in a miserable lethargy,
and the powers of Europe, if they neglected to warn them and to rouse
them from their torpor.
The Romans were intolerably arrogant towards other people; they spoke
to the all-powerful sovereigns of the monarchical East, and to the
heirs of Alexander the Great, that brutal and imperious language, which
General Jackson has flung into the face of a monarchy of fourteen
centuries. They treated all who stood in the way of the gratification
of their insatiable thirst for conquest, as slaves who had revolted
against the divine will. That Punic faith, with the charge of which
they branded the memory of their rivals, was often the only faith which
they practised. Posterity, however, has proclaimed them the greatest
people of history, because they were successful; that is, because they
formed a durable empire out of conquered nations by the wisdom of their
laws. The Anglo-Americans have much resemblance to the Romans whether
for good or for evil. I do not say that they are destined to become
the masters of the world; I merely mean to affirm that by the side of
faults which shock and offend foreign nations, they have great powers
and precious qualities which should rather attract our attention. It
is by these that posterity will judge them; by these they have become
formidable to other people. Let us aim to get the vantage-ground of
them, not by denouncing their defects to the world, but by endeavouring
to make ourselves masters of their good qualities and their valuable
faculties, and by cultivating and developing our own. These are the
surest means of maintaining our rank in the world in spite of them and
in spite of all.
At the same time that the American democracy conducts itself more
and more haughtily abroad, it is jealous of all who fall under the
suspicion of seeking to encroach upon its sovereignty at home. In this,
it only imitates the most boasted of aristocracies. The system which it
has pursued towards the higher classes, is dictated by the instinct of
self-preservation, just as that of the European aristocracy and Middle
Class toward the classes respectively below them, has been instinctive
with them. The democracy is determined to lose none of its conquests,
which have been gained, not by plundering its neighbours, not by
pillaging provinces, not by robbing travellers, but by the sweat of its
brow, by its own resolute industry. Who, then, amongst us will cast the
first stone at it? I can readily conceive, that, at first sight, we
of the Middle Class in Europe, should be offended by its pretensions,
and that we should feel our sympathy excited by the spectacle of
our American fellows conquered and bound. But let us, nevertheless,
confess, that this democracy has managed the affairs of the New World
in such a manner as to justify the supremacy it has won, and to excuse
its jealousy towards every thing that might have a tendency to spoil it
of its conquest. This is the first time since the origin of society,
that the people have fairly enjoyed the fruits of their labours, and
have shown themselves worthy of the prerogatives of manhood. Glorious
result! Even though it has been obtained by the temporary humiliation
of the classes with which our education and habits lead us to
sympathise, it is the duty of every good man to rejoice at it, and to
thank God for it!
Wo to tyranny by whomsoever exercised! Far be it from me to apologise
for the brutal and savage, and sometimes bloody excesses, which have
lately been so often repeated in most of the large towns in the United
States! Should they be continued, the American democracy will be
degraded and will lose forever the high position it now occupies. But
criminal as these acts are, it would be unjust to impute them to the
American people, and to condemn to ignominy the whole body of these
incomparable labourers. Popular excesses in all countries are the
work of an imperceptible minority, which the existing system in the
United States is sufficient to restrain. That system needs, then, some
amendment, which shall suit it to preserve the good qualities of the
nation in their purity, and which, indeed, seems already on the point
of being introduced, for theories of absolute liberty are evidently
losing favour in the United States.
It would be a mistake to infer from what has been said, that the
American civilisation is superiour to our own. The multitude in the
United States is superiour to the multitude in Europe; but the higher
classes in the New World are inferior to those of the Old, although
the merits of the latter are rather virtual than real, and belong
rather to the past or the future than to the present; for the higher
classes in Europe, both aristocracy and _bourgeoisie_, turn their good
qualities to little account, whether on behalf of themselves or the
people. The higher classes in the United States, with some exceptions
and taken as a whole, have the air and attitude of the vanquished; they
bear the mark of defeat on their front. As they have been always and
in almost all circumstances much mingled with the crowd, both parties
have naturally borrowed many habits and feelings from each other. This
exchange has been advantageous to the multitude; but less so the higher
classes. The golden buckler of the Trojan has been exchanged for the
leather shield of the gallant Diomed. Each of the two is, therefore,
superiour in one of the two great elements of society, and inferior in
the other. This is the system of compensation.
If, then, from the superiority of the labouring classes in the United
States, it were necessary to draw a conclusion as to the relative rank
of European and American civilisation in the future, the following
would be the only necessary inference: in order that American society
should have the advantage of ours, it would be requisite that it
should comprise a class, which, intrinsically and in its exterior,
should be as much elevated above the people, properly so called, as
our higher classes are above the great mass of our population; or, in
other words, it depends upon ourselves to give to our social order
the advantage over that of the United States, by raising our lower
class both of the towns and the country from the ignorance and brutal
degradation in which they are plunged, and developing their powers and
qualities in conformity with our national disposition and the character
of the race to which we belong.