Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousting herself
like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks;
methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling
her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.--MILTON ON THE LIBERTY OF
THE PRESS.
IT is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity
daily growing up between England and America. Great curiosity has been
awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press
has teemed with volumes of travels through the Republic; but they seem
intended to diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so successful have
they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse between
the nations, there is no people concerning whom the great mass of the
British public have less pure information, or entertain more numerous
prejudices.
English travellers are the best and the worst in the world. Where no
motives of pride or interest intervene, none can equal them for
profound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphical
description of external objects; but when either the interest or
reputation of their own country comes in collision with that of another,
they go to the opposite extreme, and forget their usual probity and
candor, in the indulgence of splenetic remark, and an illiberal spirit
of ridicule.
Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more remote the
country described. I would place implicit confidence in an Englishman’s
description of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile; of unknown
islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior of India; or of any other
tract which other travellers might be apt to picture out with the
illusions of their fancies. But I would cautiously receive his account
of his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which he is in
habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be disposed to
trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices.
It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the
worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and
cultivated minds have been sent from England to ransack the poles, to
penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous
nations, with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or
pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the scheming
adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Manchester and Birmingham agent,
to be her oracles respecting America. From such sources she is content
to receive her information respecting a country in a singular state of
moral and physical development; a country in which one of the greatest
political experiments in the history of the world is now performing; and
which presents the most profound and momentous studies to the statesman
and the philosopher.
That such men should give prejudicial accounts of America, is not a
matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation, are too vast
and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a
state of fermentation: it may have its frothiness and sediment, but
its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it has already given proofs of
powerful and generous qualities; and the whole promises to settle
down into something substantially excellent. But the causes which are
operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indications of
admirable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers; who
are only affected by the little asperities incident to its present
situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of things;
of those matters which come in contact with their private interests and
personal gratifications. They miss some of the snug conveniences
and petty comforts which belong to an old, highly-finished, and
over-populous state of society; where the ranks of useful labor are
crowded, and many earn a painful and servile subsistence, by studying
the very caprices of appetite and self-indulgence. These minor comforts,
however, are all-important in the estimation of narrow minds; which
either do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than
counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings.
They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some unreasonable
expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America to themselves
an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the natives were
lacking in sagacity, and where they were to become strangely and
suddenly rich, in some unforeseen but easy manner. The same weakness
of mind that indulges absurd expectations, produces petulance in
disappointment. Such persons become embittered against the country on
finding that there, as everywhere else, a man must sow before he can
reap; must win wealth by industry and talent; and must contend with the
common difficulties of nature, and the shrewdness of an intelligent and
enterprising people.
Perhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospitality, or from the
prompt disposition to cheer and countenance the stranger, prevalent
among my countrymen, they may have been treated with unwonted respect
in America; and, having been accustomed all their lives to consider
themselves below the surface of good society, and brought up in a
servile feeling of inferiority, they become arrogant, on the common
boon of civility; they attribute to the lowliness of others their
own elevation; and underrate a society where there are no artificial
distinctions, and where, by any chance, such individuals as themselves
can rise to consequence.
One would suppose, however, that information coming from such sources,
on a subject where the truth is so desirable, would be received with
caution by the censors of the press; that the motives of these men,
their veracity, their opportunities of inquiry and observation, and
their capacities for judging correctly, would be rigorously scrutinized,
before their evidence was admitted, in such sweeping extent, against a
kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes
a striking instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the
vigilance with which English critics will examine the credibility of
the traveller who publishes an account of some distant and comparatively
unimportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a
pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they censure
any inaccuracy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge, while
they will receive, with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the gross
misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, concerning a country
with which their own is placed in the most important and delicate
relations. Nay, they will even make these apocryphal volumes text-books,
on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability worthy of a more
generous cause.
I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and hackneyed topic; nor
should I have adverted to it, but for the undue interest apparently
taken in it by my countrymen, and certain injurious effects which I
apprehend it might produce upon the national feeling. We attach too much
consequence to these attacks. They cannot do us any essential injury.
The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, are
like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our country
continually outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls off of
itself. We have but to live on, and every day we live a whole volume of
refutation.
All the writers of England united, if we could for a moment suppose
their great minds stooping to so unworthy a combination, could not
conceal our rapidly growing importance and matchless prosperity. They
could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and
local, but also to moral causes--to the political liberty, the general
diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious
principles, which give force and sustained energy to the character of
a people, and which in fact, have been the acknowledged and wonderful
supporters of their own national power and glory.
But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England? Why
do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the contumely she has
endeavored to cast upon us? It is not in the opinion of England alone
that honor lives, and reputation has its being. The world at large is
the arbiter of a nation’s fame: with its thousand eyes it witnesses a
nation’s deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory or
national disgrace established.
For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but little importance
whether England does us justice or not; it is, perhaps, of far more
importance to herself. She is instilling anger and resentment into the
bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, and strengthen
with its strength. If in America, as some of her writers are laboring
to convince her, she is hereafter to find an invidious rival, and a
gigantic foe, she may thank those very writers for having provoked
rivalship, and irritated hostility. Every one knows the all-pervading
influence of literature at the present day, and how much the opinions
and passions of mankind are under its control. The mere contests of the
sword are temporary; their wounds are but in the flesh, and it is the
pride of the generous to forgive and forget them; but the slanders of
the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle longest in the noblest spirits;
they dwell ever present in the mind, and render it morbidly sensitive
to the most trifling collision. It is but seldom that any one overt act
produces hostilities between two nations; there exists, most commonly, a
previous jealousy and ill-will, a predisposition to take offence. Trace
these to their cause, and how often will they be found to originate in
the mischievous effusions of mercenary writers, who, secure in their
closets, and for ignominious bread, concoct and circulate the venom that
is to inflame the generous and the brave.
I am not laying too much stress upon this point; for it applies most
emphatically to our particular case. Over no nation does the press
hold a more absolute control than over the people of America; for the
universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a
reader. There is nothing published in England on the subject of our
country, that does not circulate through every part of it. There is not
a calumny dropt from an English pen, nor an unworthy sarcasm uttered by
an English statesman, that does not go to blight good-will, and add to
the mass of latent resentment. Possessing, then, as England does,
the fountain-head whence the literature of the language flows, how
completely is it in her power, and how truly is it her duty, to make it
the medium of amiable and magnanimous feeling--a stream where the two
nations might meet together and drink in peace and kindness. Should she,
however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness, the time may
come when she may repent her folly. The present friendship of America
may be of but little moment to her; but the future destinies of that
country do not admit of a doubt; over those of England, there lower
some shadows of uncertainty. Should, then, a day of gloom arrive--should
those reverses overtake her, from which the proudest empires have
not been exempt--she may look back with regret at her infatuation, in
repulsing from her side a nation she might have grappled to her bosom,
and thus destroying her only chance for real friendship beyond the
boundaries of her own dominions.
There is a general impression in England, that the people of the United
States are inimical to the parent country. It is one of the errors
which have been diligently propagated by designing writers. There is,
doubtless, considerable political hostility, and a general soreness at
the illiberality of the English press; but, collectively speaking, the
prepossessions of the people are strongly in favor of England. Indeed,
at one time they amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd
degree of bigotry. The bare name of Englishman was a passport to
the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too often gave a
transient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the
country, there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea
of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and
veneration, as the land of our forefathers--the august repository of the
monuments and antiquities of our race--the birthplace and mausoleum of
the sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own country,
there was none in whose glory we more delighted--none whose good opinion
we were more anxious to possess--none toward which our hearts yearned
with such throbbings of warm consanguinity. Even during the late war,
whenever there was the least opportunity for kind feelings to spring
forth, it was the delight of the generous spirits of our country to show
that, in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of
future friendship.
Is all this to be at an end? Is this golden band of kindred sympathies,
so rare between nations, to be broken forever?--Perhaps it is for the
best--it may dispel an allusion which might have kept us in mental
vassalage; which might have interfered occasionally with our true
interests, and prevented the growth of proper national pride. But it
is hard to give up the kindred tie! and there are feelings dearer than
interest--closer to the heart than pride--that will still make us cast
back a look of regret as we wander farther and farther from the paternal
roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel the
affections of the child.
Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the conduct or England may be
in this system of aspersion, recrimination on our part would be equally
ill-judged. I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindication of our
country, or the keenest castigation of her slanderers--but I allude to
a disposition to retaliate in kind, to retort sarcasm and inspire
prejudice, which seems to be spreading widely among our writers. Let us
guard particularly against such a temper; for it would double the evil,
instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is so easy and inviting as
the retort of abuse and sarcasm; but it is a paltry and an unprofitable
contest. It is the alternative of a morbid mind, fretted into petulance,
rather than warmed into indignation. If England is willing to permit the
mean jealousies of trade, or the rancorous animosities of politics, to
deprave the integrity of her press, and poison the fountain of public
opinion, let us beware of her example. She may deem it her interest
to diffuse error, and engender antipathy, for the purpose of checking
emigration: we have no purpose of the kind to serve. Neither have we
any spirit of national jealousy to gratify; for as yet, in all our
rivalships with England, we are the rising and the gaining party.
There can be no end to answer, therefore, but the gratification of
resentment--a mere spirit of retaliation--and even that is impotent. Our
retorts are never republished in England; they fall short, therefore,
of their aim; but they foster a querulous and peevish temper among
our writers; they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and
sow thorns and brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they
circulate through our own country, and, as far as they have effect,
excite virulent national prejudices. This last is the evil most
especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public
opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of
the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever,
therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, wilfully saps the
foundation of his country’s strength.
The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid and
dispassionate. They are, individually, portions of the sovereign mind
and sovereign will, and should be enabled to come to all questions of
national concern with calm and unbiassed judgments. From the peculiar
nature of our relations with England, we must have more frequent
questions of a difficult and delicate character with her, than with
any other nation,--questions that affect the most acute and excitable
feelings: and as, in the adjustment of these, our national measures
must ultimately be determined by popular sentiment, we cannot be
too anxiously attentive to purify it from all latent passion or
prepossession.
Opening, too, as we do, an asylum for strangers every portion of the
earth, we should receive all with impartiality. It should be our pride
to exhibit an example of one nation, at least, destitute of national
antipathies, and exercising, not merely the overt acts of hospitality,
but those more rare and noble courtesies which spring from liberality of
opinion.
What have we to do with national prejudices? They are the inveterate
diseases of old countries, contracted in rude and ignorant ages, when
nations knew but little of each other, and looked beyond their own
boundaries with distrust and hostility. We, on the contrary, have sprung
into national existence in an enlightened and philosophic age, when the
different parts of the habitable world, and the various branches of the
human family, have been indefatigably studied and made known to each
other; and we forego the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off
the national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old
world.
But above all let us not be influenced by any angry feelings, so far
as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really excellent and
amiable in the English character. We are a young people, necessarily an
imitative one, and must take our examples and models, in a great degree,
from the existing nations of Europe. There is no country more worthy of
our study than England. The spirit of her constitution is most analogous
to ours. The manners of her people--their intellectual activity--their
freedom of opinion--their habits of thinking on those subjects which
concern the dearest interests and most sacred charities of private
life, are all congenial to the American character; and, in fact, are all
intrinsically excellent: for it is in the moral feeling of the people
that the deep foundations of British prosperity are laid; and however
the superstructure may be timeworn, or overrun by abuses, there must be
something solid in the basis, admirable in the materials, and stable in
the structure of an edifice that so long has towered unshaken amidst the
tempests of the world.
Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, discarding all feelings
of irritation, and disdaining to retaliate the illiberality of British
authors, to speak of the English nation without prejudice, and with
determined candor. While they rebuke the indiscriminating bigotry with
which some of our countrymen admire and imitate every thing English,
merely because it is English, let them frankly point out what is
really worthy of approbation. We may thus place England before us as
a perpetual volume of reference, wherein are recorded sound deductions
from ages of experience; and while we avoid the errors and absurdities
which may have crept into the page, we may draw thence golden maxims of
practical wisdom, wherewith to strengthen and to embellish our national
character.