influential in North America than in any other country. The American
continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe, the French and
the English. The former were not slow in connecting themselves with the
daughters of the natives; but there was an unfortunate affinity between
the Indian character and their own: instead of giving the tastes and
habits of civilized life to the savages, the French too often grew
passionately fond of the state of wild freedom they found them in. They
became the most dangerous of the inhabitants of the desert, and won the
friendship of the Indian by exaggerating his vices and his virtues.
M. de Senonville, the governor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis XIV., in
1685: "It has long been believed that in order to civilize the savages
we ought to draw them nearer to us, but there is every reason to suppose
we have been mistaken. Those which have been brought into contact with
us have not become French, and the French who have lived among them are
changed into savages, affecting to live and dress like them." (History
of New France, by Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345.) The Englishman, on the
contrary, continuing obstinately attached to the customs and the most
insignificant habits of his forefathers, has remained in the midst of
the American solitudes just what he was in the bosom of European cities;
he would not allow of any communication with savages whom he despised,
and avoided with care the union of his race with theirs. Thus, while
the French exercised no salutary influence over the Indians, the English
have always remained alien from them.
[225] There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a certain
irresistible charm which seizes the heart of man, and carries him away
in spite of reason and experience. This is plainly shown by the memoirs
of Tanner. Tanner is a European who was carried away at the age of six
by the Indians, and has remained thirty years with them in the woods.
Nothing can be conceived more appalling than the miseries which he
describes. He tells us of tribes without a chief, families without
a nation to call their own, men in a state of isolation, wrecks of
powerful tribes wandering at random amid the ice and snow and desolate
solitudes of Canada. Hunger and cold pursue them; every day their
life is in jeopardy. Among these men manners have lost their empire,
traditions are without power. They become more and more savage. Tanner
shared in all these miseries; he was aware of his European origin; he
was not kept away from the whites by force; on the contrary, he came
every year to trade with them, entered their dwellings, and saw their
enjoyments; he knew that whenever he chose to return to civilized life,
he was perfectly able to do so--and he remained thirty years in the
deserts. When he came to civilized society, he declared that the rude
existence which he described had a secret charm for him which he was
unable to define: he returned to it again and again: at length he
abandoned it with poignant regret; and when he was at length fixed among
the whites, several of his children refused to share his tranquil and
easy situation. I saw Tanner myself at the lower end of Lake Superior;
he seemed to be more like a savage than a civilized being. His book is
written without either taste or order; but he gives, even unconsciously,
a lively picture of the prejudices, the passions, vices, and, above all,
of the destitution in which he lived.
[226] The destructive influence of highly civilized nations upon others
which are less so, has been exemplified by the Europeans themselves.
About a century ago the French founded the town of Vincennes upon the
Wabash, in the middle of the desert; and they lived there in great
plenty, until the arrival of the American settlers, who first ruined the
previous inhabitants by their competition, and afterward purchased their
lands at a very low rate. At the time when M. de Volney, from whom I
borrow these details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French
was reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass
over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were worthy
people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the
habits of the savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors
in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in
intelligence: they were industrious, well-informed, rich, and accustomed
to govern their own community.
I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between the
two races is less striking, that the English are the masters of commerce
and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they spread on all sides,
and confine the French within limits which scarcely suffice to contain
them. In like manner, in Louisiana, almost all activity in commerce and
manufacture centres in the hands of the Anglo-Americans.
But the case of Texas is still more striking: the state of Texas is a
part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that country and the
United States. In the course of the last few years the Anglo-Americans
have penetrated into this province, which is still thinly peopled; they
purchase land, they produce the commodities of the country, and supplant
the original population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes
no steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly
cease to belong to that government.
If the different degrees, comparatively so light, which exist
in European civilisation, produce results of such magnitude, the
consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect
European civilisation with Indian savages may readily be conceived.
[227] See in the legislative documents (21st congress, No. 89),
instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon the
territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part of their
lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of congress, or carrying
off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down their corn, and
doing violence to their persons.
It appears, nevertheless, from all these documents, that the claims of
the natives are constantly protected by the government from the abuse
of force. The Union has a representative agent continually employed to
reside among the Indians; and the report of the Cherokee agent, which
is among the documents I have referred to, is almost always favorable to
the Indians. "The intrusion of whites," he says, "upon the lands of
the Cherokees would cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive
inhabitants." And he farther remarks upon the attempt of the state of
Georgia to establish a division line for the purpose of limiting the
boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line drawn having been made by the
whites, and entirely upon _exparte_ evidence of their several rights,
was of no validity whatever.
[228] In 1829 the state of Alabama divided the Creek territory into
counties, and subjected the Indian population to the power of European
magistrates.
In 1830 the state of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws
to the white population, and declared that any of them that should take
the title of chief would be punished by a fine of 1,000 dollars and 3
year's imprisonment. When these laws were enforced upon the Choctaws who
inhabited that district, the tribes assembled, their chief communicated
to them the intentions of the whites, and read to them some of the laws
to which it was intended that they should submit; and they unanimously
declared that it was better at once to retreat again into the wilds.
[229] The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity of the
Indians, inhabit a territory which does not at present contain more than
seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France there are one hundred
and sixty-two inhabitants to the same extent of country.
[230] In 1818 congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas
territory accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws, and
Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly,
M'Coy, Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the
commissioners, and their journal, in the documents of congress, No. 87
house of representatives.
[231] The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in August,
1790, is in the following words: "The United States solemnly guaranty to
the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States."
The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the Cherokees
says: "The United States solemnly guaranty to the Cherokee nation all
their lands not hereby ceded." The following article declared that if
any citizen of the United States or other settler not of the Indian
race, should establish himself upon the territory of the Cherokees, the
United States would withdraw their protection from that individual, and
give him up to be punished as the Cherokee nation should think fit.
[232] This does not prevent them from promising in the most solemn
manner to do so. See the letter of the president addressed to the Creek
Indians, 23d March, 1829. ("Proceedings of the Indian Board, in the City
of New York," p. 5.) "Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part
of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough
for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white
brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and
you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass
grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. _It will be yours for
ever_."
The secretary of war, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April 18th,
1829 (see the same work, page 6), declares to them that they cannot
expect to retain possession of the land, at the time occupied by them,
but gives them the most positive assurance of uninterrupted peace if
they would remove beyond the Mississippi: as if the power which
could not grant them protection then, would be able to afford it them
hereafter!
[233] To obtain a correct idea of the policy pursued by the several
states and the Union with respect to the Indians, it is necessary to
consult, 1st, "The laws of the colonial and state governments relating
to the Indian inhabitants." (See the legislative documents, 21st
congress, No. 319.) 2d, "The laws of the Union on the same subject, and
especially that of March 20th, 1802." (See Story's Laws of the United
States.) 3d, "The report of Mr. Cass, secretary of war, relative to
Indian affairs, November 29th, 1823".
[234] December 18th, 1829.
[235] The honor of this result is, however, by no means due to the
Spaniards. If the Indian tribes had not been tillers of the ground at
the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they would unquestionably have
been destroyed in South as well as in North America.
[236] See among other documents, the report made by Mr. Bell in the name
of the committee on Indian affairs, Feb. 24th, 1830, in which it is most
logically established and most learnedly proved, that "the fundamental
principle, that the Indians had no right by virtue of their ancient
possession either of will or sovereignty, has never been abandoned
either expressly or by implication."
In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up by an able hand,
one is astonished at the facility with which the author gets rid of all
arguments founded upon reason and natural right, which he designates
as abstract and theoretical principles. The more I contemplate the
difference between civilized and uncivilized man with regard to the
principles of justice, the more I observe that the former contests the
justice of those rights, which the latter simply violates.
[237] It is well known that several of the most distinguished authors
of antiquity, and among them Æsop and Terence, were or had been slaves.
Slaves were not always taken from barbarous nations, and the chances of
war reduced highly civilized men to servitude.
[238] To induce the whites to abandon the opinion they have conceived
of the moral and intellectual inferiority of their former slaves, the
negroes must change; but as long as this opinion subsists, to change is
impossible.
[239] See Beverley's History of Virginia. See also in Jefferson's
Memoirs some curious details concerning the introduction of negroes into
Virginia, and the first act which prohibited the importation of them in
1778.
[240] The number of slaves was less considerable in the north, but the
advantages resulting from slavery were not more contested there than in
the south. In 1740, the legislature of the state of New York declared
that the direct importation of slaves ought to be encouraged as much as
possible, and smuggling severely punished, in order not to discourage
the fair trader. (Kent's Commentaries, vol. ii., p. 206.) Curious
researches, by Belknap, upon slavery in New England, are to be found
in the Historical Collections of Massachusetts, vol. iv., p. 193.
It appears that negroes were introduced there in 1630, but that the
legislation and manners of the people were opposed to slavery from the
first; see also, in the same work, the manner in which public opinion,
and afterward the laws, finally put an end to slavery.
[241] Not only is slavery prohibited in Ohio, but no free negroes are
allowed to enter the territory of that state, or to hold property in it.
See the statutes of Ohio.
[242] The activity of Ohio is not confined to individuals, but the
undertakings of the state are surprisingly great: a canal has been
established between Lake Erie and the Ohio, by means of which the valley
of the Mississippi communicates with the river of the north, and the
European commodities with arrive at New York, may be forwarded by water
to New Orleans across five hundred leagues of continent.
[243] The exact numbers given by the census of 1830 were: Kentucky,
588,844; Ohio, 937,679. [In 1840 the census gave, Kentucky 779,828; Ohio
1,519,467.]
[244] Independently of these causes which, wherever free workmen abound,
render their labor more productive and more economical than that of
slaves, another cause may be pointed out which is peculiar to the United
States: the sugar-cane has hitherto been cultivated with success only
upon the banks of the Mississippi, near the mouth of that river in
the gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana the cultivation of the sugar-cane is
exceedingly lucrative; nowhere does a laborer earn so much by his
work: and, as there is always a certain relation between the cost of
production and the value of the produce, the price of slaves is very
high in Louisiana. But Louisiana is one of the confederate states, and
slaves may be carried thither from all parts of the Union; the price
given for slaves in New Orleans consequently raises the value of slaves
in all the other markets. The consequence of this is, that in the
countries where the land is less productive, the cost of slave labor
is still very considerable, which gives an additional advantage to the
competition of free labor.
[245] A peculiar reason contributes to detach the two last-mentioned
states from the cause of slavery. The former wealth of this part of
the Union was principally derived from the cultivation of tobacco. This
cultivation is specially carried on by slaves; but within the last few
years the market-price of tobacco has diminished, while the value of the
slaves remains the same. Thus the ratio between the cost of production
and the value of the produce is changed. The natives of Maryland and
Virginia are therefore more disposed than they were thirty years ago, to
give up slave labor in the cultivation of tobacco, or to give up slavery
and tobacco at the same time.
[246] The states in which slavery is abolished usually do what they
can to render their territory disagreeable to the negroes as a place
of residence; and as a kind of emulation exists between the different
states in this respect, the unhappy blacks can only choose the least of
the evils which beset them.
[247] There is a very great difference between the mortality of the
blacks and of the whites in the states in which slavery is abolished;
from 1820 to 1831 only one out of forty-two individuals of the white
population died in Philadelphia; but one negro out of twenty-one
individuals of the black population died in the same space of time.
The mortality is by no means so great among the negroes who are still
slaves. (See Emmerson's Medical Statistics, p. 28.)
[248] This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated;
rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are particularly
dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the beams of a tropical
sun. Europeans would not find it easy to cultivate the soil in that part
of the New World if it must necessarily be made to produce rice: but may
they not subsist without rice-grounds?
[249] These states are nearer to the equator than Italy and Spain, but
the temperature of the continent of America is very much lower than that
of Europe.
[250] The Spanish government formerly caused a certain number of
peasants from the Azores to be transported into a district of Louisiana
called Attakapas, by way of experiment. These settlers still cultivate
the soil without the assistance of slaves, but their industry is so
languid as scarcely to supply their most necessary wants.
[251] We find it asserted in an American work, entitled, "Letters on
the Colonization Society," by Mr. Carey, 1833, that "for the last forty
years the black race has increased more rapidly than the white race in
the state of South Carolina; and that if we take the average population
of the five states of the south into which slaves were first introduced,
viz., Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia,
we shall find that from 1790 to 1830, the whites have augmented in the
proportion of 80 to 100, and the blacks in that of 112 to 100."
In the United States, 1830, the population of the two races stood as
follows:--
States where slavery is abolished, 6,565,434 whites; 120,520 blacks.
Slave states, 3,960,814 whites; 2,208,112 blacks.
[By the census of 1840, the population of the two races was as follows:
States where slavery is abolished, 9,556,065 whites; 171,854 blacks.
Slave states, 4,633,153 whites; 2,581,688 blacks.]
[252] This opinion is sanctioned by authorities infinitely weightier
than anything that I can say; thus, for instance, it is stated in the
Memoirs of Jefferson (as collected by M. Conseil), "Nothing is more
clearly written in the book of destiny than the emancipation of the
blacks; and it is equally certain that the two races will never live in
a state of equal freedom under the same government, so insurmountable
are the barriers which nature, habit, and opinions, have established
between them."
[253] If the British West India planters had governed themselves, they
would assuredly not have passed the slave emancipation bill which the
mother country has recently imposed upon them.
[254] This society assumed the name "The Society for the Colonization
of the Blacks." See its annual reports; and more particularly the
fifteenth. See also the pamphlet, to which allusion has already been
made, entitled "Letters on the Colonization Society, and on its probable
results," by Mr. Carey, Philadelphia, April, 1833.
[255] This last regulation was laid down by the founders of the
settlement; they apprehended that a state of things might arise in
Africa, similar to that which exists on the frontiers of the United
States, and that if the negroes, like the Indians, were brought into
collision with a people more enlightened than themselves, they would be
destroyed before they could be civilized.
[256] Nor would these be the only difficulties attendant upon the
undertaking; if the Union undertook to buy up the negroes now in
America, in order to transport them to Africa, the price of slaves,
increasing with their scarcity, would soon become enormous.
[257] In the original, "Voulant la servitude, il se sont laissé
entrainer, malgré eux ou à leur insu, vers la liberté."
"Desiring servitude, they have suffered themselves, involuntarily or
ignorantly, to be drawn toward liberty."--_Reviser_.
[258] See the conduct of the northern states in the war of 1812. "During
that war," said Jefferson, in a letter to General Lafayette, "four
of the eastern states were only attached to the Union, like so many
inanimate bodies to living men."
[259] The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for a standing
army; and without a standing army a government is not prepared to profit
by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take the sovereign
power by surprise.
[260] Thus the province of Holland in the republic of the Low Countries,
and the emperor in the Germanic Confederation, have sometimes put
themselves in the place of the Union, and have employed the federal
authority to their own advantage.
[261] See Darby's View of the United States, pp. 64, 79.
[262] See Darby's View of the United States, p. 435.
[In Carey & Lea's Geography of America, the United States are said to
form an area of 2,076,400 square miles.--_Translator's Note._]
[The discrepancy between Darby's estimate of the area of the United
States given by the author, and that stated by the translator, is
not easily accounted for. In Bradford's comprehensive Atlas, a work
generally of great accuracy, it is said that "as claimed by this
country, the territory of the United States extends from 25° to 54°
north latitude, and from 65° 49' to 125° west longitude, over an area of
about 2,200,000 square miles."--_American Editor._]
[263] It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the expression
_Anglo-Americans_, I only mean to designate the great majority of the
nation; for a certain number of isolated individuals are of course to be
met with holding very different opinions.
[264] Census of 1790........ 3,929,328. do 1830........12,856,165.
[do. 1840........17,068,666.]
[265] This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt that in
time society will assume as much stability and regularity in the west,
as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic ocean.
[266] Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790.
[267] The area of the state of New York is about 46,000 square miles.
See Carey & Lea's American Geography, p. 142.
[268] If the population continues to double every twenty-two years, as
it has done for the last two hundred years, the number of inhabitants in
the United States in 1852, will be twenty millions: in 1874, forty-eight
millions; and in 1896, ninety-six millions. This may still be the case
even if the lands on the western slope of the Rocky mountains should
be found to be unfit for cultivation. The territory which is already
occupied can easily contain this number of inhabitants. One hundred
millions of men disseminated over the surface of the twenty-four states,
and the three dependencies, which constitute the Union, would give only
702 inhabitants to the square league: this would be far below the
mean population of France, which is 1,003 to the square league; or of
England, which is 1,457; and it would even be below the population of
Switzerland, for that country, notwithstanding its lakes and mountains,
contains 783 inhabitants to the square league. (See Maltebrun, vol. vi.,
p. 92.)
[269] See Legislative Documents, 20th congress, No. 117, p. 105.
[270] 3,672,317; census 1830.
[271] The distance of Jefferson, the capital of the state of Missouri,
to Washington, is 1,018 miles. (American Almanac, 1831, p. 40.)
[272] The following statements will suffice to show the difference which
exists between the commerce of the south and that of the north:--
In 1829, the tonnage of all the merchant-vessels belonging to Virginia,
the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four great southern states),
amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the tonnage of the vessels
of the state of Massachusetts alone amounted to 17,322 tons. (See
Legislative Documents, 21st congress, 2d session, No. 140, p. 244.) Thus
the state of Massachusetts has three times as much shipping as the
four abovementioned states. Nevertheless the area of the state of
Massachusetts is only 7,335 square miles, and its population amounts
to 610,014 inhabitants; while the area of the four other states I have
quoted is 210,000 square miles, and their population 3,047,767. Thus the
area of the state of Massachusetts forms only one thirtieth part of the
area of the four states; and its population is five times smaller than
theirs. (See Darby's View of the United States.) Slavery is prejudicial
to the commercial prosperity of the south in several different ways; by
diminishing the spirit of enterprise among the whites, and by preventing
them from meeting with as numerous a class of sailors as they require.
Sailors are generally taken from the lowest ranks of the population. But
in the southern states these lowest ranks are composed of slaves, and
it is very difficult to employ them at sea. They are unable to serve as
well as a white crew, and apprehensions would always be entertained of
their mutinying in the middle of the ocean, or of their escaping in the
foreign countries at which they might touch.
[273] Darby's view of the United States, p. 444.
[274] It may be seen that in the course of the last ten years (1820-'30)
the population of one district, as for instance, the state of Delaware,
has increased in the proportion of 5 per cent.; while that of another,
as the territory of Michigan, has increased 250 per cent. Thus the
population of Virginia has augmented 13 per cent., and that of the
border state of Ohio 61 per cent., in the same space of time. The
general table of these changes, which is given in the National Calendar,
displays a striking picture of the unequal fortunes of the different
states.
[275] It has just been said that in the course of the last term the
population of Virginia has increased 13 per cent.; and it is necessary
to explain how the number of representatives of a state may decrease,
when the population of that state, far from diminishing, is actually
upon the increase. I take the state of Virginia, to which I have already
alluded, as my term of comparison. The number of representatives
of Virginia in 1823 was proportionate to the total number of the
representatives of the Union, and to the relation which its population
bore to that of the whole Union; in 1833, the number of representatives
of Virginia was likewise proportionate to the total number of the
representatives of the Union, and to the relation which its population,
augmented in the course of ten years, bore to the augmented population
of the Union in the same space of time. The new number of Virginian
representatives will then be to the old number, on the one hand, as the
new number of all the representatives is to the old number; and, on the
other hand, as the augmentation of the population of Virginia is to that
of the whole population of the country. Thus, if the increase of the
population of the lesser country be to that of the greater in an exact
inverse ratio of the proportion between the new and the old numbers of
all the representatives, the number of representatives of Virginia will
remain stationary; and if the increase of the Virginian population be
to that of the whole Union in a feebler ratio than the new number
of representatives of the Union to the old number, the number of the
representatives of Virginia must decrease.
[276] See the report of its committees to the convention, which
proclaimed the nullification of the tariff in South Carolina.
[277] The population of a country assuredly constitutes the first
element of its wealth. In the ten years (1820-'30) during which Virginia
lost two of its representatives in congress, its population increased in
the proportion of 13-7 per cent.; that of Carolina in the proportion
of 15 per cent.; and that of Georgia 51-5 per cent. (See the American
Almanac, 1832, p. 162.) But the population of Russia, which increases
more rapidly than that of any other European country, only augments in
ten years at the rate of 9-5 per cent.; of France at the rate of 7
per cent.; and of Europe in general at the rate of 4-7 per cent. (See
Maltebrun, vol. vi., p. 95.)
[278] It must be admitted, however, that the depreciation which has
taken place in the value of tobacco, during the last fifty years, has
notably diminished the opulence of the southern planters; but this
circumstance is as independent of the will of their northern brethren,
as it is of their own.
[279] In 1832, the district of Michigan, which only contains 31,639
inhabitants, and is still an almost unexplored wilderness, possessed
940 miles of mail-roads. The territory of Arkansas, which is still more
uncultivated, was already intersected by 1,938 miles of mail-roads. (See
report of the general post-office, 30th November, 1833.) The postage of
newspapers alone in the whole Union amounted to $254,796.
[280] In the course of ten years, from 1821 to 1831, 271 steamboats have
been launched upon the rivers which water the valley of the Mississippi
alone. In 1829, 259 steamboats existed in the United States. (See
Legislative Documents, No. 140, p. 274.)
[281] See in the legislative documents already quoted in speaking of
the Indians, the letter of the President of the United States to the
Cherokees, his correspondence on this subject with his agents, and his
messages to Congress.
[282] The first act of cession was made by the state of New York in
1780; Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South and North Carolina,
followed this example at different times, and lastly, the act of cession
of Georgia was made as recently as 1802.
[283] It is true that the president refused his assent to this law;
but he completely adopted it in principle. See message of 8th December,
1833.
[284] The present bank of the United States was established in 1816,
with a capital of 35,000,000 dollars; its charter expires in 1836. Last
year congress passed a law to renew it, but the president put his veto
upon the bill. The struggle is still going on with great violence on
either side, and the speedy fall of the bank may easily be foreseen.
[285] See principally for the details of this affair, the legislative
documents, 22d congress, 2d session, No 3.
[286] That is to say, the majority of the people; for the opposite
party, called the Union party, always formed a very strong and active
minority. Carolina may contain about 47,000 electors; 30,000 were in
favor of nullification, and 17,000 opposed to it.
[287] This decree was preceded by a report of the committee by which it
was framed, containing the explanation of the motives and object of
the law. The following passage occurs in it, p. 34: "When the rights
reserved by the constitution to the different states are deliberately
violated, it is the duty and the right of those states to interfere, in
order to check the progress of the evil, to resist usurpation, and to
maintain, within their respective limits, those powers and privileges
which belong to them as _independent sovereign states_. If they were
destitute of this right, they would not be sovereign. South Carolina
declares that she acknowledges no tribunal upon earth above her
authority. She has indeed entered into a solemn compact of union with
the other states: but she demands, and will exercise, the right of
putting her own construction upon it; and when this compact is violated
by her sister states, and by the government which they have created, she
is determined to avail herself of the unquestionable right of judging
what is the extent of the infraction, and what are the measures best
fitted to obtain justice."
[288] Congress was finally decided to take this step by the conduct of
the powerful state of Virginia, whose legislature offered to serve as a
mediator between the Union and South Carolina. Hitherto the latter
state had appeared to be entirely abandoned even by the states which had
joined her in her remonstrances.
[289] This law was passed on the 2d March, 1833.
[290] This bill was brought in by Mr. Clay, and it passed in four days
through both houses of Congress, by an immense majority.
[291] The total value of goods imported during the year which ended
on the 30th September, 1832, was 101,129,266 dollars. The value of the
cargoes of foreign vessels did not amount to 10,731,039 dollars, or
about one-tenth of the entire sum.
[292] The value of goods exported during the same year amounted to
87,176,943 dollars; the value of goods exported by foreign vessels
amounted to 21,036,183 dollars, or about one quarter of the whole sum.
(Williams's Register, 1833, p. 398.)
[293] The tonnage of the vessels which entered all the ports of the
Union in the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, amounted to 3,307,719 tons,
of which 544,571 tons were foreign vessels; they stood therefore to
the American vessels in a ratio of about 16 to 100. (National Calendar,
1833, p. 304.) The tonnage of the English vessels which entered the
ports of London, Liverpool and Hull, in the years 1820, 1826, and 1831,
amounted to 443,800 tons. The foreign vessels which entered the same
ports during the same years, amounted to 159,431 tons. The ratio between
them was therefore about 36 to 100. (Companion to the Almanac, 1834, p.
169.) In the year 1832 the ratio between the foreign and British ships
which entered the ports of Great Britain was 29 to 100.
[294] Materials are, generally speaking, less expensive in America than
in Europe, but the price of labor is much higher.
[295] It must not be supposed that English vessels are exclusively
employed in transporting foreign produce into England, or British
produce to foreign countries; at the present day the merchant shipping
of England may be regarded in the light of a vast system of public
conveyances ready to serve all the producers of the world, and to open
communications between all peoples. The maritime genius of the Americans
prompts them to enter into competition with the English.
[296] Part of the commerce of the Mediterranean is already carried on by
American vessels.
CONCLUSION.
I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry. Hitherto, in speaking
of the future destiny of the United States, I have endeavored to divide
my subject into distinct portions, in order to study each of them with
more attention. My present object is to embrace the whole from one
single point; the remarks I shall make will be less detailed, but they
will be more sure. I shall perceive each object less distinctly, but I
shall descry the principal facts with more certainty. A traveller, who
has just left the walls of an immense city, climbs the neighboring
hill; as he goes farther off, he loses sight of the men whom he has so
recently quitted; their dwellings are confused in a dense mass; he can
no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can scarcely trace out
the great thoroughfares; but his eye has less difficulty in following
the boundaries of the city, and for the first time he sees the shape of
the vast whole. Such is the future destiny of the British race in North
America to my eye; the details of the stupendous picture are overhung
with shade, but I conceive a clear idea of the entire subject.
The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States of America,
forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable earth. But extensive as
these confines are, it must not be supposed that the Anglo-American race
will always remain within them; indeed, it has already far overstepped
them.
There was once a time at which we also might have created a great French
nation in the American wilds, to counter-balance the influence of the
English upon the destinies of the New World. France formerly possessed
a territory in North America, scarcely less extensive than the whole of
Europe. The three greatest rivers of that continent then flowed within
her dominions. The Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of the
St. Lawrence and the delta of the Mississippi were unaccustomed to any
tongue but ours; and all the European settlements scattered over that
immense region recalled the traditions of our country. Louisburg,
Montmorency, Duquesne, Saint-Louis, Vincennes, New Orleans (for such
were the names they bore), are words dear to France and familiar to our
ears.
But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious to
enumerate,[297] have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance.
Wherever the French settlers were numerically weak and partially
established, they have disappeared; those who remain are collected on a
small extent of country, and are now subject to other laws. The 400,000
French inhabitants of Lower Canada constitute, at the present time, the
remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a new people. A foreign
population is increasing around them unceasingly, and on all sides,
which already penetrates among the ancient masters of the country,
predominates in their cities, and corrupts their language. This
population is identical with that of the United States; it is therefore
with truth that I asserted that the British race is not confined within
the frontiers of the Union, since it already extends to the northeast.
To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few insignificant
Russian settlements; but to the southwest, Mexico presents a barrier to
the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards and the Anglo-Americans are,
properly speaking, the only two races which divide the possession of the
New World. The limits of separation between them have been settled by
a treaty; but although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly
favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will
shortly infringe this arrangement. Vast provinces, extending beyond
the frontiers of the Union toward Mexico, are still destitute of
inhabitants. The natives of the United States will forestall the
rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They will take possession
of the soil, and establish social institutions, so that when the legal
owner arrives at length, he will find the wilderness under cultivation,
and strangers quietly settled in the midst of his inheritance.
The lands of the New World belong to the first occupants and they are
the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the countries which are
already peopled will have some difficulty in securing themselves from
this invasion. I have already alluded to what is taking place in the
province of Texas. The inhabitants of the United States are perpetually
migrating to Texas, where they purchase land, and although they conform
to the laws of the country, they are gradually founding the empire of
their own language and their own manners. The province of Texas is still
part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain no Mexicans:
the same thing has occurred whenever the Anglo-Americans have come into
contact with populations of a different origin.
[The prophetic accuracy of the author, in relation to the present actual
condition of Texas, exhibits the sound and clear perception with which
he surveyed our institutions and character.--_American Editor_.]
It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing
preponderance over all the other European races in the New World; and
that it is very superior to them in civilisation, in industry, and in
power. As long as it is only surrounded by desert or thinly-peopled
countries, as long as it encounters no dense populations upon its route,
through which it cannot work its way, it will assuredly continue to
spread. The lines marked out by treaties will not stop it; but it will
everywhere transgress these imaginary barriers.
The geographical position of the British race in the New World is
peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its northern frontiers
the icy regions of the pole extend; and a few degrees below its southern
confines lies the burning climate of the equator. The Anglo-Americans
are therefore placed in the most temperate and habitable zone of the
continent.
It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of population in
the United States is posterior to their declaration of independence. But
this is an error: the population increased as rapidly under the colonial
system as it does at the present day; that is to say, it doubled in
about twenty-two years. But this proportion, which is now applied to
millions, was then applied to thousands, of inhabitants; and the same
fact which was scarcely noticeable a century ago, is now evident to
every observer.
The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king, augment and
spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of the United States,
who live under a republican government. During the war of independence,
which lasted eight years, the population continued to increase without
intermission in the same ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied
with the English existed, at that time, upon the western frontiers, the
emigration westward was never checked. While the enemy laid waste the
shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western parts of Pennsylvania, and
the states of Vermont and of Maine were filling with inhabitants. Nor
did the unsettled state of the constitution, which succeeded the war,
prevent the increase of the population, or stop its progress across the
wilds. Thus, the difference of laws, the various conditions of peace and
war, of order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible influence
upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This may be readily
understood: for the fact is, that no causes are sufficiently general
to exercise a simultaneous influence over the whole of so extensive a
territory. One portion of the country always offers a sure retreat from
the calamities which afflict another part; and however great may be the
evil, the remedy which is at hand is greater still.
It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British race in
the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment of the Union, and the
hostilities which might ensue, the abolition of republican institutions,
and the tyrannical government which might succeed it, may retard this
impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the
destinies to which that race is reserved. No power upon earth can close
upon the emigrants that fertile wilderness which offers resources to all
industry and a refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever nature
they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their climate or of their
inland seas, of their great rivers or of their exuberant soil. Nor will
bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy, be able to obliterate that love
of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise which seem to be the
distinctive characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that
knowledge which guides them on their way.
Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least is sure.
At a period which may be said to be near (for we are speaking of the
life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone cover the immense
space contained between the polar regions and the tropics, extending
from the coasts of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific ocean. The
territory which will probably be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at
some future time, may be computed to equal three-quarters of Europe in
extent.[298] The climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to
that of Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it
is therefore evident that its population will at some future time be
proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is between so many
different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars and the
barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a
population of 410 inhabitants to the square league.[299] What cause can
prevent the United States from having as numerous a population in time?
Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the British race in
America cease to present the same homogeneous characteristics; and the
time cannot be foreseen at which a permanent inequality of conditions
will be established in the New World. Whatever differences may arise,
from peace or from war, from freedom or oppression, from prosperity or
want, between the destinies of the different descendants of the great
Anglo-American family, they will at least preserve an analogous social
condition, and they will hold in common the customs and the opinions to
which that social condition has given birth.
In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently powerful
to imbue all the different populations of Europe with the same
civilisation. The British of the New World have a thousand other
reciprocal ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to equality
is general among mankind. The Middle Ages were a period when everything
was broken up; when each people, each province, each city, and each
family, had a strong tendency to maintain its distinct individuality. At
the present time an opposite tendency seems to prevail, and the nations
seem to be advancing to unity. Our means of intellectual intercourse
unite the most remote parts of the earth; and it is impossible for men
to remain strangers to each other, or to be ignorant of the events which
are taking place in any corner of the globe. The consequence is, that
there is less difference, at the present day, between the Europeans and
their descendants in the New World, than there was between certain towns
in the thirteenth century, which were only separated by a river. If this
tendency to assimilation brings foreign nations closer to each other,
it must _a fortiori_ prevent the descendants of the same people from
becoming aliens to each other.
The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions of men
will be living in North America,[300] equal in condition, the progeny of
one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and preserving the same
civilisation, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the
same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the
same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact
new to the world--a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to
baffle the efforts even of the imagination.
There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world, which
seem to tend toward the same end, although they started from different
points; I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have
grown up unnoticed; and while the attention of mankind was directed
elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place among the
nations; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at
almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and
only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but these are
still in the act of growth;[301] all the others are stopped, or continue
to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and
with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term.
The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose
him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats the
wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilisation with all its
weapons and its arts; the conquests of the one are therefore gained by
the ploughshare; those of the other, by the sword. The Anglo-American
relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free
scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the citizens;
the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm; the
principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude.
Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same;
yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway
the destinies of half the globe.
* * * * *
Notes:
[297] The foremost of these circumstances is, that nations which are
accustomed to free institutions and municipal government are better able
than any others to found prosperous colonies. The habit of thinking and
governing for oneself is indispensable in a new country, where success
necessarily depends, in a great measure, upon the individual exertions
of the settlers.
[298] The United States already extend over a territory equal to one
half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 square leagues, and its
population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. (Maltebrun, liv. 114, vol., vi.,
p. 4.)
[299] See Maltebrun, liv. 116, vol. vi., p.92.
[300] This would be a population proportionate to that of Europe, taken
at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the square league.
[301] Russia is the country in the Old World in which population
increases most rapidly in proportion.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A.--Page 17.
For information concerning all the countries of the West which have
not been visited by Europeans, consult the account of two expeditions
undertaken at the expense of congress by Major Long. This traveller
particularly mentions, on the subject of the great American desert, that
a line may be drawn nearly parallel to the 20th degree of longitude[302]
(meridian of Washington), beginning from the Red river and ending at
the river Platte. From this imaginary line to the Rocky mountains, which
bound the valley of the Mississippi on the west, lie immense plains,
which are almost entirely covered with sand, incapable of cultivation,
or scattered over with masses of granite. In summer, these plains are
quite destitute of water, and nothing is to be seen on them but herds of
buffaloes and wild horses. Some hordes of Indians are also found there,
but in no great number.
Major Long was told, that in travelling northward from the river Platte,
you find the same desert constantly on the left; but he was unable to
ascertain the truth of this report. (Long's Expedition, vol. ii., p.
361.)
However worthy of confidence may be the narrative of Major Long, it
must be remembered that he only passed through the country of which he
speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he had traced out
for his journey.
[302] The 20th degree of longitude according to the meridian of
Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th degree on the meridian of
Greenwich.
APPENDIX B.--Page 18.
South America, in the regions between the tropics, produces an
incredible profusion of climbing-plants, of which the Flora of the
Antilles alone presents us with forty different species.
Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower, which,
according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the Antilles, as
to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which it is provided, and
form moving bowers of rich and elegant festoons, decorated with blue and
purple flowers, and fragrant with perfume. (Vol. i., p. 265.)
The _mimosa scandens_ (acacia à grandes gousses) is a creeper of
enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to tree, and sometimes
covers more than half a league. (Vol. iii., p. 227.)
APPENDIX C.--Page 20.
The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America, from the Pole
to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the same model, and subject
to the same grammatical rules; whence it may fairly be concluded that
all the Indian nations sprang from the same stock.
Each tribe of the American continent speaks a different dialect; but
the number of languages, properly so called, is very small, a fact which
tends to prove that the nations of the New World had not a very remote
origin.
Moreover, the languages of America have a great degree of regularity;
from which it seems probable that the tribes which employ them had not
undergone any great revolutions, or been incorporated, voluntarily, or
by constraint, with foreign nations. For it is generally the union of
several languages into one which produces grammatical irregularities.
It is not long since the American languages, especially those of the
north, first attracted the serious attention of philologists, when the
discovery was made that this idiom of a barbarous people was the product
of a complicated system of ideas and very learned combinations. These
languages were found to be very rich, and great pains had been taken at
their formation to render them agreeable to the ear.
The grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others in
several points, but especially in the following:--
Some nations in Europe, among others the Germans, have the power of
combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus giving a complex
sense to certain words. The Indians have given a most surprising
extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means of connecting a
great number of ideas with a single term. This will be easily understood
with the help of an example quoted by Mr. Duponceau, in the Memoirs of
the Philosophical Society of America.
"A Delaware woman, playing with a cat or a young dog," says this writer,
"is heard to pronounce the word _kuligatschis_; which is thus composed;
_k_ is the sign of the second person, and signifies 'thou' or 'thy;'
_uli_ is a part of the word _wulit_, which signifies 'beautiful,'
'pretty;' _gat_ is another fragment of the word _wichgat_, which means
'paw;' and lastly, _schis_ is a diminutive giving the idea of smallness.
Thus in one word the Indian woman has expressed, 'Thy pretty little
paw.'"
Take another example of the felicity with which the savages of America
have composed their words. A young man of Delaware is called _pilape_.
This word is formed from _pilsit_, chaste, innocent; and _lenape_, man;
viz., man in his purity and innocence.
This facility of combining words is most remarkable in the strange
formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often expressed by
a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades of an idea by the
modification of its construction.
Those who may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have
only glanced at superficially, should read:--
1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr. Hecwelder
relative to the Indian languages; which is to be found in the first
volume of the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America, published
at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small, vol i., pp 356-464.
2. The grammar of the Delaware or Lenape language by Geiberger, the
preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same collection, vol.
iii.
3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of the 6th
volume of the American Encyclopaedia.
APPENDIX D.--Page 22.
See in Charlevoix, vol i., p. 235, the history of the first war which
the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610, against the
Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows, offered a desperate
resistance to the French and their allies. Charlevoix is not a great
painter, yet he exhibits clearly enough, in this narrative, the contrast
between the European manners and those of savages, as well as the
different way in which the two races of men understood the sense of
honor.
When the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which covered the
Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies, were greatly offended
at this proceeding; but without hesitation they set to work in their
usual manner, inflicting horrid cruelties upon the prisoners, and
devouring one of those who had been killed, which made the Frenchmen
shudder. The barbarians prided themselves upon a scrupulousness
which they were surprised at not finding in our nation; and could not
understand that there was less to reprehend in the stripping of dead
bodies, than in the devouring of their flesh like wild beasts.
Charlevoix, in another place (vol. i., p. 230), thus describes the first
torture of which Champlain was an eyewitness, and the return of the
Hurons into their own village.
"Having proceeded about eight leagues," says he, "our allies halted: and
having singled out one of their captives, they reproached him with all
the cruelties which he had practised upon the warriors of their nation
who had fallen into his hands, and told him that he might expect to
be treated in like manner; adding, that if he had any spirit, he would
prove it by singing. He immediately chanted forth his death-song, and
then his war-song, and all the songs he knew, 'but in a very mournful
strain,' says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage music
has a melancholy character. The tortures which succeeded, accompanied by
all the horrors which we shall mention hereafter, terrified the French,
who made every effort to put a stop to them, but in vain. The following
night one of the Hurons having dreamed that they were pursued, the
retreat was changed to a real flight, and the savages never stopped
until they were out of the reach of danger."
The moment they perceived the cabins of their own village, they cut
themselves long sticks, to which they fastened the scalps which had
fallen to their share, and carried them in triumph. At this sight, the
women swam to the canoes, where they received the bloody scalps from the
hands of their husbands, and tied them round their necks.
The warriors offered one of these horrible trophies to Champlain; they
also presented him with some bows and arrows--the only spoils of the
Iroquois which they had ventured to seize--entreating him to show them
to the king of France.
Champlain lived a whole winter quite alone among these barbarians,
without being under any alarm for his person or property.
APPENDIX E.--Page 36.
Although the puritanical strictness which presided over the
establishment of the English colonies in America is now much relaxed,
remarkable traces of it are still found in their habits and their laws.
In 1792, at the very time when the anti-Christian republic of France
began its ephemeral existence, the legislative body of Massachusetts
promulgated the following law, to compel the citizens to observe the
sabbath. We give the preamble, and the principal articles of this law,
which is worthy of the reader's attention.
"Whereas," says the legislator, "the observation of the Sunday is
an affair of public interest; inasmuch as it produces a necessary
suspension of labor, leads men to reflect upon the duties of life and
the errors to which human nature is liable, and provides for the public
and private worship of God the creator and governor of the universe,
and for the performance of such acts of charity as are the ornament and
comfort of Christian societies:--
"Whereas, irreligious or light-minded persons, forgetting the duties
which the sabbath imposes, and the benefits which these duties confer on
society, are known to profane its sanctity, by following their pleasures
or their affairs; this way of acting being contrary to their own
interest as Christians, and calculated to annoy those who do not follow
their example; being also of great injury to society at large, by
spreading a taste for dissipation and dissolute manners;--
"Be it enacted and ordained by the governor, council, and
representatives convened in general court of assembly, that all and
every person and persons shall, on that day, carefully apply themselves
to the duties of religion and piety; that no tradesman or laborer shall
exercise his ordinary calling, and that no game or recreation shall be
used on the Lord's day, upon pain of forfeiting ten shillings;--
"That no one shall travel on that day, or any part thereof, under pain
of forfeiting twenty shillings; that no vessel shall leave a harbor of
the colony; that no person shall keep outside the meetinghouse during
the time of public worship, or profane the time by playing or talking,
on penalty of five shillings.
"Public-houses shall not entertain any other than strangers or lodgers,
under a penalty of five shillings for every person found drinking or
abiding therein.
"Any person in health who, without sufficient reason, shall omit to
worship God in public during three months, shall be condemned to a fine
of ten shillings.
"Any person guilty of misbehavior in a place of public worship shall be
fined from five to forty shillings.
"These laws are to be enforced by the tithing-men of each township, who
have authority to visit public-houses on the Sunday. The innkeeper who
shall refuse them admittance shall be fined forty shillings for such
offence.
"The tithing-men are to stop travellers, and to require of them their
reason for being on the road on Sunday: any one refusing to answer shall
be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding five pounds sterling. If
the reason given by the traveller be not deemed by the tithing-men
sufficient, he may bring the traveller before the justice of the
peace of the district." (_Law of the 8th March, 1792: General Laws of
Massachusetts_, vol. i., p. 410.)
On the 11th March, 1797, a new law increased the amount of fines, half
of which was to be given to the informer. (_Same collection_, vol. ii.,
p. 525.)
On the 16th February, 1816, a new law confirmed these measures. (_Same
collection_, vol. ii., p. 405.)
Similar enactments exist in the laws of the state of New York, revised
in 1827 and 1828. (See _Revised Statutes_, part i., chapter 20, p. 675.)
In these it is declared that no one is allowed on the sabbath to sport,
to fish, play at games, or to frequent houses where liquor is sold. _No
one_ can travel except in case of necessity.
And this is not the only trace which the religious strictness and
austere manners of the first emigrants have left behind them in the
American laws.
In the revised statutes of the state of New York, vol. i., p. 662, is
the following clause:--
"Whoever shall win or lose in the space of twenty-four hours, by gaming
or betting, the sum of twenty-five dollars, shall be found guilty of
a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be condemned to pay a fine
equal to at least five times the value of the sum lost or won; which
will be paid to the inspector of the poor of the township. He that loses
twenty-five dollars or more, may bring an action to recover them; and
if he neglects to do so, the inspector of the poor may prosecute the
winner, and oblige him to pay into the poor box both the sum he has
gained and three times as much beside."
The laws we quote from are of recent date; but they are unintelligible
without going back to the very origin of the colonies. I have no doubt
that in our days the penal part of these laws is very rarely applied.
Laws preserve their inflexibility long after the manners of a nation
have yielded to the influence of time. It is still true, however, that
nothing strikes a foreigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than
the regard to the sabbath.
There is one, in particular, of the large American cities, in which all
social movements begin to be suspended even on Saturday evening. You
traverse its streets at the hour at which you expect men in the middle
of life to be engaged in business, and young people in pleasure; and you
meet with solitude and silence. Not only have all ceased to work, but
they appear to have ceased to exist. Neither the movements of industry
are heard, nor the accents of joy, nor even the confused murmur which
arises from the midst of a great city. Chains are hung across the
streets in the neighborhood of the churches; the half closed shutters
of the houses scarcely admit a ray of sun into the dwellings of the
citizens. Now and then you perceive a solitary individual, who glides
silently along the deserted streets and lanes.
Next day, at early dawn, the rolling of carriages, the noise of hammers,
the cries of the population, begin to make themselves heard again. The
city is awake. An eager crowd hastens toward the resort of commerce
and industry; everything around you bespeaks motion, bustle, hurry. A
feverish activity succeeds to the lethargic stupor of yesterday: you
might almost suppose that they had but one day to acquire wealth and to
enjoy it.
APPENDIX F.--Page 41.
It is unnecessary for me to say, that in the chapter which has just been
read, I have not had the intention of giving a history of America. My
only object was to enable the reader to appreciate the influence which
the opinions and manners of the first emigrants had exercised upon
the fate of the different colonies and of the Union in general. I have
therefore confined myself to the quotation of a few detached fragments.
I do not know whether I am deceived, but it appears to me that by
pursuing the path which I have merely pointed out, it would be easy to
present such pictures of the American republics as would not be unworthy
the attention of the public, and could not fail to suggest to the
statesman matter for reflection.
Not being able to devote myself to this labor, I am anxious to render
it easy to others; and for this purpose, I subjoin a short catalogue and
analysis of the works which seem to me the most important to consult.
At the head of the general documents, which it would be advantageous
to examine, I place the work entitled An Historical Collection of State
Papers, and other authentic Documents, intended as Materials for a
History of the United States of America, by Ebenezer Hasard. The first
volume of this compilation, which was printed at Philadelphia in 1792,
contains a literal copy of all the charters granted by the crown of
England to the emigrants, as well as the principal acts of the colonial
governments, during the commencement of their existence. Among other
authentic documents, we here find a great many relating to the affairs
of New England and Virginia during this period. The second volume is
almost entirely devoted to the acts of the confederation of 1643. This
federal compact, which was entered into by the colonies of New England
with the view of resisting the Indians, was the first instance of
union afforded by the Anglo-Americans. There were besides many other
confederations of the same nature, before the famous one of 1776, which
brought about the independence of the colonies.
Each colony has, besides, its own historic monuments, some of which are
extremely curious; beginning with Virginia, the state which was first
peopled. The earliest historian of Virginia was its founder, Capt. John
Smith. Capt. Smith has left us an octavo volume, entitled, The generall
Historic of Virginia and New England, by Captain John Smith, sometymes
Governour in those Countryes, and Admirall of New England; printed at
London in 1627. The work is adorned with curious maps and engravings of
the time when it appeared; the narrative extends from the year 1584 to
1626. Smith's work is highly and deservedly esteemed. The author was one
of the most celebrated adventurers of a period of remarkable adventure;
his book breathes that ardor for discovery, that spirit of enterprise
which characterized the men of his time, when the manners of chivalry
were united to zeal for commerce, and made subservient to the
acquisition of wealth.
But Capt. Smith is remarkable for uniting, to the virtues which
characterized his contemporaries, several qualities to which they were
generally strangers: his style is simple and concise, his narratives
bear the stamp of truth, and his descriptions are free from false
ornament.
This author throws most valuable light upon the state and condition of
the Indians at the time when North America was first discovered.
The second historian to consult is Beverley, who commences his narrative
with the year 1595, and ends it with 1700. The first part of his book
contains historical documents, properly so called, relative to the
infancy of the colonies. The second affords a most curious picture of
the Indians at this remote period. The third conveys very clear ideas
concerning the manners, social condition, laws, and political customs of
the Virginians in the author's lifetime.
Beverley was a native of Virginia, which occasions him to say at the
beginning of his book that he entreats his readers not to exercise their
critical severity upon it, since, having been born in the Indies, he
does not aspire to purity of language. Notwithstanding this colonial
modesty, the author shows throughout his book the impatience with which
he endures the supremacy of the mother-country. In this work of Beverley
are also found numerous traces of that spirit of civil liberty which
animated the English colonies of America at the time when he wrote. He
also shows the dissensions which existed among them and retarded their
independence. Beverley detests his catholic neighbors of Maryland, even
more than he hates the English government; his style is simple, his
narrative interesting and apparently trustworthy.
I saw in America another work which ought to be consulted, entitled, The
_History of Virginia_, by William Stith. This book affords some curious
details, but _I_ thought it long and diffuse.
The most ancient as well as the best document to be consulted on the
history of Carolina is a work in a small quarto, entitled, The History
of Carolina, by John Lawson, printed at London in 1718. This work
contains, in the first part, a journey of discovery in the west of
Carolina; the account of which, given in the form of a journal, is
in general confused and superficial; but it contains a very striking
description of the mortality caused among the savages of that time, both
by the small-pox and the immoderate use of brandy; and with a curious
picture of the corruption of manners prevalent among them, which was
increased by the presence of Europeans. The second part of Lawson's book
is taken up with a description of the physical condition of Carolina,
and its productions. In the third part, the author gives an interesting
account of the manners, customs, and government of the Indians at that
period. There is a good deal of talent and originality in this part of
the work.
Lawson concludes his history with a copy of the charter granted to the
Carolinas in the reign of Charles II. The general tone of this work is
light, and often licentious, forming a perfect contrast to the solemn
style of the works published at the same period in New England. Lawson's
history is extremely scarce in America, and cannot be procured in
Europe. There is, however, a copy of it in the royal library at Paris.
From the southern extremity of the United States I pass at once to the
northern limit; as the intermediate space was not peopled till a later
period.
I must first point out a very curious compilation, entitled, Collection
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, printed for the first time at
Boston in 1792, and reprinted in 1806. The collection of which I speak,
and which is continued to the present day, contains a great number of
very valuable documents relating to the history of the different states
of New England. Among them are letters which have never been published,
and authentic pieces which have been buried in provincial archives. The
whole work of Gookin concerning the Indians is inserted there.
I have mentioned several times, in the chapter to which this note
relates, the work of Nathaniel Norton, entitled New England's Memorial;
sufficiently perhaps to prove that it deserves the attention of those
who would be conversant with the history of New England. This book is in
8vo. and was reprinted at Boston in 1826.
The most valuable and important authority which exists upon the history
of New England is the work of the Rev. Cotton Mather, entitled Magnalia
Christi Americana, or the Ecclesiastical History of New England,
1620-1698, 2 vols. 8vo, reprinted at Hartford, United States, in 1820.
(A folio edition of this work was published in London in 1702.) The
author divided his work into seven books. The first presents the history
of the events which prepared and brought about the establishment of New
England. The second contains the lives of the first governors and chief
magistrates who presided over the country. The third is devoted to the
lives and labors of the evangelical ministers who during the same period
had the care of souls. In the fourth the author relates the institution
and progress of the University of Cambridge (Massachusetts). In the
fifth he describes the principles and the discipline of the Church of
New England. The sixth is taken up in retracing certain facts, which, in
the opinion of Mather, prove the merciful interposition of Providence
in behalf of the inhabitants of New England. Lastly, in the seventh, the
author gives an account of the heresies and the troubles to which the
Church of New England was exposed. Cotton Mather was an evangelical
minister who was born at Boston, and passed his life there. His
narratives are distinguished by the same ardor and religious zeal which
led to the foundation of the colonies of New England. Traces of bad
taste sometimes occur in his manner of writing; but he interests,
because he is full of enthusiasm. He is often intolerant, still oftener
credulous, but he never betrays an intention to deceive. Sometimes his
book contains fine passages, and true and profound reflections, such as
the following:--
"Before the arrival of the Puritans," says he (vol. i., chap, iv.),
"there were more than a few attempts of the English to people and
improve the parts of New England which were to the northward of New
Plymouth; but the design of those attempts being aimed no higher
than the advancement of some worldly interests, a constant series of
disasters has confounded them, until there was a plantation erected upon
the nobler designs of Christianity: and that plantation, though it
has had more adversaries than perhaps any one upon earth, yet, having
obtained help from God, it continues to this day."
Mather occasionally relieves the austerity of his descriptions with
images full of tender feeling: after having spoken of an English lady
whose religious ardor had brought her to America with her husband, and
who soon after sank under the fatigues and privations of exile, he adds,
"As for her virtuous husband, Isaac Johnson,
"He tried
To live without her, liked it not, and died."--(Vol. i.)
Mather's work gives an admirable picture of the time and country which
he describes. In his account of the motives which led the puritans to
seek an asylum beyond seas, he says:--
"The God of heaven served, as it were, a summons upon the spirits of his
people in the English nation, stirring up the spirits of thousands which
never saw the faces of each other, with a most unanimous inclination to
leave the pleasant accommodations of their native country, and go over
a terrible ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment
of all his ordinances. It is now reasonable that, before we pass any
farther, the reasons of this undertaking should be more exactly made
known unto posterity, especially unto the posterity of those that were
the undertakers, lest they come at length to forget and neglect the true
interest of New England. Wherefore I shall now transcribe some of them
from a manuscript wherein they were then tendered unto consideration.
"_General Considerations for the Plantation of New England_.
"First, it will be a service unto the church of great consequence, to
carry the gospel unto those parts of the world, and raise a bulwark
against the kingdom of antichrist, which the Jesuits labor to rear up in
all parts of the world.
"Secondly, all other churches of Europe have been brought under
desolations; and it may be feared that the like judgments are coming
upon us; and who knows but God hath provided this place to be a refuge
for many whom he means to save out of the general destruction!
"Thirdly, the land grows weary of her inhabitants, inasmuch that man,
which is the most precious of all creatures, is here more vile and
base than the earth he treads upon; children, neighbors, and friends,
especially the poor, are counted the greatest burdens, which, if things
were right, would be the chiefest of earthly blessings.
"Fourthly, we are grown to that intemperance in all excess of riot, as
no mean estate almost will suffice a man to keep sail with his equals,
and he that fails in it must live in scorn and contempt; hence it comes
to pass, that all arts and trades are carried in that deceitful manner
and unrighteous course, as it is almost impossible for a good upright
man to maintain his constant charge and live comfortably in them.
"Fifthly, the schools of learning and religion are so corrupted, as
(beside the unsupportable charge of education) most children, even the
best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes, are prevented, corrupted,
and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evil examples and licentious
behaviors in these seminaries.
"Sixthly, the whole earth is the Lord's garden, and he hath given it to
the sons of Adam, to be tilled and improved by them: why then should
we stand starving here for places of habitation, and in the mean time
suffer whole countries, as profitable for the use of man, to lie waste
without any improvement?
"Seventhly, what can be a better or a nobler work, and more worthy of a
Christian, than to erect and support a reformed particular church in its
infancy, and unite our forces with such a company of faithful people, as
by timely assistance may grow stronger and prosper; but for want of it,
may be put to great hazards, if not be wholly ruined.
"Eighthly, if any such as are known to be godly, and live in wealth
and prosperity here, shall forsake all this to join with this reformed
church, and with it run the hazard of a hard and mean condition, it will
be an example of great use, both for the removing of scandal, and to
give more life unto the faith of God's people in their prayers for the
plantation, and also to encourage others to join the more willingly in
it."
Farther on, when he declares the principles of the church of New England
with respect to morals, Mather inveighs with violence against the
custom of drinking healths at table, which he denounces as a pagan and
abominable practice. He proscribes with the same rigor all ornaments for
the hair used by the female sex, as well as their custom of having the
arms and neck uncovered.
In another part of his work he relates several instances of witchcraft
which had alarmed New England. It is plain that the visible action of
the devil in the affairs of this world appeared to him an incontestible
and evident fact.
This work of Cotton Mather displays in many places, the spirit of civil
liberty and political independence which characterized the times in
which he lived. Their principles respecting government are discoverable
at every page. Thus, for instance, the inhabitants of Massachusetts, in
the year 1630, ten years after the foundation of Plymouth, are found to
have devoted 400_l_. sterling to the establishment of the University of
Cambridge. In passing from the general documents relative to the history
of New England, to those which describe the several states comprised
within its limits, I ought first to notice The History of the Colony of
Massachusetts, by Hutchinson, Lieutenant-Governor of the Massachusetts
Province, 2 vols., 8vo.
The history of Hutchinson, which I have several times quoted in the
chapter to which this note relates, commences in the year 1628 and ends
in 1750. Throughout the work there is a striking air of truth and the
greatest simplicity of style; it is full of minute details.
The best history to consult concerning Connecticut is that of Benjamin
Trumbull, entitled, A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and
Ecclesiastical, 1630-1764; 2 vols., 8vo., printed in 1818, at New Haven.
This history contains a clear and calm account of all the events which
happened in Connecticut during the period given in the title. The author
drew from the best sources; and his narrative bears the stamp of truth.
All that he says of the early days of Connecticut is extremely curious.
See especially the constitution of 1639, vol. i., ch. vi., p. 100; and
also the penal laws of Connecticut, vol. i., ch. vii., p. 123.
The History of New Hampshire, by Jeremy Belknap, is a work held in
merited estimation. It was printed at Boston in 1792, in 2 vols.,
8vo. The third chapter of the first volume is particularly worthy of
attention for the valuable details it affords on the political and
religious principles of the puritans, on the causes of their emigration,
and on their laws. The following curious quotation is given from a
sermon delivered in 1663: "It concerneth New England always to remember
that they are a plantation religious, not a plantation of trade. The
profession of the purity of doctrine, worship, and discipline, is
written on her forehead. Let merchants, and such as are increasing cent
per cent, remember this, that worldly gain was not the end and design
of the people of New England, but religion. And if any man among us make
religion as twelve, and the world as thirteen, such an one hath not the
true spirit of a true New Englishman." The reader of Belknap will find
in his work more general ideas, and more strength of thought, than are
to be met with in the American historians even to the present day.
Among the central states which deserve our attention for their remote
origin, New York and Pennsylvania are the foremost. The best history we
have of the former is entitled A History of New York, by William Smith,
printed in London in 1757. Smith gives us important details of the wars
between the French and English in America. His is the best account of
the famous confederation of the Iroquois.
With respect to Pennsylvania, I cannot do better than point out the
work of Proud, entitled the History of Pennsylvania, from the original
Institution and Settlement of that Province, under the first Proprietor
and Governor, William Penn, in 1681, till after the year 1742; by Robert
Proud; 2 vols., 8vo., printed at Philadelphia in 1797. This work is
deserving of the especial attention of the reader; it contains a mass of
curious documents concerning Penn, the doctrine of the Quakers, and
the character, manners, and customs of the first inhabitants of
Pennsylvania.
APPENDIX G.--Page 48.
We read in Jefferson's Memoirs as follows:--
"At the time of the first settlement of the English in Virginia, when
land was had for little or nothing, some provident persons having
obtained large grants of it, and being desirous of maintaining
the splendor of their families, entailed their property upon their
descendants. The transmission of these estates from generation to
generation, to men who bore the same name, had the effect of raising up
a distinct class of families, who, possessing by law the privilege of
perpetuating their wealth, formed by these means a sort of patrician
order, distinguished by the grandeur and luxury of their establishments.
From this order it was that the king usually chose his counsellor of
state." (This passage is extracted and translated from M. Conseil's
work upon the Life of Jefferson, entitled, "_Mélanges Politiques et
Philosophiques de Jefferson_.")
In the United States, the principal clauses of the English law
respecting descent have been universally rejected. The first rule that
we follow, says Mr. Kent, touching inheritance, is the following: If a
man dies intestate, his property goes to his heirs in a direct line.
If he has but one heir or heiress, he or she succeeds to the whole. If
there are several heirs of the same degree, they divide the inheritance
equally among them, without distinction of sex.
This rule was prescribed for the first time in the state of New York
by a statute of the 23d of February, 1786. (See Revised Statutes, vol.
iii., Appendix, p. 48.) It has since then been adopted in the revised
statutes of the same state. At the present day this law holds good
throughout the whole of the United States, with the exception of the
state of Vermont, where the male heir inherits a double portion: Kent's
Commentaries, vol. iv., p. 370. Mr. Kent, in the same work, vol. iv., p.
1-22, gives an historical account of American legislation on the subject
of entail; by this we learn that previous to the revolution the colonies
followed the English law of entail. Estates tail were abolished in
Virginia in 1776, on a motion of Mr. Jefferson. They were suppressed
in New York in 1786; and have since been abolished in North Carolina,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri. In Vermont, Indiana,
Illinois, South Carolina, and Louisiana, entail was never introduced.
Those States which thought proper to preserve the English law of entail,
modified it in such a way as to deprive it of its most aristocratic
tendencies. "Our general principles on the subject of government," says
Mr. Kent, "tend to favor the free circulation of property."
It cannot fail to strike the French reader who studies the law
of inheritance, that on these questions the French legislation is
infinitely more democratic even than the American.
The American law makes an equal division of the father's property, but
only in the case of his will not being known; "for every man," says the
law, "in the state of New York (Revised Statutes, vol. iii., Appendix,
p. 51), has entire liberty, power, and authority, to dispose of his
property by will, to leave it entire, or divided in favor of any persons
he chooses as his heirs, provided he do not leave it to a political body
or any corporation." The French law obliges the testator to divide his
property equally, or nearly so, among his heirs.
Most of the American republics still admit of entails, under certain
restrictions; but the French law prohibits entail in all cases.
If the social condition of the Americans is more democratic than that of
the French, the laws of the latter are the most democratic of the two.
This may be explained more easily than at first appears to be the case.
In France, democracy is still occupied in the work of destruction; in
America it reigns quietly over the ruins it has made.
APPENDIX H.--Page 55.
SUMMARY OF THE QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS IN THE UNITED STATES.
All the states agree in granting the right of voting at the age of
twenty-one. In all of them it is necessary to have resided for a certain
time in the district where the vote is given. This period varies from
three months to two years.
As to the qualification; in the state of Massachusetts it is necessary
to have an income of three pounds sterling or a capital of sixty pounds.
In Rhode Island a man must possess landed property to the amount of 133
dollars.
In Connecticut he must have a property which gives an income of
seventeen dollars. A year of service in the militia also gives the
elective privilege.
In New Jersey, an elector must have a property of fifty pounds a year.
In South Carolina and Maryland, the elector must possess fifty acres of
land.
In Tennessee, he must possess some property.
In the states of Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, New York, the only necessary qualification for voting is that
of paying the taxes; and in most of the states, to serve in the militia
is equivalent to the payment of taxes.
In Maine and New Hampshire any man can vote who is not on the pauper
list.
Lastly, in the states of Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana,
Indiana, Kentucky, and Vermont, the conditions of voting have no
reference to the property of the elector.
I believe there is no other state beside that of North Carolina in which
different conditions are applied to the voting for the senate and the
electing the house of representatives. The electors of the former, in
this case, should possess in property fifty acres of land; to vote for
the latter, nothing more is required than to pay taxes.
APPENDIX I.--Page 92.
The small number of custom-house officers employed in the United States
compared with the extent of the coast renders smuggling very easy;
notwithstanding which it is less practised than elsewhere, because
everybody endeavors to suppress it. In America there is no police for
the prevention of fires, and such accidents are more frequent than in
Europe, but in general they are more speedily extinguished, because the
surrounding population is prompt in lending assistance.
APPENDIX K--Page 94.
It is incorrect to assert that centralization was produced by the French
revolution: the revolution brought it to perfection, but did not create
it. The mania for centralization and government regulations dates from
the time when jurists began to take a share in the government, in the
time of Philippe-le-Bel; ever since which period they have been on the
increase. In the year 1775, M. de Malesherbes, speaking in the name
of the Cour des Aides, said to Louis XIV. (see "Mèmoires pour servir à
l'Histoire du Droit Public de la France eft matiere d'lmpots," p. 654,
printed at Brussels in 1779):
"Every corporation and every community of citizens retained the right of
administering its own affairs; a right which not only forms part of the
primitive constitution of the kingdom, but has a still higher origin;
for it is the right of nature and of reason. Nevertheless, your
subjects, sire, have been deprived of it; and we cannot refrain from
saying that in this respect your government has fallen into puerile
extremes. From the time when powerful ministers made it a political
principle to prevent the convocation of a national assembly, one
consequence has succeeded another, until the deliberations of the
inhabitants of a village are declared null when they have not been
authorized by the intendant. Of course, if the community have an
expensive undertaking to carry through, it must remain under the control
of the sub-delegate of the intendant, and consequently follow the plan
he proposes, employ his favorite workmen, pay them according to his
pleasure; and if an action at law is deemed necessary, the intendant's
permission must be obtained. The cause must be pleaded before this first
tribunal, previous to its being carried into a public court; and if the
opinion of the intendant is opposed to that of the inhabitants, or if
their adversary enjoys his favor, the community is deprived of the
power of defending its rights. Such are the means, sire, which have been
exerted to extinguish the municipal spirit in France; and to stifle, if
possible, the opinions of the citizens. The nation may be said to lie
under an interdict, and to be in wardship under guardians."
What could be said more to the purpose at the present day, when the
revolution has achieved what are called its victories in centralization?
In 1789, Jefferson wrote from Paris to one of his friends: "There is no
country where the mania for over-governing has taken deeper root than in
France, or been the source of greater mischief." Letter to Madison, 28th
August, 1789.
The fact is that for several centuries past the central power of France
has done everything it could to extend central administration; it has
acknowledged no other limits than its own strength. The central power to
which the revolution gave birth made more rapid advances than any of
its predecessors, because it was stronger and wiser than they had been;
Louis XIV. committed the welfare of such communities to the caprice
of an intendant; Napoleon left them to that of the minister. The same
principle governed both, though its consequences were more or less
remote.
APPENDIX L.--Page 97.
This immutability of the constitution of France is a necessary
consequence of the laws of that country.
To begin with the most important of all the laws, that which decides
the order of succession to the throne; what can be more immutable in its
principle than a political order founded upon the natural succession of
father to son? In 1814 Louis XVIII. had established the perpetual law
of hereditary succession in favor of his own family. The individuals
who regulated the consequences of the revolution of 1830 followed his
example; they merely established the perpetuity of the law in favor of
another family. In this respect they imitated the Chancellor Maurepas,
who, when he erected the new parliament upon the ruins of the old,
took care to declare in the same ordinance that the rights of the new
magistrates should be as inalienable as those of their predecessors had
been.
The laws of 1830, like those of 1814, point out no way of changing the
constitution; and it is evident that the ordinary means of legislation
are insufficient for this purpose. As the king, peers, and deputies, all
derive their authority from the constitution, these three powers united
cannot alter a law by virtue of which alone they govern. Out of the
pale of the constitution, they are nothing; where, then, could they take
their stand to effect a change in its provisions? The alternative is
clear; either their efforts are powerless against the charter, which
continues to exist in spite of them, in which case they only reign in
the name of the charter; or, they succeed in changing the charter, and
then the law by which they existed being annulled, they themselves cease
to exist. By destroying the charter, they destroy themselves.
This is much more evident in the laws of 1830 than in those of 1814.
In 1814, the royal prerogative took its stand above and beyond the
constitution; but in 1830, it was avowedly created by, and dependant on,
the constitution.
A part therefore of the French constitution is immutable, because it is
united to the destiny of a family; and the body of the constitution is
equally immutable, because there appear to be no legal means of changing
it.
These remarks are not applicable to England. That country having no
written constitution, who can assert when its constitution is changed.
APPENDIX M.--Page 97.
The most esteemed authors who have written upon the English constitution
agree with each other in establishing the omnipotence of the parliament.
Delolme says: "It is a fundamental principle with the English lawyers,
that parliament can do everything except making a woman a man, or a man
a woman."
Blackstone expresses himself more in detail if not more energetically
than Delolme, in the following terms:--
"The power and jurisdiction of parliament," says Sir Edward Coke (4
Inst. 36), "is so transcendant and absolute, that it cannot be confined,
either for causes or persons, within any bounds. And of this high
court," he adds, "may be truly said, 'Si antiquitatem spectes, est
vetustissima; si dignitatem, est honoratissima; si jurisdictionem, est
capacissima.' It hath sovereign and uncontrollable authority in making,
confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving and
expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations;
ecclesiastical or temporal; civil, military, maritime, or criminal; this
being the place where that absolute despotic power which must, in all
governments, reside somewhere, is intrusted by the constitution of these
kingdoms. All mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that
transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this
extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new model the succession to
the crown; as was done in the reigns of Henry VIII. and William III. It
can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety
of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII. and his three children.
It can change and create afresh even the constitution of the kingdom,
and of the parliaments themselves; as was done by the act of union and
the several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can, in
short, do everything that is not naturally impossible to be done; and,
therefore, some have not scrupled to call its power, by a figure rather
too bold, the omnipotence of parliament."
APPENDIX N.--Page 107.
There is no question upon which the American constitutions agree more
fully than upon that of political jurisdiction. All the constitutions
which take cognizance of this matter, give to the house of delegates the
exclusive right of impeachment; excepting only the constitution of North
Carolina which grants the same privilege to grand-juries. (Article 23.)
Almost all the constitutions give the exclusive right of pronouncing
sentence to the senate, or to the assembly which occupies its place.
The only punishments which the political tribunals can inflict are
removal and interdiction of public functions for the future. There is
no other constitution but that of Virginia (152), which enables them to
inflict every kind of punishment.
The crimes which are subject to political jurisdiction, are, in the
federal constitution (section 4, art. 1); in that of Indiana (art. 3,
paragraphs 23 and 24); of New York (art. 5); of Delaware (art. 5); high
treason, bribery, and other high crimes or offences.
In the constitution of Massachusetts (chap. 1, section 2); that of
North Carolina (art. 23); of Virginia (p. 252), misconduct and
mal-administration.
In the constitution of New Hampshire (p. 105) corruption, intrigue and
mal-administration.
In Vermont (chap, ii., art 24), mal-administration.
In South Carolina (art. 5); Kentucky (art. 5); Tennessee (art. 4); Ohio
(art. 1, §23, 24); Louisiana (art. 5); Mississippi (art. 5); Alabama
(art. 6); Pennsylvania (art. 4); crimes committed in the non-performance
of official duties.
In the states of Illinois, Georgia, Maine, and Connecticut, no
particular offences are specified.
APPENDIX O.--Page 171.
It is true that the powers of Europe may carry on maritime wars with
the Union; but there is always greater facility and less danger in
supporting a maritime than a continental war. Maritime warfare only
requires one species of effort. A commercial people which consents to
furnish its government with the necessary funds, is sure to possess a
fleet. And it is far easier to induce a nation to part with its money,
almost unconsciously, than to reconcile it to sacrifices of men and
personal efforts. Moreover, defeat by sea rarely compromises the
existence or independence of the people which endures it.
As for continental wars, it is evident that the nations of Europe
cannot be formidable in this way to the American Union. It would be
very difficult to transport and maintain in America more than 25,000
soldiers; an army which maybe considered to represent a nation of
2,000,000 of men. The most populous nation of Europe contending in this
way against the Union, is in the position of a nation of 2,000,000 of
inhabitants at war with one of 12,000,000. Add to this, that America
has all its resources within reach, while the European is at 4,000 miles
distance from his; and that the immensity of the American continent
would of itself present an insurmountable obstacle to its conquest.
APPENDIX P.--Page 186.
The first American journal appeared in April, 1704, and was published at
Boston. See collection of the Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol.
vi., p. 66.
It would be a mistake to suppose that the periodical press has always
been entirely free in the American colonies: an attempt was made to
establish something analogous to a censorship and preliminary security.
Consult the Legislative Documents of Massachusetts of the 14th of
January, 1722.
The committee appointed by the general assembly (the legislative body of
the province), for the purpose of examining into circumstances connected
with a paper entitled "The New England Courier," expresses its opinion
that "the tendency of the said journal is to turn religion into
derision, and bring it into contempt; that it mentions the sacred
writings in a profane and irreligious manner; that it puts malicious
interpretations upon the conduct of the ministers of the gospel; and
that the government of his majesty is insulted, and the peace and
tranquillity of the province disturbed by the said journal. The
committee is consequently of opinion that the printer and publisher,
James Franklin, should be forbidden to print and publish the said
journal or any other work in future, without having previously submitted
it to the secretary of the province; and that the justices of the peace
for the county of Suffolk should be commissioned to require bail of the
said James Franklin for his good conduct during the ensuing year."
The suggestion of the committee was adopted and passed into a law, but
the effect of it was null, for the journal eluded the prohibition by
putting the name of Benjamin Franklin instead of James Franklin at
the bottom of its columns, and this manoeuvre was supported by public
opinion.
APPENDIX Q.--Page 287.
The federal constitution has introduced the jury into the tribunals of
the Union in the same way as the states had introduced it into their own
several courts: but as it has not established any fixed rules for the
choice of jurors, the federal courts select them from the ordinary
jury-list which each state makes for itself. The laws of the states must
therefore be examined for the theory of the formation of juries.
See Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, B. iii., chap. 38, pp.
654-659; Sergeant's Constitutional Law, p. 165. See also the federal
laws, of the years 1789, 1800, and 1802, upon the subject.
For the purpose of thoroughly understanding the American principles with
respect to the formation of juries, I examined the laws of states at
a distance from one another, and the following observations were the
result of my inquiries.
In America all the citizens who exercise the elective franchise have the
right of serving upon a jury. The great state of New York, however, has
made a slight difference between the two privileges, but in a spirit
contrary to that of the laws of France; for in the state of New York
there are fewer persons eligible as jurymen than there are electors. It
may be said in general that the right of forming part of a jury, like
that of electing representatives, is open to all the citizens; the
exercise of this right, however, is not put indiscriminately into any
hands.
Every year a body of municipal or county magistrates--called _selectmen_
in New England, _supervisors_ in New York, _trustees_ in Ohio, and
_sheriffs of the parish_ in Louisiana--choose for each county a certain
number of citizens who have the right of serving as jurymen, and who we
supposed to be capable of exercising their functions. These magistrates,
being themselves elective, excite no distrust: their powers, like those
of most republican magistrates, are very extensive and very arbitrary,
and they frequently make use of them to remove unworthy or incompetent
jurymen.
The names of the jurymen thus chosen are transmitted to the county
court; and the jury who have to decide any affair are drawn by lot from
the whole list of names.
The Americans have contrived in every way to make the common people
eligible to the jury, and to render the service as little onerous as
possible. The sessions are held in the chief town of every county; and
the jury are indemnified for their attendance either by the state or
the parties concerned. They receive in general a dollar per day, beside
their travelling expenses. In America the being placed upon the jury is
looked upon as a burden, but it is a burden which is very supportable.
See Brevard's Digest of the Public Statute Law of South Carolina, vol.
i, pp. 446 and 454, vol. ii., pp. 218 and 333; The General Laws of
Massachusetts, revised and published by Authority of the Legislature,
v. ii., pp. 187 and 331; The Revised Statutes of the State of New
York, vol. ii., pp. 411, 643, 717, 720; The Statute Law of the State of
Tennessee, vol. i., p. 209; Acts of the State of Ohio, pp. 95 and 210;
and Digeste Genéral des Actes de la Législature de la Louisiana.
APPENDIX R.--Page 290.
If we attentively examine the constitution of the jury as introduced
into civil proceedings in England, we shall readily perceive that the
jurors are under the immediate control of the judge. It is true that the
verdict of the jury, in civil as well as in criminal cases, comprises
the question of fact and the question of right in the same reply; thus,
a house is claimed by Peter as having been purchased by him: this is the
fact to be decided. The defendant puts in a plea of incompetency on the
part of the vendor: this is the legal question to be resolved.
But the jury do not enjoy the same character of infallibility in civil
cases, according to the practice of the English courts, as they do in
criminal cases. The judge may refuse to receive the verdict; and even
after the first trial has taken place, a second or new trial may be
awarded by the court. See Blackstone's Commentaries, book iii., ch. 24.