American documents and newspapers, was received with consternation, and
societies called the Sons of Freedom were formed throughout the land to
agitate against this innovation. The Stamp Tax Congress, which met in
New York in 1765, repudiated the law in outspoken terms. Nor did it halt
with a mere expression of opinion; the spirit of self-direction was not
to be molested with impunity. Close on the resolve not to observe the
law, came the further agreement to buy no English merchandise. England
had to waive the Stamp Tax, but endless mutterings and recriminations
followed which increased the bitterness. Both sides were ripe for war
when, in 1770, England issued a proclamation laying a tax on all tea
imported to the colonies. The citizens of Boston became enraged and
pitched an English ship-load of tea into the harbour. Thereupon England,
equally aroused, proceeded to punish Boston by passing measures designed
to ruin the commerce of Boston and indeed all Massachusetts. The
Thirteen Colonies took sides with Massachusetts and a storm became
imminent. The first battle was fought on the 19th of April, 1775; and on
July 4th, 1776, the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence of
England. Henceforth there were to be no colonies but in their place
thirteen free states.
The Declaration of Independence was composed by Jefferson, a Virginian,
and is a remarkable document. The spirit that informs it is found in the
following lines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed....” The sins of the English king and people against America
are enumerated at length, and in solemn language the United States of
America are declared independent of the English people, who are
henceforth to be as “the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace
friends.” This Declaration was signed by delegates from the states in
Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, where hung the famous bell, with its
inscription, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the
inhabitants thereof.”
The spirit of self-direction had triumphed; but the dangers were by no
means wholly passed. England sent over no more governors, and had indeed
been repulsed; but she had as yet no intention of giving in. The war
dragged on for five long years, and the outcome was uncertain until in
1781 Cornwallis was brought to surrender. Then England knew that she had
lost the contest. The king desired still to prolong the war, but the
people were tired of it and, the ministry having finally to yield, peace
was declared in April of the year 1783. This was no assurance of an
harmonious future, however. That solidarity which the colonies had felt
in the face of a common enemy now gave way to petty jealousies and
oppositions, and the inner weakness of the new Union was revealed. In
itself the Union had no legal authority over the several states, and
while during the war the affairs of the country had fallen into
disorder, yet the Union had no power to conduct foreign diplomacy or
even to collect customs.
It was rather in their zeal for self-direction that at first
considerable portions of the population seemed disinclined to enlarge
the authority of the central organization. Self-direction begins with
the individual or some group of individuals. The true self-direction of
society as a whole was not to be allowed to encroach on the rights of
the individual, and this was the danger feared. Each state, with its
separate interests and powers, would not give up its autonomy in favour
of an impersonal central power which might easily come to tyrannize over
the single state in much the same way as the hated English throne had
done. And yet the best men of the country were brought at length more
and more to the opposite view; a strong central authority, in which the
states as a whole should become a larger self-directing unit, carrying
out and ensuring the self-direction of the component members, was seen
to be a necessity. Another congress of representatives from all the
states was convened in Independence Hall, at Philadelphia, and this body
of uncommonly able men sat for months deliberating ways by which the
opposing factions of federalism and anti-federalism could be brought
together in a satisfactory alliance. It was obvious that compromises
would have to be made. So, for instance, it was conceded that the
smallest state, like the largest, should be represented in the senate by
two delegates: and the single state enjoyed many other rights not usual
in a federation. But, on the other hand, it was equally certain that the
chief executive must be a single man with a firm will, and that this
office must be refilled at frequent intervals by a popular election. A
few had tentatively suggested making Washington king, but he stood firm
against any such plan. The republican form of government was in this
instance no shrewdly devised system which was adopted for the sake of
nicely spun theoretical advantages—it was the necessity of the time and
place, the natural culmination of a whole movement. It was as absolutely
necessary as the consolidation of the German states, eighty years later,
under an imperial crown. The congress eventually submitted a
constitutional project to the several state legislatures, for their
summary approval or rejection. Whereon the anti-federalistic factions
made a final effort, but were outvoted, and the Constitution was
adopted. In 1789 George Washington was elected the first president of
the United States.
It would take a lively partisan to assert, as one sometimes does, that
this Constitution is the greatest achievement of human intellect, and
yet the severest critics have acknowledged that a genius for
statesmanship is displayed in its text. Penned in an age which was given
over to bombastic declamation, this document lays down the fundamental
lines of the new government with great clearness and simplicity. “We,
the people of the United States,” it begins, “in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide
for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This is
the entire introduction. The contents come under seven articles. The
first article provides for the making of laws, this power to be vested
in a Congress consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives; for
the business and daily routine of this Congress, as well as its powers
and obligations. The second article provides for the executive power, to
be vested in the person of the President, who is elected every fourth
year; the third article provides for a judiciary; the fourth defines the
mutual relations of separate states; and the last three articles concern
the adoption of the Constitution and the conditions under which it may
be amended.
The need of amendments and extensions to this Constitution was foreseen
and provided for. How profoundly the original document comprehended and
expressed the genius of the American people may be seen from the fact
that during a century which saw an unexampled growth of the country and
an undreamed-of transformation of its foreign policy, not a single great
principle of the Constitution was modified. After seventy-seven years
one important paragraph was added, prohibiting slavery; and this change
was made at a tremendous cost of blood. Otherwise the few amendments
have been insignificant and concerned matters of expediency or else, and
more specially, further formulations of what, according to American
conceptions, are the rights of the individual. Although the original
Constitution did not contain a formal proclamation of religious freedom,
freedom of speech, of the press, and of public assemblage, this was not
because those who signed the document did not believe in these things,
but because they had not aimed to make of the Constitution of the Union
either a treatise on ethics or yet a book of law. But as early as 1789
the states insisted that all the rights of the individual, as endorsed
by the national ideals, should be incorporated in the articles of this
document. In the year 1870 one more tardy straggler was added to the
list of human rights, the last amendment; the right of the citizens to
vote was not to be abridged on account of race, colour, or previous
condition of servitude.
Of the other amendments, the tenth had been tacitly assumed from the
first year of the Republic; this was that “The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This
principle also was surely in no way at variance with the spirit of the
original document. It was, indeed, the lever that ensured the great
efficacy of the Constitution, so that by its provisions the centrifugal
forces were never disturbed by centripetal ones; an equilibrium was
effected between the tendencies that made for unity and those that made
against it, in such a way that the highest efficiency was ensured to the
whole while the fullest encouragement was given to the enterprise and
initiative of the parts. In no direction, probably, would an improvement
have been possible. More authority concentrated at the head would have
impeded general activity, and less would have lost the advantages of
concerted action; in neither case would material growth or the
reconciliation of conflicting opinions have been possible. Constant
compensation of old forces and the quickening of new ones were the
secret of this documented power, and yet it was only the complete
expression of the spirit of self-direction, which demands unremittingly
that the nation as a whole shall conduct itself without encroaching on
the freedom of the individual, and that the individual shall be free to
go his own ways without interfering with the unfettered policy of the
nation.
Under the auspices of this Constitution the country waxed and throve. As
early as 1803 its land area was doubled by the accession of Louisiana,
which had been ceded by Spain to France, and was now purchased from
Napoleon for fifteen million dollars—an event of such far-reaching
importance that the people of St. Louis have not inappropriately invited
the nations of the earth to participate in a Louisiana Purchase
Exposition. In 1845 Texas was taken into the Union, it having broken
away from Mexico just previously and constituted itself an independent
state. The large region on the Pacific slope known as Oregon came in
1846 to the United States by treaty with England, and when finally, in
1847, after the war with Mexico, New Mexico and California became the
spoils of the victor and in 1867 Russia relinquished Alaska, the domain
of the country was found to have grown from its original size of 324,000
square miles to one of 3,600,000. The thirteen states had become
forty-five, since the newly acquired lands had to be divided. But all
this growth brought no alteration in the Constitution, whose spirit of
self-direction, rather, had led to this magnificent development, had
fortified and secured the country, and inspired it with energy and
contentment. The population also has grown under this benevolent
Constitution. Millions have flocked hither to seek and to find
prosperity on this new and inexhaustible soil. The area has increased
tenfold, but the population twenty-fold; and the newcomers have been
disciplined in the school of self-direction and educated to the spirit
of American citizenship.
* * * * *
There is a certain kind of character which must be developed in this
school. It is true, of course, that there is no one model which just
fits every one, the native-born Yankee as well as the European
immigrant, the farmer as well as the resident in cities. The
Irish-American is not the German-American, nor is the New Englander like
the Virginian, nor the son of the East like his brother in the West. The
infinite shadings of personal character, temperament, and capacity which
nature has produced, have, of course, not been lost. And, nevertheless,
just as the human race in America has begun to differentiate into a
species which is anthropologically distinct, and this partly under the
influence of the climate since the species has several characters in
common with the aboriginal Indian, so also in the moral atmosphere of
this body-politic a distinct type of human character is undoubtedly
being evolved; and one may note with perpetual surprise how little the
other great divisions of social life, as of rich and poor, cultivated
and ignorant, native-born and immigrant, manual labourer and
brain-worker—how little these differentiate the American citizen in his
political capacity. Of course only the political life is in question
here; that new groupings and divisions are being continually formed in
the economic, intellectual, and social life need not concern us for the
present. In the individual it may not be easy to follow the threads
through the tissue of his psychic motions, but in the abstract and
schematic picture of the type it is by no means impossible to trace them
out.
What is it, then, which the American has gotten from his training? Many
and apparently unrelated lessons are taught in the school of
self-direction, and perhaps none of them are without their dangers. For
it is here not a matter of theoretical knowledge, which may be
remembered or forgotten and may be well or ill selected, but which in
itself involves no scale of excellence and, therefore, has no need to be
tempered or restrained. Theoretical knowledge cannot be overdone or
exaggerated into untruth. But the practical conduct which is here in
question is different; it involves an ideal, and in such a way that a
man may not only misapprehend or forget what is the best course of
action, but also he may err in following it, he may give it undue place
and so neglect opposing motives which in their place are no less
requisite. In short, conduct, unlike knowledge, demands a fine tact and
unflagging discernment for the fitness of things. In this sense it
cannot be denied that the teaching of American democracy is itself the
source of serious errors, and that the typical American citizen is by no
means free from the failings of his virtues. His fundamental traits may
be briefly sketched, and from the excellencies which he strives for many
of his defects can be understood.
There is, firstly, a group of closely related impulses, which springs
from the American’s unbounded belief in his own strength, a trait which
in the last analysis must be, of course, the foundation-stone of any
doctrine of self-direction. He will not wait for others to look out for
him, counsel him, or take cognizance of his interests, but relies wholly
on his own judgment and his own strength, and believes no goal too high
for his exertions to attain. Every true American will have found in
himself some trace of this spirit. Each day of his life has suggested it
to him, and all the institutions of his country have reinforced the
teaching. Its most immediate result is such a strength of initiative as
no other people on earth possesses, an optimism, a self-reliance and
feeling of security which contribute more than half to his success.
Faint heart is not in the American’s dictionary. Individual,
corporation, or country may be undecided, and dispute whether a certain
end is desirable or whether a certain means is best to a given end, but
no one ever doubts or goes into his work with misgivings lest his
strength be not enough to traverse the road and reach the goal. And such
an attitude encourages every man to exert himself to the utmost. The
spirit of self-direction is here closely allied with that
self-initiative which is the mainspring of the economic life of America.
But the initiative and optimistic resolution shown in the political
arena astonish the stranger more than the same traits displayed in the
economic field. It is shown in the readiness for argument, in which
every one can express himself accurately and effectively; in the
indefatigable demand that every public office shall be open to the
humblest incumbent, and in the cool assurance with which thousands and
thousands of persons, without any technical knowledge or professional
training, assume the most exacting political offices, and become
postmasters, mayors, ministers and ambassadors, without even pausing
before their grave responsibilities. But most of all, American
initiative is shown in the structure of all her institutions, great or
small, which minimizes transitions and degrees between higher and lower,
and so facilitates the steady advance of the individual. Each and all
must have the chance to unfold and there must be no obstacles to hinder
the right ambition from its utmost realization. Every impulse must be
utilized; and however far toward the periphery a man may be born he must
have the right of pressing forward to the centre. The strength of this
nation lies at the periphery, and the American government would never
have advanced so unerringly from success to success if every village
stable-lad and city messenger-boy had not known with pride that it
depends only on himself if he is not to become President of the United
States.
But the transition is easy and not well marked from such strength to a
deplorable weakness. The spirit of initiative and optimism is in danger
of becoming inexcusable arrogance as to one’s abilities and sad
underestimation of the value of professional training. Dilettanteism is
generally well-meaning, often successful, and sometimes wholly
admirable; but it is always dangerous. When brawny young factory-hands
sit on a school committee, sturdy tradesmen assume direction of a
municipal postal service, bankers become speakers in legislature, and
journalists shift over to be cabinet ministers, the general citizen may
sometimes find cold comfort in knowing that the public service is not
roped off from private life, nor like to become effete through stale
traditions. It is very evident that America is to-day making a great
effort to ward off the evils of amateurish incompetence and give more
prominence to the man of special training. And yet it cannot be denied
that very noticeably in the intellectual make-up of the American his
free initiative and easy optimism are combined with a readiness to
overestimate his own powers and with a bias for dilettanteism.
Another psychological outcome of this individualism seems inevitable.
When every member of a nation feels called on to pass judgment on all
subjects for himself, it will come about that public opinion reaches an
uncommonly high mean level, but it will also happen that the greatest
intellects are not recognized as being above this mean. The genius, who
in his day is always incomprehensible to the masses, goes to waste; and
the man who sees beyond the vulgar horizon fights an uphill battle. The
glittering successes are for the man whose doings impress the multitude,
and this fact is necessarily reflected in the mind of the aspirant, who
unconsciously shapes his ambitions to the taste of the many rather than
of the best. Wherever the spirit of initiative possesses all alike, a
truly great individual is of course insufferable; any great advance must
be a collective movement, and the best energies of the country must be
futilely expended in budging the masses. It is no accident that America
has still produced no great world genius. And this is the other side of
the vaunted and truthful assertion, that whenever in a New England town
a question is brought to an open debate, the number of those who will
take a lively, earnest, orderly, and intelligent part in the discussion
is perhaps greater in proportion to the total number of inhabitants than
in any place in Europe.
This leads us to a second consequence of the desire for self-direction.
It stimulates not only initiative and self-reliance, but also the
consciousness of duty. If a man earnestly believes that the subject must
also be potentate, he will not try to put off his responsibilities on
any one else but will forthwith set himself to work, and prescribe as
well his own due restrictions. If a neighbourhood or club, town, city,
or state, or yet the whole federation sees before it some duty, the
American will not be found waiting for a higher authority to stir him
up, for he is himself that authority; his vote it is which determines
all who are to figure in the affair. Wherefore he is constrained by the
whole system to an earnest and untiring co-operation in everything. This
is not the superficial politics of the ale-house, with its irresponsible
bandying of yeas and nays. When Secretary of the Navy under McKinley,
Mr. Long said that when the cabinet at Washington was in conference,
every member was of course better posted on the matter than the average
citizen; but that nevertheless a dozen villagers, say in northern Maine,
would read their New York and Boston papers and talk over the affairs
with as much intelligence and as good a comprehension of the points at
issue as would appear at any cabinet debates. This was by no means meant
as a reflection on his colleagues of the cabinet, but as a frank
recognition of an aspect of American life which invariably surprises the
foreigner. One needs only to recall the discussion which preceded the
last presidential election, and more especially the one preceding that;
the silver question was the great issue, and evening after evening
hundreds of thousands listened to technical arguments in finance such as
no European orator could hope to lay before a popular assembly. Huge
audiences followed with rapt attention for hours lectures on the most
difficult points of international monetary standards. And this
intellectual seriousness springs from the feeling of personal
responsibility which is everywhere present. The European is always
astonished at the exemplary demeanour of an American crowd; how on
public occasions great multitudes of men and women regulate their
movements without any noticeable interference by the police, how the
great transportation companies operate with almost no surveillance of
the public, trusting each person to do his part, and how in general the
whole social structure is based on mutual confidence to a degree which
is nowhere the case in Europe. The feeling that the ruler and the ruled
are one pervades all activities, and its consequences are felt far
beyond the political realm. Especially in the social sphere it makes for
self-respect among the lower classes; they adapt themselves readily to
discipline, for at the same time they feel themselves to be the masters;
and the dignity of their position is the best security for their good
behaviour.
But here, too, excellence has its defects. Where every one is so
intensely aware of an identity between political authority and political
subject, it is hard for the feeling of respect for any person whatsoever
to find root. The feeling of equality will crop out where nature
designed none, as for instance between youth and mature years. A certain
lack of respect appears in the family and goes unpunished because
superficially it corresponds to the political system of the land.
Parents even make it a principle to implore and persuade their children,
holding it to be a mistake to compel or punish them; and they believe
that the schools should be conducted in the same spirit. And thus young
men and women grow up without experiencing the advantages of outer
constraint or discipline.