ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE FEDERATIVE REPUBLICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
UPON LITERATURE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER.
Prepared to be delivered before the Historical and Philosophical
Society of Virginia, at their annual meeting in 1836, by THOMAS R.
DEW, Professor of History, Metaphysics and Political Law, in the
College of William and Mary. Published by request of the Society,[1]
March 20, 1836.
[Footnote 1: "It being understood that Professor Dew has been
prevented by delicate health and the inclemency of the season, from
attending the present meeting--
"_Resolved_, That he be requested to furnish the Recording Secretary
of this Society with a copy of his intended address, for insertion in
the Southern Literary Messenger."
Extract from the minutes.
G. A. MYERS, _Recording Secretary
Of the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society_.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society,
I have consented to appear before you this evening with feelings of
the deepest solicitude--a solicitude which has been increased by my
knowledge of the ability and eloquence of the gentleman who was first
chosen by you to perform this task, and by the fact that this is the
first time that circumstances have permitted my attendance on your
sessions, though early admitted by the kindness of your body to the
honor of membership.
The subject upon which I propose to address you is one which I hope
will not be considered as inappropriate to the occasion. I shall
endeavor to present to your view some of the most important effects
which the Federative Republican System of government is calculated to
produce on the progress of literature and on the development of
individual and national character.
When we cast a glance at the nations of the earth and contemplate
their character, and that of the individuals who compose them, we are
amazed at the almost endless variety which such a prospect presents
to our view. We perceive the most marked differences, not only
between the savage and civilized nations, but between the civilized
themselves--not only between different races of different physical
organization, but between the same races--not only between nations
situated at immense distances from each other, but among those
enjoying the same climate, and inhabiting the same region. How marked
the difference, for example, between the nations of India and those
of Europe--how different the citizen who merely vegetates under the
still silent crushing despotisms of the East, from that restless,
bustling, energetic being who lives under the limited monarchies and
republics of the West! And again, what great differences do we find
among the latter themselves! What differences do we observe between
the French and the English, the Germans and the Spaniards, the Swiss
and the Italians! How often does the whole moral nature of man seem
to change, by crossing a range of mountains, passing a frontier
stream, or even an imaginary line! "The Languedocians and Gascons,"
says Hume, "are the gayest people in France; but whenever you pass
the Pyrenees you are among Spaniards." "Athens and Thebes were but a
short day's journey from each other; though the Athenians were as
remarkable for ingenuity, politeness and gaiety, as the Thebans for
dulness, rusticity, and a phlegmatic temper."
There is no subject more worthy the attention of the philosopher and
the historian, than a consideration of the causes which thus
influence the moral destiny, and determine the character of nations
and individuals. Among the generating causes of national differences,
none exert so powerful, so irresistible an influence as Religion and
Government; and of these two potent engines in the formation of
character, it may be affirmed, that if the former be sometimes, under
the operation of peculiar circumstances, more powerful and
overwhelming, directing for a season the spirit of the age and
overcoming every resistance to its progress, the latter is much more
constant and universal in its action, and mainly contributes to the
formation of that permanent national character which lasts through
ages.
Of all the governments which have ever been established, it may
perhaps be affirmed, that ours, if the most complicate in structure,
is certainly the most beautiful in theory, correcting by the
principle of representation, and a proper system of responsibility,
the wild extravagances and the capricious levities of the unbalanced
democracies of antiquity. Ours is surely the system, which, if
administered in the pure spirit of that patriotism and freedom which
erected it, holds out to the philanthropists and the friends of
liberty throughout the world, the fairest promise of a successful
solution of the great problem of free government. Ours is indeed the
great experiment of the eighteenth century--to it the eyes of all,
friends and foes, are now directed, and upon its result depends
perhaps the cause of liberty throughout the civilized world. In the
meantime it well behooves us all to hope for the best, and never to
despair of the republic. Let me then proceed to inquire into some of
the most marked effects which our peculiar system of government is
likely to produce, in the progress of time, upon literature and the
development of character.
Some have maintained the opinion that the {262} monarchical form of
government is better calculated to foster and encourage every species
of literature than the republican, and consequently that the
institutions of the United States would prove unfavorable to the
growth and progress of literature. This opinion seems to be based
upon the supposition that a king and aristocracy are necessary for
the support and patronage of a literary class. I will briefly explain
my views on this point, and then proceed to the consideration of that
peculiar influence which our state or federative system of government
will, in all probability, exert over the character and literature of
our inhabitants. It is this latter view which I wish mainly to
present this evening--it is this view which has been neglected or
misunderstood in almost all the speculations which I have seen upon
the character and influence of our institutions.
In the first place, it has been affirmed that republics are too
economical--too niggardly in their expenditures, to afford that
salutary and efficient patronage necessary to the growth of
literature. To this I would answer, first, that this argument takes
for granted that the literature of a nation advances or recedes in
proportion to the pecuniary wages which it earns. Now, although I do
not say with Dr. Goldsmith, that the man who draws his pen to take a
purse, no more deserves to have it, than the man who draws his pistol
for the same purpose, yet I may safely assert, that of the motives
which operate on the literary man--the love of fame, the desire to be
useful, and the love of money--the former, in the great majority of
cases, exerts an infinitely more powerful influence than the latter.
And if I shall be able to show, as I hope to do in the sequel, that
the republican form of government is the one which is best calculated
to stimulate these great passions of our nature and throw into action
all the energies of man, then must we acknowledge its superiority,
even in a literary point of view.
But even supposing that the progress of literature depends directly
upon the amount of pecuniary patronage which it can command, it by no
means follows that it will flourish most under a monarchical
government. For granting that this kind of government may have the
ability to patronise, it is by no means certain that it will always
possess the will to do so. Augustus and his Mecænas may lavish to day
the imperial treasures upon literature, but Tiberius and Sejanus may
starve and proscribe it to-morrow. That which depends upon the will
of one man must ever be unsteady and uncertain. It is much easier to
predict the conduct of a multitude--of a whole nation--than of one
individual. The support then which monarchs can be expected to yield
to learning, must necessarily be extremely capricious and
fluctuating. It is not however by sudden starts and violent impulses,
that a sound, solid, wholesome literature can be created. Ages must
conspire to the formation of such a literature. Constantine the
Great, seated on the throne of the Eastern Empire, with all the
resources of the Roman world at his command, could not awaken the
slumbering genius of a degenerate race, nor revive the decaying arts
of the ancient empire. The literature of his reign, with all the
patronage he could bestow upon it, did but too nearly resemble those
gorgeous piles, which his pride and vanity caused to be erected in
his _own_ imperial city, composed of the ruins of so many of the
splendid monuments of antiquity.
Not only, however, is the support a capricious and uncertain one
which a monarchy is calculated to yield to literature, but there are
only certain departments of learning, and those by no means the most
important, which such a government can ever be expected cordially to
foster. Monarchs may patronise the fine arts and light
literature--they may encourage the mathematical and physical
sciences, but they can rarely feel a deep interest in the promotion
of correct and orthodox moral, political and theological knowledge,
which is, at the same time, much the most important and most
difficult department of literature. The great law of
self-preservation prompts us to war on every thing which threatens
our interest and happiness. Moral and political philosophy has too
often aimed its logic at the throne, and questioned the title of the
monarch, ever to be a favorite with rulers. Hence, while even the
absolute despot may encourage the arts, light literature and the
physical and mathematical sciences, he dares not unbind the fetters
of the mind in the region of politics, morals and religion. He can
but tremble at that bold spirit of inquiry which may be aroused on
those subjects--which dares to advance to the throne itself and
loosen even the foundations on which it is erected. Napoleon
Bonaparte, in the plenitude of his power, could give the utmost
encouragement to all those departments of learning, whose principles
could not be arrayed against despotism. In these departments he
delighted to behold the genius and talent of the country. In the
provinces and in the capital he called to the physical and
mathematical chairs of his colleges, his universities and his
polytechnic schools, some of the most splendid lecturers of the age;
but selfishness forbade him to tolerate a free and manly spirit of
inquiry in morals and politics, and he whose armies had deluged
Europe with blood, whose name was a terror and whose word was a law
unto nations, could not feel secure upon his throne while such men as
Cousin were illustrating the nineteenth century by the splendor of
their professorial eloquence, before the youth of France, or such
writers as De Stael were making their animated appeals to the nation,
in behalf of liberty of thought, and freedom of action. It is
impossible, without full freedom of thought, and a single eye to
truth and usefulness, that the scientific investigator, no matter how
great his genius may be, can unravel the difficulties of moral and
political philosophy. The very patronage of the throne enthrals his
intellect, and his fears or his avarice tempt him to desert the cause
of truth and humanity.
"Thus trammell'd, thus condemn'd to flattery's trebles,
He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:
For fear some noble thoughts like heavenly rebels
Should rise up in high treason to his brain,
He sings as the Athenean spoke, with pebbles
In 's mouth, lest truth should stammer through his strain."
If we look even to those epochs under monarchical governments, which
have been designated by the high sounding title of the golden ages of
literature, we shall observe a full exemplification of the remarks
which I have made on this subject. Let us take the Augustan age
itself. Under the patronage of the first of the Roman Emperors we
find, it is true, the arts and light literature rising to a pitch
which perhaps they had not reached under the republic. After the
death of Brutus the world of letters experienced a revolution almost
as {263} great as that of the political world. The literature of the
Augustan age is distinguished by that tone and spirit which mark the
downfall of liberty, and the consequent thraldom of the mind. The
bold and manly voice of eloquence was hushed. The high and lofty
spirit of the republic was tamed down to a sickly and disgusting
servility. The age of poetry came when that of eloquence and
philosophy was past; and Virgil and Horace and Propertius, flattered,
courted and enriched by an artful prince and an elegant courtier,
could consent to sing the sycophantic praises of the monarch who had
signed the proscriptions of the triumvirate, and rivetted a despotism
on his country.
But the men who most adorned the various departments of learning
during the long reign of Augustus, were born in the last days of the
republic. They saw what the glory of the commonwealth had been--they
beheld with their own eyes the greatness of their country, and they
had inhaled in their youth the breath of freedom. No Roman writer,
for example, excels the Lyric Bard in true feeling and sympathy for
heroic greatness. We ever behold through the medium of his
writings--even the gayest--a deep rooted sorrow locked up in his
bosom, for the subversion of the liberties of the commonwealth. "On
every occasion we can see the inspiring flame of patriotism and
freedom breaking through that mist of levity in which his poetry is
involved." "He constrained his inclinations," says Schlegel, "and
endeavored to write like a royalist, but in spite of himself he is
still manifestly a republican and a Roman."[2]
[Footnote 2: Horace fought under Brutus and Cassius, on the side of
the Republic, at the battle of Philippi, and he was after the battle
saved from the wreck of the republican army, and treated with great
respect and kindness by Augustus and his minister Mecænas.]
"In the last years of Augustus," says the same writer, "the younger
generation who were born, or at least grew up to manhood, after the
commencement of the monarchy, were altogether different. We can
already perceive the symptoms of declining taste--in Ovid
particularly, who is overrun with an unhealthy superfluity of fancy,
and a sentimental effeminacy of expression." Even History itself, in
which the Romans so far excelled, yielded to the corrupting influence
of the Cæsars. Tacitus concluded the long series of splendid and
vigorous writers, and he grew up and was educated under the
comparatively happy reigns of Vespasian and Titus, and wrote under
the mild government of Nerva. Unnatural pomp and extravagance of
expression seem, strange as it may appear, to be the necessary
results of social and political degradation. And it is curious indeed
to behold among the writers under the first Cæsars, the extraordinary
compounds which genius can produce, when impelled on the one hand by
the all-powerful and stimulating love of liberty, and vivid glimpses
of the real dignity of human nature, while checked and subdued on the
other by the fear of arbitrary power. Take Lucan for an example. "In
him we find the most outrageously republican feelings making their
chosen abode in the breast of a wealthy and luxurious courtier of
Nero. It excites surprise and even disgust, to observe how he stoops
to flatter that disgusting tyrant, in expressions the meanness of
which amounts to a crime, and then in the next page, exalts Cato
above the Gods themselves, and speaks of all the enemies of the first
Cæsar with an admiration that approaches to idolatry."
Let us now look for an exemplification of the same great truths, to
the reign of Louis the fourteenth, a reign which has been celebrated
as the zenith of warlike and literary splendor--and here I borrow the
language of Macintosh. "Talent seemed robbed of the conscious
elevation, of the erect and manly port, which is its noblest
associate and its surest indication. The mild purity of Fenelon, the
lofty spirit of Bossuet, the masculine mind of Boileau, the sublime
fervor of Corneille, were confounded by the contagion of ignominious
and indiscriminate servility." Purity, propriety and beauty of style,
were indeed carried during this reign to a high pitch of perfection.
The literature of this period was "the highest attainment of the
imagination." An aristocratic society, such as that which adorned the
court of Louis XIV, is particularly favorable to the delicacy and
polish of style, the fascinations of wit and gaiety, and to all the
decorations of an elegant imagination. No one has ever surpassed
Racine, Fenelon, and Bossuet, in purity of style and elegance of
language.
The literature of this age, however, as well asserted by Madame de
Stael, was not a "philosophic power." "Sometimes indeed, authors were
seen, like Achilles, to take up warlike weapons in the midst of
frivolous employments, but, in general, books at that time did not
treat upon subjects of _real_ importance. Literary men retired to a
distance from the active interests of life. An analysis of the
principles of government, an examination into religious opinions, a
just appreciation of men in power, every thing in short that could
lead to any applicable result, was strictly forbidden them." Hence,
however perfect the compositions of this age in mere style and
ornament, we find them sadly deficient in profundity of reflection
and utility of purpose. The human mind during this period had not yet
reached its proper elevation, because it was enthralled by arbitrary
power. The succeeding, was one of more grandeur of thought, and
consequently of a more bold, daring, and profound philosophy. In vain
would we look over the annals of the age of Louis XIV, to find a
parallel to Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Raynal. And what, let
me ask, had so soon produced this mighty difference in the philosophy
of France? It surely could not be the patronage of that base,
profligate, licentious libertine, who during the period of his
unfortunate regency, loosened the very foundation of human virtue,
polluted the morals of his country, and weakened or destroyed those
dearest of ties which bind together in harmony, in happiness and in
love, the whole social fabric. It could not surely be the patronage
of a monarch who had been reared and educated in such a school as
this. No! it was the new spirit which animated the age--the spirit of
liberty--the spirit of free inquiry--the spirit of utility. It was
this spirit which quickened and aroused the stagnant genius of the
nation, and filled the soul with the "_aliquid immensum
infinitumque_," which had in the days of antiquity inspired the
eloquence of a Tully and the sublime vehemence of Demosthenes. It was
this new spirit, and not the puny patronage of a monarch, that called
forth {264} those intellectual giants of their age, Voltaire,
Montesquieu and Rousseau, who have traced out three different periods
in the progress of reflection--and if I may borrow the language of De
Stael, like the Gods of Olympus, have gone over the ground in three
steps. It was this new spirit in fine, which in spite of the
influence of the monarch and his nobility, sapped the foundation of
the throne and hastened on the awful crisis of revolution in that
devoted country.
Thus do we see that it is only the lighter kinds of literature, and
the physical and mathematical sciences, which the patronage of a
monarch can be expected to foster. In those nobler and more useful
branches of knowledge--moral, mental, religious, and political,--the
patronage of the throne clips the wings of philosophy and arrests the
growth of science and the progress of truth.[3]
[Footnote 3: In the great Austrian University established at Vienna,
the Professor of Statistics is strictly forbidden to present to the
view of his class any other Statistics than those of Austria, lest
this country should suffer by comparison with others. How limited
must be the range of intellect on political subjects under such fatal
restrictions as this, imposed by the narrow jealousy of arbitrary
power!]
So far from this particular species of literature flourishing most
under the bounty and patronage of a monarch, we find, in almost every
monarchy, the party arrayed against the government, at the same time
the most talented and the most philosophical party. The remark is
susceptible of still greater generalization. I may, perhaps, with
truth assert that in every age and in every nation, the men who have
arrayed themselves against the usurpations of government, whether
monarchical or republican--the men who have arrayed themselves on the
side of liberty, who have led on the forlorn hope against the
aggressions of despotism, have been the men who against the patronage
of power and wealth, have reared up those systems of philosophy that
time cannot destroy--they are the men who have performed those noble
achievements which most illustrate their country, and weave for it
the chaplet of its glory--these are the men whose eloquence has
shaken senates and animated nations. These are the men, who, whatever
may be their destiny whilst they live, will ever be remembered and
honored by a grateful posterity. Where now are those writings which
contend for _jure divino_ rights and patriarchal power?--past and
gone! The Filmers are forgotten, the Hobbes are despised--while the
writings of Locke will live forever, and the memory of Sidney and
Russell and Hampden will be cherished through all ages. What were the
Grenvilles and the Norths in more recent times, when compared with
Chatham, Burke, Fox and Sheridan, in England, or with the
Washingtons, Franklins, Henrys, Jeffersons and Adamses of our own
revolutionary crisis. And thus would a review of the history of the
world bear me out in the assertion, that in almost every age and
country since the annals of history have become authentic, the
opposition literature, in moral, political and religious philosophy
has been purer, deeper, more vivifying and useful, than that sickly
literature which has grown up under the shadow of the throne, though
encouraged and stimulated by the smiles of power, and sustained and
fostered by the lavish expenditure of exhaustless treasures.
The only additional remark which I shall make upon the general
question of the relative influences exerted upon the progress of
literature and the development of character, by the monarchical and
republican forms of government is, that in the former the aspirants
to office and honors look upwards to the throne and the nobility, in
the latter they look downwards to the people. This simple difference
between the two governments is calculated to produce the most
extensive and material consequences. In the first place, the kind of
talent requisite for success under the two governments, is very
different. Even Mr. Hume himself acknowledges, that, to be successful
with the people, it is generally necessary for a man to make himself
_useful_ by his industry, capacity, or knowledge; to be prosperous
under a monarchy, it is requisite to render himself _agreeable_ by
his wit, complaisance, or civility. "A strong genius succeeds best in
republics: a refined taste in monarchies. And consequently the
sciences are the more natural growth of the one, and the polite arts
of the other." We are told, that in France under the old monarchy,
men did not expect to reach the elevated offices of government either
by hard labor, close study, or real efficiency of character. A _bon
mot_, some peculiar gracefulness, was frequently the occasion of the
most rapid promotions; and these frequent examples, we are told,
inspired a sort of careless philosophy, a confidence in fortune, and
a contempt for studious exertions, which could only end in a
sacrifice of utility to mere pleasure and elegance.
The fate of individuals under those circumstances is determined, not
by their intrinsic worth or real talents, but by their capacity to
please the monarch and his court. Poor Racine, we are told by St.
Çimon, was banished forever from the royal sunshine in which he had
so long basked, because in a moment of that absence of mind for which
he was remarkable, he made an unlucky observation upon the writings
of Scarron in presence of the king and Madame de Maintenon, which
could never be forgotten or forgiven. We all know that the Raleighs,
Leicesters, Essexes, &c. under the energetic reign of Elizabeth, were
much more indebted to their personal accomplishments and devoted and
adulatory gallantries, for their rapid promotions, than to any real
services which they had rendered, or extraordinary talents which they
had displayed. And in the time of Queen Anne, it has been said that
the scale was turned in favor of passive obedience and nonresistance,
by the Duchess of Marlborough's gloves; and the ill humor of the
Duchess caused the recall of Marlborough, which alone could have
saved the kingdom of France from almost certain conquest at that
eventful crisis.
Another consequence which almost necessarily follows from the
difference just pointed out between the monarchical and republican
forms of government, is, that the stimulus furnished by the former,
both to thought and action, is much less universal in its operation
than that furnished by the latter. In the republican form of
government, the sovereignty of the people is the mainspring--the
moving power of the whole political engine. This sovereignty pervades
the whole nation, like the very atmosphere we breath--it reaches to
the farthest, and binds the most distant together. In a well
administered and well balanced republic, it {265} matters not where
our lot may be cast, whether in the north or the south, at the centre
or on the confines, the action of the political machine is still made
to reach us--to stimulate our energies and waken up our ambition. The
people under this system become more enlightened and more energetic,
because the exercise of sovereignty leads to reflection, and creates
a demand for knowledge. Aspirants to office must study to become
useful, intelligent and efficient, for by these attributes they will
be the better enabled to win that popularity which may ensure the
suffrages of those around them, so necessary to their attainment of
political elevation--and thus does the republican system operate on
all, and call into action the latent talent and energy of the
country, no matter where they may exist.
In the monarchy, on the contrary, the moving spring of the whole
machinery lies at the centre--the virtual sovereignty of the nation
reposes in the capital. The want of political rights and powers sinks
the dignity of the people, stagnates the public mind, and torpifies
all the energies of man. In such a body politic you may have action
and life, and even greatness at the centre, whilst you have the
torpor and lethargy of death itself at the extremities. The man who
is born at a distance from the capital has no chance for elevation
there. If he aspires to political distinction he must make a
pilgrimage to the seat of government. He must travel up to court,
where alone he can bask in the beams of the royal sunshine. How
partial is the operation of such a system as this! How many noble
intellects may pass undiscovered and undeveloped under its sway! How
many noble achievements may be lost, for the want of a proper
opportunity to display them! And all this may happen while the
monarch and his court are disposed to foster literature, to encourage
talent, and to stimulate into action all the energies of the
nation.[4]
[Footnote 4: Hence we see at once the error committed by the great
author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in the assertion,
that the absolute monarchy would be the most desirable form of
government in the world, if such men as Nerva, Trajan, and the
Antonines could always be upon the throne.]
But how debasing does this form of government become, when the
monarch, either from policy or inclination, shuns the talent and
virtue of the country, addresses himself to the lowest, the most
vulgar and most selfish passions of man, and draws around him into
the high places of the government men taken from the lowest and most
despised functions of life. "Kings," says Burke, "are naturally
lovers of low company; they are so elevated above all the rest of
mankind that they must look upon all their subjects as on a level."
They are apt, unless they be wise men, to hate the talent and virtue
of the country, and attach themselves to those vile instruments who
will consent to flatter their caprices, pander to their low and
grovelling pleasures, and offer up to them the disgusting incense of
sycophantic fawning adulation. Every man of talent and virtue is an
obstacle in the path of such a monarch as this--he holds up to his
view a most hateful mirror. When such monarchs as these are on the
throne, the government exercises the most withering influence on the
intellect and virtue of the country. Science is dishonored and
persecuted because she is virtuous, because she will consent to
flatter neither the monarch on his throne nor his sycophantic
courtier--she will consent to mingle in no degrading strife, nor does
she bring up any reserve to the dishonest minister, either to swell
his triumph or to break his fall. When men of rank thus sacrifice all
ideas of dignity to an ambition without a useful and noble object,
and work with low instruments and for low ends, the whole composition
becomes low and base. Whilst Tiberius surrenders himself into the
keeping of so vile a being as Sejanus--whilst Nero is fiddling and
dancing, and Commodus in the arena with the gladiators--all that is
noble and great in the empire must retire into the shade and seek for
safety in solitude and obscurity.
When Louis XI dismissed from the court those faithful nobles and
distinguished citizens, who had stood by his father and saved the
monarch and his throne in the hour of adversity, and filled their
places with men taken from the lowest and meanest condition of life,
with no other merit than that possessed by the eunuch guard of the
Medio-Persian monarch, of adhering to the king, because despised by
all the world besides, he conquered, for the time at least, the
virtue, the chivalry, the real greatness of France. Well, then, may
we say, in the emphatic language of England's most philosophic
statesman, "Woe to the country which would madly and impiously reject
the service of the talents and virtues, civil, military or religious,
that are given to grace and to serve it; and would condemn to
obscurity every thing formed to diffuse lustre and glory around a
state. Woe to that country too, that considers a low education, a
mean contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a
preferable title to command."
But it may be asked, may not some of the effects which I have just
described as flowing from monarchy, be produced under the republican
form of government? To this I answer that almost all of them may be
expected to be the result of one homogeneous republic, stretching
over a great extent of territory, including a numerous population and
a great diversity of interest; but, as such a government as this has
been wisely provided against in our country at least, by a system of
confederated republics, I will now proceed to the main object of my
discourse this evening--to point out the peculiar influence which our
federative system of government is calculated to produce upon
literature and character.
And in the first place, supposing our system to continue as perfect
in practice as it undoubtedly is in theory, a mere statistical exposé
of its future condition in regard to numbers and wealth at no very
distant period, is of itself sufficient to present to our view
prospects of the most cheering and animating character. We have a
territory extending over three millions of square miles, composed of
soils of every variety and every degree of fertility, stretching
almost from the tropics to the poles in one direction, and from the
Atlantic to the Pacific in the other. We have spread sparsely over a
portion of this immense territorial expanse, a population of fifteen
millions, principally descended from that nation in Europe, which is
at the same time the most wealthy, the most powerful, the most
enterprising, the most free, the most civilized, and perhaps the most
moral, purely religious and intellectual nation, among all the great
powers of Europe. This population, which has, so far, {266} shown
itself worthy of the immortal stock of ancestors from which it is
descended, is rapidly advancing in numbers and in wealth. Our
censuses have hitherto shown a duplication of our population, in
periods of less time than twenty-five years. We will assume, however,
this period in our calculation, and we shall find this elastic spring
of population, (if we can only bind down the movements of the
governments of our system within their prescribed orbits,) of itself,
like the magic wand of the enchanter, or the marvellous lamp of
Aladdin, capable of achieving all which may confer glory and power
and distinction on nations. In a period of seventy-five years, which
is but a short time in a nation's history, we shall have a population
of one hundred and twenty millions of souls, and yet not so dense as
the population of many of the states of Europe. We shall then have an
empire, formed by mere internal development, as populous as that of
Rome and much more wealthy, speaking all the same language, and
living under the same or similar institutions.
Let us then for a moment contemplate the inspiring influence which
the mere grandeur of such a theatre is calculated to produce on
literature and character. Whether the author write for wealth or for
fame, or for usefulness, he will have the most unbounded field open
to his exertions. The law which secures the property in his
productions throughout such an immense empire, will ensure the most
unlimited pecuniary patronage to all that is valuable and great, a
patronage beyond what kings and princes can furnish. And the most
powerful stimulus will be applied to every noble and generous
principle of his nature, by the simple reflection that complete
success in his literary efforts will introduce him to the knowledge
of millions, all of whom may be edified by his instruction, or made
more happy by the enjoyment of that literary repast which he may
spread before them.
Do we not read of the mighty influence produced upon mind and body in
ancient Greece, by the assemblages at the Olympic games? It was the
hope of winning the prizes before these assemblages which called
forth energy and awakened genius. It was under the thrilling
applauses of these bodies that Herodotus recited his prose, and
Pindar his poetry. And what, let me ask, was the great idea which
animated every Roman writer? It was the idea of _Rome_ herself--of
Rome so wonderful in her ancient manners and laws--so great even in
her errors and crimes. It was this idea which was breathed from the
lips of her orators and embalmed in her literature--it is this idea
which stamps the character of independent dignity and grandeur on the
page of her philosophy, her history and her poetry.
But what were the multitudes that could be assembled together in
Elis, or the heterogeneous half civilized polyglot people of the
Roman Empire, bound together by the strong arm of power and overawed
by the presence of the legions, in comparison with the millions that
will ere long spring up within the limits of our wide spread
territory,--speaking the same language,--formed under similar
institutions,--and impelled by the same inspiring spirit of
independence?
Another advantage which it is proper to present, as growing out of
that condition of our people, which a mere statistical exposé will
exhibit, is the security furnished by the magnitude and resources of
our country, and by the immense distance of all bodies politic of
great power and ambition, from our borders, against foreign invasion,
or foreign interference in domestic concerns. I shall not here dwell
upon the consequent exemption of our country from those mighty
engines of despotism, overgrown navies and armies, and the
deleterious influence which these essentially anti-literary
establishments exercise over the genius and energy of man. I shall
merely briefly advert to some of the effects which this security of
individuals and states against foreign aggression is calculated to
produce on individual enterprise and state exertion.
Since the governments of the world have become more regular and
stable, and the great expense of war has made even victory and
conquest ruinous to nations, rulers are beginning to look to the
development of the internal resources of their countries, more than
to foreign conquest and national spoliations. The great system of
internal improvement in all its branches, is without doubt one of the
most powerfully efficient means which can be devised to hurry forward
the accumulation of wealth, and speed on the progress of
civilization. The canal and the rail road, the steam boat and the
steam car, the water power and steam power, constitute in fact the
great and characteristic powers of the nineteenth century--they are
the mighty civilizers of the age in which we live. They bind together
in harmony and concord the discordant interests of nations, and like
the vascular system of the human frame, they produce a wholesome
circulation, and a vivifying and stimulating action throughout the
whole body politic.
These great improvements in our own country, with but few exceptions,
and those well defined, ought to be executed solely by states and
individuals. But neither states nor individuals would execute those
necessary works, without security from interruption and invasion, and
consequent security in the enjoyment of the profits which they might
yield. What wealthy individual in our own state, for example, would
erect a costly bridge across one of our rivers, or embark his capital
in the construction of a canal or rail road, if foe or friend might
blow up his bridge during the next year, or a war might interrupt
trade, and perhaps a treaty of peace might cede the canal or rail way
to a different state?
Of all the nations in Europe, England is the one which has been most
exempt from foreign invasion, and we find in that country that
individual enterprise has achieved more in the cause of internal
improvement than in any other nation in Europe; and the prosperity
and real greatness of England are no doubt due in a great measure to
the energy and enterprise of her citizens. In the continental nations
we find this constant liability to invasion every where paralyzing
the enterprise of both individuals and states. One of the most
skilful engineers of France tells us that in passing through some of
the frontier provinces of that country, he every where beheld the
most mournful evidences of the want of both national and individual
enterprise, in miserable roads, in decayed or fallen bridges, in the
absence of canals and turnpikes, of manufactures, commerce, and even
of agriculture itself, in many almost deserted regions. Paris, the
second city in Europe in point of numbers and wealth, and the capital
of the nation hitherto most powerful on the continent, has not {267}
yet in this age of ardor and enterprise, constructed either a canal
or rail road to the ocean, or even to any intermediate point. If our
federative system contained within its borders a city thus wealthy
and populous, and so well situated, can there be a doubt that it
would long ere this have sent its rail roads and canals not only to
the ocean, but in all probability to the Rhine and the Danube, to the
Rhone, the Garonne, and the Mediterranean.
This spirit of improvement, under the hitherto benign protection of
our government, is already abroad in the land. New York and
Pennsylvania have already executed works which rival in splendor and
grandeur the boasted monuments of Egypt, Rome or China, and far excel
them in usefulness and profit. The states of the south and west too
are moving on in the same noble career. And our own Virginia, the
_Old Dominion_, has at last awakened from her inglorious repose, and
is pushing forward with vigor her great central improvement, destined
soon to pass the Blue Ridge and Alleghany ranges of mountains, and
thus to realize the fable of antiquity, which represented the
sea-gods as driving their herds to pasture on the mountains.
"Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos
Visere montes."
One certain effect of our great systems of improvement must be the
rearing up of large towns throughout our country. I know full well
that great cities are cursed with great vices. The worst specimens of
the human character, squalid poverty, gorgeous, thoughtless luxury,
misery and anxiety, are all to be found in them. But we find, at the
same time, the noblest and most virtuous specimens of our race on the
same busy, bustling theatre. Mind is here brought into collision with
mind--intellect whets up intellect--the energy of one stimulates the
energy of another--and thus we find all the great improvements
originate here. It is the cities which constitute the great moving
power of society; the country population is much more tardy in its
action, and thus becomes the regulator to the machinery. It is the
cities which have hurried forward the great revolutions of modern
times, "whether for weal or woe." It is the cities which have made
the great improvements and inventions in mechanics and the arts. It
is the great cities which have pushed every department of literature
to the highest pitch of perfection. It is the great cities alone
which can build up and sustain hospitals, asylums,
dispensaries--which can gather together large and splendid libraries,
form literary and philosophical associations, assemble together bands
of literati, who stimulate and encourage each other. In fine, it is
the large cities alone which can rear up and sustain a mere literary
class. When there shall arise in this country, as there surely will,
some eight or ten cities of the first magnitude, we shall then find
the opprobrium which now attaches to us, of having no national
literature, wiped away; and there are no doubt some branches of
science which we are destined to carry to a pitch of perfection which
can be reached no where else. Where, for example, can the great
moral, political, and economical sciences be studied so successfully
as here? And this leads me at once to the consideration of the
operation of the state or federative system of government, which I
regard as the most beautiful feature in our political system, and
that which is calculated to produce the most beneficial influence
both on the progress of science, and on the development of character.
It has been observed, under all great governments acting over wide
spread empires, that both the arts and literature quickly come to a
stand, and most generally begin to decline afterwards. In fact, Mr.
Hume makes the bold assertion in his Essays, "that when the arts and
sciences come to perfection in any state, from that moment they
naturally or rather necessarily decline, and seldom or never revive
in that nation where they formerly flourished." His remark is
certainly much more applicable to large monarchical governments than
to such a system as ours. In large countries, with great national
governments, there will be quickly formed in literature as perfect a
despotism as exists in politics. Some few great geniuses will arise,
explore certain departments of literature, earn an imperishable
reputation, die, and bequeath to posterity in their writings a model
ever after to be imitated, and for that very reason never to be
excelled. And thus it is that certain standard authors establish
their dominion in the world of letters, and impose a binding law on
their successors, who, it has been well said, do nothing more than
transpose the incidents, new-name the characters, and paraphrase the
sentiments of their great prototypes. It is known that under the
Roman emperors, even as late as the time of Justinian, Virgil was
called _the poet_, by way of distinction, throughout the western
empire, while Homer received the same appellation in the eastern
empire. These two poets were of undisputed authority to all their
successors in epic poetry.
We are told that in the vast empire of China, speaking but one
language, governed by one law, and consequently moulded into one dull
homogeneous character, this literary despotism is still more marked.
When the authority of a great teacher, like that of Confucius, is
once established, the doctrine of passive obedience to such authority
is just as certainly enforced upon succeeding literati as the same
doctrine towards the monarch is enforced on the subject. Now all this
has a tendency to cramp genius, and paralyze literary effort.
The developing genius of the modern world was arrested in the career
of invention at least, and the imagination was tamed down by the
servile imitation of the ancients immediately after the revival of
letters. And perhaps one of the greatest benefits conferred on
learning by the reformation, consisted of the new impulse that was
suddenly communicated to the human mind--an impulse that at once
broke asunder the bonds which the literature of the ancient world had
rivetted--set free the mind after directing it into a new career of
inquiry and investigation, unshackled even by the Latin language,
which had so long robbed the vernacular tongues of Europe of the
honors justly due to them from the literati of the age.[5]
[Footnote 5: I would not by any means be understood as advancing the
opinion that the language and literature of the ancients have been
always an impediment to the progress of modern literature. On the
contrary, at the revival of letters, the moderns were an almost
immeasurable distance in the rear of the ancients. Ancient literature
then became a power, by which the moderns were at once elevated to
the literary level of antiquity; but when once we had reached that
point, all farther _exclusive_ devotion to the learning and the
language of antiquity became hurtful to the mind by the trammels
which it imposed. The study of the classics will forever be useful
and interesting to him who aspires to be a scholar. But it becomes
injurious when we make it our exclusive study, and substitute the
undefined and loose system of morality--the high sounding and empty
philosophy of the ancients, for the purer morals and deeper learning
of the moderns.]
{268} But not only do great writers in large nations establish their
authority over their successors, and thus set bounds to the progress
of literature, but they repress the genius of the country by
discouraging those first intellectual efforts of young aspirants for
fame, which appear insignificant by comparison with established
models. Now in literature, as well as in the accumulation of wealth,
the proverb is strictly true, that it is the first step which is the
most difficult, "_c'est le premier pas qui coute_." The timid and the
modest, (and real genius is always modest,) are frequently deterred
from appearing in a particular department of literature, because of
the great distance at which their first efforts must fall in the rear
of the standard authors who have preceded them. They are overawed and
alarmed at the first step which it is necessary to take, and
frequently recoil from the task, sinking back into the quiet
obscurity of listlessness and mental inactivity--whereas, if a proper
encouragement could have been furnished to their incipient labors, it
would have cheered and animated them in their literary career, and
finally conducted them to proud and exalted rank in the world of
letters.
The splendor, profundity, and irresistible fascination of
Shakspeare's plays, have perhaps deterred many a genius in England
from writing plays. So Corneille and Racine have no doubt produced
similar effects in France. Even the great names which I have
mentioned, would have been overawed, if in the commencement of their
career, they had been obliged to contend with their own more splendid
productions. "If Moliere and Corneille," said Hume, "were to bring
upon the stage at present their early productions which were formerly
so well received, it would discourage the young poets to see the
indifference and disdain of the public. The ignorance of the age
alone could have given admission to the '_Prince of Tyre_;' but it is
to that we owe '_The Moor_.' Had '_Every Man in his Humor_' been
rejected, we had never seen '_Volpone_.'"
Now there is no system of government which has ever been devised by
man, better calculated to remove the withering and blighting
influence of great names in literature, and at the same time to
insure the full possession of all the great benefits which their
labors can confer, than the federal system of republics--a system
which, at the same time that it binds the states together in peace
and harmony, leaves each one in the possession of a government of its
own, with its sovereignty and liberty unimpaired. In such a condition
as this, there is a wholesome circulation of literature from one
state to another, without establishing, however, any thing like a
dictatorship in the republic of letters. A salutary rivalry is
generated; and a true and genuine patriotism, I must be allowed to
assert, will always lead us to foster and stimulate genius, wherever
we may perceive symptoms of its development, throughout the limits of
that commonwealth to which we are attached. The soldier in the field
may love the marshal, and feel an attachment to the grand army which
has been so often led to conquest and glory; but I must confess that
I admire more that warm, generous, and sympathetic attachment, which
his heart feels for that small division and its officer with which he
has been connected--for that little platoon in which his own name has
been enrolled, and where his own little share of glory has been won.
The history of antiquity, and the history of the modern world, alike
show that small independent contiguous states, speaking the same
language, living under similar governments, actuated by similar
impulses, and bound together by the ties of cordial sympathy and
mutual welfare, are the most favorable for the promotion of
literature and science--in fine, for the development of every thing
that is great, noble, and useful. On such a theatre, the candidate
for literary honor is not overawed by the fame of those who have won
trophies in adjoining states. He looks to the commonwealth to which
he is attached, for support and applause; and when his name begins to
be known abroad, and his fame to spread, his horizon expands with the
increasing elevation of his station, until it comprehends the whole
system of homogeneous republics. In such a system as this, the
literature of each state will be aided and stimulated by that of all
the rest--it will draw from all the pure fountains in every quarter
of the world, without being manacled and stifled by the absolute
authority of any. In such a system as this, there is no _jure divino_
right in science--there is no national prejudice fostered in a
national literature; respect, and even veneration, will be paid in
such a system to all true learning, wherever it may be found; but
there will be no worship, no abject submission to literary dictators.
And if such a people may fail to form a regular homogeneous national
literature, they will perhaps for that very reason be enabled to
carry each art and science, in the end, to a higher pitch of
perfection than it could reach if trammelled by the binding laws
imposed by an organized national literature.
Among the nations of the earth which have made any progress in
civilization, we find from the operation of causes which it would be
foreign from my object to explain, that Asia most abounds in great
and populous empires. And it is precisely in this quarter of the
globe that we find a most irresistible despotism in both government
and literature. Europe is divided into smaller states, and in them we
find more popular governments, and more profound literature. Of all
the portions of Europe, Greece was anciently the most divided; but as
long as those little states could preserve their freedom, they were
by far the most successful cultivators, in the ancient world, of
every art and every science. The literature of the little republics
of Italy, during the middle ages, illustrates the same great
principles; and the rapid progress of the little states of Germany,
since the general pacification of Europe in 1815, in literary and
philosophical research of every kind, proves likewise the truth of
the remarks made above.
Germany was accused by Madame de Stael of having no national
literature: but the German state system of government, though by no
means equal to ours, bids fair to carry German literature beyond that
of any other nation in Europe. Although the literati of these small
states are not trammelled either by their own or foreign literature,
yet there is no body of learned men {269} in the world who profit
more by all that is really good and great in the learning of their
neighbors. Without any narrow prejudices, they go with eagerness in
search of truth and beauty wherever they are to be found. Every
literature in the world has been cultivated by the Germans. We are
told that "Shakspeare and Homer occupy the loftiest station in the
poetical Olympus, but there is space in it for all true singers out
of every age and clime. Ferdusi, and the primeval mythologists of
Hindostan, live in brotherly union with the troubadours and ancient
story-tellers of the west. The wayward, mystic gloom of Calderon--the
lurid fire of Dante--the auroral light of Tasso--the clear, icy
glitter of Racine, all are acknowledged and reverenced."
Of all modern literature, the German has the best, as well as the
most translations. In 1827, there were three entire versions of
Shakspeare, all admitted to be good, besides many that were partial,
or considered inferior. How soon, let me ask, would the literature of
Germany wane away, if all her little independent states were moulded
into one consolidated empire, with a great central government in the
capital?
But the most beneficial influence produced upon literature and
character under the federative system of government, springs from the
operation of the state governments themselves. We have seen that the
monarchical government, in a large state, fails to stimulate learning
and elicit great activity of character, because its influence does
not pervade the whole body politic--while the centre may be properly
acted on, the confines are in a state of inextricable languor. A
great consolidated republican government, if such an one could exist,
would be little better than a monarchy. The aspirants for the high
offices in such a nation, would all look up to the government as the
centre for promotion, and not to the people. The talent and ambition
of the country would have to make the same weary pilgrimage here as
in the monarchies--to travel up to court--to fawn upon and flatter
the men whom fortune had thrown into the high places of the
government. The stimulus which such a government could afford, must
necessarily be of the most partial and capricious character. A system
of state governments preserves the sovereignty unimpaired in every
portion of the country; it carries the beneficial stimulus, which
government itself is capable of applying to literature and character,
to every division of the people. Under such governments as these, if
properly regulated, and not overawed or corrupted by central
power--it matters very little where a man's destiny may place him,
whether he may be born on the borders of the Lakes, on the banks of
the Mississippi, or even in future times on the distant shores of the
Pacific--the sovereignty is with him--the action of the state and
federal governments reaches him in his distant home as effectually as
if he had been born in the federal metropolis, or on the banks of the
Potomac, or the waters of the Chesapeake.
Under such a system as this, there is no one part more favored than
the rest; but all are subjected to similar governments, and operated
on by similar stimulants. In all other countries the term province is
a term of reproach. Niebuhr tells us that in France the best book
published in Marseilles or Bordeaux is hardly mentioned. _C'est
publie dans la province_ is enough to consign the book at once to
oblivion--so complete is the literary dictatorship of Paris over all
France. In such a system as ours, we have no provinces; if the
governments shall only move in their prescribed orbits, all will be
principals, all will be heads--each member of the confederacy will
stand on the same summit level with every other. While this condition
of things exists, the institutions of one state will not be
disparaged or overshadowed by those of another--not even by those of
the central department. A great and flourishing university for
example, established in one state, will but encourage the
establishment of another in an adjoining state. The literary efforts
of one will not damp or impede those of another, but will stimulate
it to enter on the same career.
Where, in all Europe for example, can be found so large a number of
good universities for the same amount of population as in the states
of Germany. The number, it is said, has reached thirty-six--nineteen
Protestant, and seventeen Catholic; and nearly all of them,
particularly the Protestant, are in a flourishing condition. Even as
early as 1826 there were twenty-two universities in Germany, not one
of which numbered less than two hundred students. And Villers tells
us that there is more real knowledge in one single university, as
that of Gottingen, Halle, or Jena, than in all the eight universities
of San Jago de Compostella, Alcala, Orihuela, &c. of the consolidated
monarchy of Spain.[6]
[Footnote 6: The literature of Spain has never revived since the
consolidation of her government under Charles and Philip. It
flourished most, strange as it may appear, when the Spanish peninsula
was divided among several independent governments, and when the
spirit of independence and individuality was excited to the highest
pitch by that spirit of honor, love of adventure, and of individual
notoriety, infused into the nations of Europe by the Institution of
Chivalry. "The literature of Spain," says Sismondi, (Literature of
South Europe) "has, strictly speaking, only one period, that of
Chivalry. Its sole riches consist in its ancient honor and frankness
of character. The poem of the Cid first presented itself to us among
the Spanish works, as the Cid himself among the heroes of Spain; and
after him, we find nothing in any degree equalling either the noble
simplicity of his real character, or the charm of the brilliant
fictions of which he is the subject. Nothing that has since appeared
can justly demand our unqualified admiration. In the midst of the
most brilliant efforts of Spanish genius, our taste has been
continually wounded by extravagance and affectation, or our reason
has been offended by an eccentricity often bordering on folly." Spain
then furnishes a most convincing illustration of the melancholy
influence of great consolidated governments on mind and literature.
The poem of the Cid, so highly eulogized by Sismondi, is supposed to
have been written about the middle of the twelfth century.]
If we look to that period of greatest glory in the history of modern
Italy, when her little states with all their bustle and faction were
still free--still unawed by the great powers of Europe, we shall
behold in her universities a beautiful exemplification of the truth
of the same principles. Almost every independent state had its
university or its college; and no matter how limited its territory,
or small its population, the spirit of the state system--the spirit
of liberty itself, breathed into these institutions the breath of
life, and made them the nurseries of genius and independence, of
science and literature.
How soon was the whole character of Holland {270} changed by the
benign operation of the federative system, after she had thrown off
the odious yoke of the Spanish monarchy! Soon did the spirit of
freedom give rise to five universities in this small but interesting
country. "When the city of Leyden, in common with all the lower
countries, had fought through the bloodiest and perhaps the noblest
struggle for liberty on record, the great and good William of Orange
offered her immunities from taxes, that she might recover from her
bitter sufferings, and be rewarded for the important services which
she had rendered to the sacred cause. Leyden however declined the
offer, and asked for nothing but the privilege of erecting a
university within her walls, as the best reward for more than human
endurance and perseverance." This simple fact, says the writer from
whom I have obtained this anecdote, is a precious gem to the student
of history; for if the protection of the arts and sciences reflects
great honor upon a monarch, though it be for vanity's sake, the
fostering care with which communities or republics watch over the
cultivation of knowledge, and the other ennobling pursuits of man,
sheds a still greater lustre upon themselves.
In our own country, it is true that we have not yet passed into the
gristle and bone of literary manhood. But we have already established
more colleges and universities than exist perhaps in any other
country on the face of the globe. We have already about seventy-six
in operation, and some of them even now, whether we consider the
munificence of their endowments, or the learning which they can boast
of, would do credit to any age or country. If the time shall ever
come when our state governments shall be broken down, and the power
shall be concentrated in one great national system, then will the era
of state universities be past, and a few bloated, corrupt, _jure
divino_ establishments will be reared in their stead, more interested
in the support of absolute power, and the suppression of truth, than
in the cause of liberty and freedom of investigation.[7]
[Footnote 7: Perhaps in our country we have multiplied colleges to
too great an extent, and consequently have lessened their usefulness
by too great a division of the funds destined for their support. The
spirit of sectarianism co-operating with the system of state
governments, has produced this result. The college and university
ought, to some extent, to partake of the nature of a monopoly. There
should be some concentration of funds, or you will fail to obtain
adequate talents for your professorships. In our country
particularly, professors should be paid high, or they cannot be
induced to relinquish the more brilliant prospects which the learned
professions hold out to them. But the evil of too great a number of
colleges and universities, is one which will correct itself in the
course of time, by the ultimate failure of those not properly
endowed.]
But it is said by some that the state system tinges all literature
with a political hue--that under this system politics becomes the
great, the engrossing study of the mind--that the lighter kinds of
literature and the fine arts will be neglected--that the mathematical
and physical sciences will be uncultivated--in fine, that the
literature of such a people will be purely utilitarian. This
objection is perhaps, founded principally upon too exclusive a view
of the past literary history of our own country. Up to this time
there has, if I may use the phraseology of political economy, been a
greater demand for political knowledge in this country than for any
other species of literature. The new political condition into which
we entered at the revolution--the formation of our state and federal
governments--the jarring and grating almost necessarily incident to
new political machinery just started into action--severely tested too
as ours has been, and is still, by the inharmonious and too often
selfish action of heterogeneous interests on each other--the
formation of new states, and the rapid development of new interests
and unforeseen powers, together with the great sparseness of our
population, have all contributed to turn the public mind of this
country principally to the field of politics and morals--and surely
we have arrived at an eminency on these subjects not surpassed in any
other country.
One of the most distinguished writers on the continent of Europe,
even before the close of the eighteenth century, says most justly,
"the American literature, indeed, is not yet formed, but when their
magistrates are called upon to address themselves on any subject to
the public opinion, they are eminently gifted with the power of
touching all the affections of the heart, by expressing simple truths
and pure sentiments; and to do this, is already to be acquainted with
the most useful secret of elegant style." The Declaration of American
Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the speeches
delivered on it in the conventions of the states, particularly in
Virginia--the collection of essays known by the name of The
Federalist--the resolutions on the Alien and Sedition Laws, and the
report thereon in the Virginia Legislature of '98 and '99--with the
messages of our Presidents, documents from the Cabinets, speeches of
our congressmen,[8] and political {271} expositions of our
distinguished statesmen, form altogether a mass of political learning
not to be surpassed in any other country. We are not to wonder then
that a German writer of much celebrity, and a defender too of the
Holy Alliance, in full view of the nascent literature of our country,
should have proclaimed the 4th of July, '76, as the commencement of a
new era in the history of the world; nor that that eloquent royalist
of France, the Vicompte de Chateaubriand, should assert that the
representative republic, which has been first reduced to practice in
the United States, is the most splendid discovery of modern times.
[Footnote 8: There is no species of talent which republican
institutions are better calculated to foster and perfect than that of
public speaking. Wherever the sovereignty resides with the people,
this talent becomes an engine of real power, and one of the surest
means of political advancement to the individual who possesses it.
Mr. Dunlop remarks, in his Roman Literature, that Cicero's treatise
_De Claris Oratoribus_, makes mention of scarcely one single orator
of any distinction in the Roman Republic, who did not rise to the
highest dignities of the state. We may certainly expect then, in the
progress of time, if our institutions shall endure, that the great
art of oratory will be carried to perhaps greater perfection here
than in any other country. Our federal system is particularly
favorable to the encouragement of this art. Had we but one great
legislature in this country, very few could ever be expected to
figure in it, and those would be the more elderly and sober. Under
these circumstances, the more ardent eloquence of the youthful
aspirant might fail to be developed, in consequence of the want of a
proper stimulus. The state governments now supply that stimulus in
full force, and furnish the first preparatory theatres for oratorical
display. When in addition to all this, we take into consideration the
training which our public men receive during the canvass, at the
elections, in public meetings, and even at the festive board, we must
acknowledge that our system is admirably calculated for the
development of the talent for public speaking. Perhaps I would not go
beyond the truth in making the assertion, that we have now in this
country more and better trained public speakers than are to be found
in any other. Judging from our own legislature and congress, I would
say, without hesitation, that our public men are generally the most
efficient speakers in the world, in comparison with their general
ability and the learning which they possess. In the latter,
unfortunately, they are too often very deficient.
It is very true that our style of speaking is too diffusive. Our
orators too often seem to be speaking against time, and to be utterly
incapable of condensation. It has been observed, that it would take
three or four of the great speeches of Demosthenes to equal in length
a speech which a second rate member of Congress would deliver _de
Lana Caprina_. I am well aware that this style is frequently the
result of confused ideas, and an indistinct conception of the subject
under discussion. But it arises in part from the nature of our
republican institutions. Most of the speeches delivered in Congress
are really intended for the constituency of those who deliver them,
and not to produce an effect in Washington. They are consequently of
an elementary character, long and labored too, to suit the pleasure
and the capacity of the people. From this cause, combined with
others, it has happened that the division of labor in our
deliberative bodies has never been so complete as in the British
Parliament. When particular subjects are brought up in that body,
particular men are immediately looked to for information, and for the
discussion of them. Men who are not supposed to be qualified on them,
are coughed down when they interrupt the body with their crude
remarks. But in our own country, particular subjects have not been
thus appropriated to particular individuals; and when a matter of
importance is brought up for discussion, all are anxious to speak on
it, and it is not to be wondered at that the clouded intellect of
some of the speakers, together with the great courtesy of the body,
should sometimes lead on to long-winded and tiresome effusions.
No body in ancient times displayed so much patience and courtesy
towards its speakers as the Senate of Rome, and we are told that the
speeches delivered before the Roman Senate were much longer than
those delivered before the _Comitia_.--There is no body in modern
times which displays more impatience than the French Chambers, and
accordingly you find generally that the speeches delivered before
them are very short. But whatever may be the cause of this tendency
to prolixity in many of our speakers, we may console ourselves with
the reflection that it is not the fault of all--that there are some
now in the United States who can compare with any in the world--that
the eloquence of our country is decidedly advancing, and will no
doubt shed a much brighter lustre over our future history, if we can
only preserve our federal system in all its original purity and
perfection.]
May we not then, judging even from the past, form the most brilliant
conceptions of the future? When our wide spread territory shall be
filled up with a denser population--when larger cities shall be
erected within our borders, the necessary nurseries of a literary
class--when physical and mental labor shall be more subdivided, then
will the intellectual level of our country begin to rise; the
increasing competition in every department of industry will call for
greater labor, greater energy, and more learning on the part of the
successful candidates for distinction. And then may we expect that
every branch of literature will be cultivated, and every art be
practiced by the matured and invigorated genius of the country.
But although in the progress of time we may expect that literature in
all its forms and varieties will be successfully cultivated here, yet
we must still acknowledge that the character of our political system
will give a most decided bias towards moral and political science.
Under a system of republics like ours, where the sovereignty resides
_de jure_ and _de facto_ in the people, the business of politics is
the business of every man. Men in power, in every age and country,
are disposed to grasp at more than has been confided to them; they
have always developed wolfish propensities. To guard against these
dangerous propensities in a republic, it is necessary that the people
in whom the sovereignty resides, should always be on the watch-tower;
they should never be caught slumbering at their posts; they should
take the alarm not only against the palpable and open usurpations of
power, but against those gradual, secret, imperceptible changes,
which silently dig away the very foundations of our constitution, and
create no alarm until they are ready to shake down the whole fabric
of our liberties. Under these circumstances, it is the business of
every man--it is more, it is the duty of every man--to think, to
reflect, to instruct himself, that he may be prepared to perform that
part at least which must necessarily devolve on each freeman in the
great political drama of our country. He must recollect that the
great experiment of a free government depends upon the intelligence
and the virtue of the people. It is this knowledge and this virtue
which constitute at once their power and their safety. It is in the
reliance on this power, resulting from the intelligence and virtue of
the people alone, that the honest patriot may well exclaim in the
glowing language of Sheridan on a different subject, "I will give to
the minister a venal house of peers--I will give him a corrupt and
servile house of commons--I will give him the full swing of the
patronage of his office--I will give him all the power that place can
confer, to overawe resistance and purchase up submission; and yet
armed, with this mighty power of the people, I will shake down from
its height corruption, and bury it beneath the ruins of the abuse it
was meant to shelter."
Surely then it can be no disadvantage to a country to direct the
virtue and talents of its citizens principally to that science whose
principles, when well understood and practiced on, will secure the
liberty and happiness of the people, but when mistaken by ignorance,
or perverted by corruption, will subvert the one, and dissipate the
other. Look to the past history of the world, from the days of the
Patriarchs to the days of our Presidents, and we are at a loss, after
the review, to determine whether the world has been injured more by
the unwise and unskilful efforts of statesmen and philanthropists to
benefit, or by the nefarious attempts of wicked men and tyrants to
injure it. We shall find from this review, that where a Hampden, a
Sidney, and a Russell have been crushed by the tyrannous exercise of
power, and been wept over by posterity after they had fallen,
thousands have been reduced to misery, or sent untimely out of the
world, unpitied and unmourned, by the stupid legislation of ignorant
statesmen. Of such bodies of functionaries, we may well exclaim, in
the language of England's bard,
"How much more happy were good Æsop's frogs
Than we?--for ours are animated logs,
With ponderous malice swaying to and fro,
And crushing nations with a stupid blow."
The statistics of the densely populated countries of Europe and Asia
inform us, that there are large masses of population in those
countries constantly vacillating, if I may use the expression,
between life and death; a feather may decide the preponderance of the
scales, in favor of one or the other. In view of such a pregnant fact
as this, how awfully responsible becomes the duty {272} of the
legislator! Suppose, whilst he is endeavoring to organize the labor
and capital of the country, he should unfortunately tamper with the
sources of production, and, if I may use the beautiful simile of
Fenelon, like him who endeavors to enlarge the native springs of the
rock, should suddenly find that his labors had but served to dry them
up,--what calamities would not such legislative blunders at once
inflict upon that lowest and most destitute class, which is already
holding on upon life, with so frail a tenure! How many would be
hastened prematurely out of existence! And these are the melancholy
every-day consequences, too often misunderstood or unnoticed, of
ignorant legislation. How vastly different is the benign influence of
that wise legislator, whose laws, in the language of Bacon, "are
deep, not vulgar; not made on the spur of a particular occasion for
the present, but out of Providence for the future, to make the estate
of the people still more and more happy!"
But not only should political science be a prominent study in every
republic, in consequence of its immense importance and universal
application, but it demands the most assiduous cultivation, because
of the intrinsic difficulties which belong to it. There is no science
in which we are more likely to ascribe effects to wrong causes than
in politics--there is none which demands a more constant exercise of
reason and observation, and in which first impressions are so likely
to be false. The moral and political sciences, particularly the
latter, are much more difficult than the physical and mathematical.
There is scarcely any intellect, no matter how common, which may not,
by severe study and close application, be brought at last to master
mere physical and mathematical science. Eminence here is rather a
proof of labor than of genius.[9]
[Footnote 9: A very able reviewer in Blackwood, of Allison's History
of the French Revolution, says of Napoleon, in attempting to disprove
his precocious greatness, "even his faculty for mathematics, which
has been frequently adduced as one of the most sufficient proofs of
his future fame as a soldier, fails; perhaps no faculty of the human
mind is less successful in promoting those enlarged views, or that
rapid and vigorous comprehension of the necessities of the moment,
which form the essentials of the great statesman or soldier. The
mathematician is generally the last man equal to the sudden
difficulties of situation, or even to the ordinary problems of human
life. Skill in the science of equations might draw up a clear system
of tactics on paper. But it must be a mental operation, not merely of
a more active, but of a totally different kind, which constructed the
recovery of the battle at Marengo, or led the march to Ulm."]
But in matters of morals and politics how many must turn their
attention to them, and how few become eminent! Suppose that the
exalted talents which have been turned into a political career in
this country, had been employed with the same assiduity in physics or
mathematics--to what perfection might they not have attained in those
sciences? If the genius and study which have been expended upon one
great subject in political economy, the Banks for example, could have
been directed with equal ardor to mathematics and physics, with what
complete success would they have been crowned? And yet this whole
subject of Banking is far, very far from being thoroughly
comprehended by the most expanded intellects of the age. Thus do we
find the moral and political departments of literature the most
useful,[10] and at the same time much the most difficult to cultivate
with success. They require too a concurrence of every other species
of knowledge to their perfection, and hence the literature of that
country may always be expected to be most perfect and most useful, in
which these branches are made the centre, the great nucleus around
which the others are formed.[11]
[Footnote 10: Dr. Johnson in his Life of Milton, has given us his
opinion on these subjects, and as it is perfectly coincident with my
own, I cannot forbear to add it in a note. "The truth is," says the
Doctor, "that the knowledge of external nature and the sciences which
that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great nor frequent
business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or
conversation--whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first
requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong;
the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with
those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events
the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and
excellences of all times and of all places. We are perpetually
moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse
with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter
are voluntary, and at leisure. Physical learning is of such rare
emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being
able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his
moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors,
therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of
prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for
conversation."]
[Footnote 11: Although our political institutions have the effect of
directing the matured minds of the country into the field of politics
and morals, yet we are not to suppose, on that account, that the
mathematical and physical sciences will be neglected here. In almost
all our colleges, particular attention is paid to these latter
branches. In fact, so far as I have been enabled to examine into the
condition of our colleges and universities, I would say the moral and
political sciences are almost always too much neglected. It is easy
generally to fill the mathematical and physical departments with able
professors, because those who are well qualified to fill those
departments, can find no other employments so lucrative and
honorable. But those who would make eminent moral and political
lecturers, would be generally well qualified, with but little
additional study, to enter into the learned professions, or into the
still more enticing field of politics, with the most unlimited
prospects before them. Hence, whilst in many of our colleges the
physical and mathematical chairs are most ably filled, you find the
moral and political professors but second rate men. Now talent and
real comprehension of mind are particularly required on the subjects
of morals and politics. In the mathematics and physics, the merest
dunce, if he teaches at all, must teach correctly. He may not give
the most concise, or the most beautiful, or the most recent
demonstration; but if he gives any demonstration at all, his
reasoning is irrefutable, and his conclusions undeniably true. How
vastly different are our speculations in politics and morals! What
fatal principles may ignorance or dishonesty inculcate here! In our
colleges, then the fixed sciences do now, and are likely in future to
receive most attention; and consequently, we need not fear that they
will be neglected. On the contrary, the danger seems to be, that they
may be studied too exclusively.
Again, the wide extent of our country, the variety of our soils, our
immense mineralogical resources, our mountains and rivers, our
diversified geological phenomena, our canals, our rail roads, our
immense improvements of all descriptions, open a wide and unlimited
range for the research and practical skill of the physical and
mathematical student, which will always stimulate the talent of the
country sufficiently in this direction. Our past history too,
confirms my remarks; and the great names in mathematics and physics,
and the great and useful inventions in the arts, which have already
shed a halo of glory around our infant institutions, point us to that
brilliant prospect in the vista of the future, when our mathematical
and natural philosophers, if not the very first, will certainly rank
among the greatest of the world.]
But again, the state system of government, in all its details,
awakens the genius and elicits the energies of the citizens, by the
high inducement to exertion held out to all,--from the stimulating
hope of influencing the {273} destinies of others, and becoming
useful to mankind and an ornament to our country. Under the benign
operation of the federative system, the hope of rising to some
distinction in the commonwealth, is breathed into us all. From the
highest to the lowest, we stand ready and anxious to step forth into
the service of our country. This universal desire to be useful--this
constant hope of rising to distinction--this longing after
immortality, arouses the spirit of emulation, excites all the powers
of reflection, calls forth all the energies of mind and body, and
makes man a greater, nobler, and more efficient being, than when he
moves on sluggishly in the dull routine of life, through the
unvarying, noiseless calm of despotism. All the rewards, all the
distinctions of arbitrary power, can never inspire that energy which
arises from the patriotic hope of being useful, and weaving our name
with the history of our country.
Philosophy is the most frivolous and shallow of employments in a
country where it dares not penetrate into the institutions which
surround it. When reflection durst not attempt to amend or soften the
lot of mankind, it becomes unmanly and puerile. Look to the
literature of those deluded beings, who immured within the walls of
their monasteries, separated themselves from the great society of
their country, and vainly imagined that they were doing service to
their God, by running counter to those great laws which he has
impressed upon his creatures, and by violating those principles which
he has breathed into us all. What a melancholy picture is presented
to our view--what waste of time, of intellect, and of labor, on
subjects which true philosophy is almost ashamed to name! What
endless discussions, what pointless wit, what inconsequential
conclusions--in fine, what empty, useless nonsense, do we find in
that absurd philosophy reared up in seclusion, and entirely
unconnected with man and the institutions by which he is
governed![12]
[Footnote 12: As a specimen, let us take the work of the celebrated
St. Thomas Aquinas, with the lofty title of Summa Totius Theologiæ,
1250 pages folio. In this work there are 168 articles on Love, 358 on
Angels, 200 on the Soul, 85 on Demons, 151 on Intellect, 134 on Law,
3 on the Catamenia, 237 on Sins, and 17 on Virginity. He treats of
Angels, says D'Israeli, their substances, orders, offices, natures,
habits, &c. as if he himself had been an old experienced Angel. When
men are thus cut off from the active pursuits of life, it is curious
to contemplate the very trifling character of their discussions and
labors. D'Israeli tells us that the following question was a favorite
topic for discussion, and thousands of the acutest logicians through
more than one century, never resolved it. "When a hog is carried to
market with a rope tied about its neck, which is held at the other
end by a man, whether is the _hog_ carried to market by the _rope_ or
the _man_?" The same writer too, tells us of a monk who was
sedulously employed through a long life, in discovering more than
30,000 new questions concerning the Virgin Mary, with appropriate
answers. And it was the same useless industry which induced the monks
often to employ their time in writing very _minutely_, until they
brought this worthless art to such perfection, as to write down the
whole Iliad on parchment that might be enclosed in a nutshell. In the
Imperial Library of Vienna, there is still preserved an extraordinary
specimen of chirography by a Jew, who had no doubt imbibed the
_in_-utilitarian spirit of the monks. On a single page, eight inches
long by six and a half broad, are written without abbreviations and
very legible to the naked eye, the Pentateuch and book of Ruth in
German; Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew; the Canticles in Latin; Esther in
Syriac; and Deuteronomy in French.]
Nothing so much animates and cheers the literary man in his
intellectual labors, as the hope of being able to promote the
happiness of the human race. Hence the custom among the ancients of
blending together military, legislative, and philosophic pursuits,
contributed greatly to the progress of mental activity and
improvement. When thought may be the forerunner of action--when a
happy reflection may be instantaneously transformed into a beneficent
institution, then do the contemplations and reflections of a man of
genius ennoble and exalt philosophy. He no longer fears that the
torch of his reason will be extinguished without shedding a light
along the path of active life. He no longer experiences that
embarrassing timidity, that crushing shame, which genius, condemned
to mere speculation, must ever feel in the presence of even an
inferior being, when that being is invested with a power which may
influence the destiny of those around him--which may enable him to
render the smallest service to his country, or even to wipe away one
tear from affliction's cheek.
I am not now dealing in vague conjecture; the history of the past
will bear me out in the assertions which I have made. In casting a
glance over the nations of antiquity, our attention is arrested by
none so forcibly as by the little Democracies of Greece. I will not
occupy the attention of this society by the details of that history
which is graven upon the memory of us all. I will not stop here to
relate the warlike achievements of that extraordinary system of
governments which, covering an extent of territory not greater than
that of our own state, even with division among themselves, was yet
enabled to meet, with their small but devoted bands, the countless
hosts of Persia, led on by their proud and vain-glorious monarch, and
to roll back in disgrace and defeat, the mighty tide upon the East.
Nor will I recount the trophies which they won in philosophy, or
describe their beautiful and sublime productions in the arts, which
they at once created and perfected. Nor will I detain you with an
account of that matchless eloquence displayed in their popular
assemblies, which the historian tells us drew together eager, gazing,
listening crowds from all Greece, as if about to behold the most
splendid spectacle which the imagination of man could conceive, or
even the universe could present. The history of Greece is too well
known to us all to require these details. A people with such
historians as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, acquires a strange
pre-eminence--a wonderful notoriety among the nations of the earth.
The extraordinary power of this cluster of little states, the
superiority of their literature, the resistless energy of the minds
and bodies of their citizens, whether for weal or woe--in short,
their real greatness, are acknowledged by all.
What then, we may well be permitted to ask, could have generated so
much greatness of mind, so much energy and loftiness of character in
this apparently secluded corner of Europe, scarcely visible on the
world's map? It was not the superiority of her climate and soil.
Spain--worn out and degenerate Spain, enjoys the genial climate of
the Athenian, and possesses a soil more fertile. It was not the
superior protection which her governments afforded to persons and
property, which generated this wonderful character. Property was
almost as unsafe amid the turbulent factions of Greece, as under the
despotisms of the East; and the stroke of tyranny was as often
inflicted upon {274} patriots and statesmen, by the ungrateful hand
of a capricious and unbalanced democracy, as by the great monarchs of
Persia, or by the barbarian kings of Scythia. No!--it was the system
of independent state governments, which, badly organized as they
were, without a proper system of representation and responsibility,
and often shaken by faction and torn to pieces by discord,
nevertheless extended their inspiring, animating influence over all,
and drew forth from the shade of retirement or solitude the talent
and energy of the people, wherever they existed. It was this system
of state government which so completely identified each citizen of
Greece with that little body politic with which his destiny was
connected--which breathed into his soul that ardent patriotism which
can sacrifice self upon the altar of our country's happiness, and
which could make even an Alcibiades, or a Themistocles, whilst
laboring under the bitter curse of their country, stop short in their
vindictive career, amid their meditations of mischief and vengeance,
and cast many a longing, lingering, pitying look back upon the
distresses of that ungrateful city that had driven them forth from
its walls.
The great moral which may be drawn from the history of Greece, is one
which the patriot in no age or clime should ever forget. In looking
over this little system of states, we find uniformly that each
displayed genius, energy, and patriotism, while really free and
independent; but the moment one was overawed and conquered by its
neighbor, it lost its greatness, its patriotism--even its virtue. And
when, at last, a great state arose in the north of Greece, and placed
a monarch upon its throne, who substituted the obedient spirit of the
mercenary soldier and crouching courtier, for the independent genius
of liberty and patriotism--who overawed Greece by his armies, and
silenced the Council of Amphictyon by his presence--then was it found
that the days of Grecian greatness had been numbered, and that the
glory of these republics was destroyed forever; then was it seen that
the Spartan lost his patriotism, and the Athenian that energy of mind
almost creative, which could lead armies and navies to battle and to
victory, adorn and enrich the stores of philosophy and literature,
agitate the public assemblies from the _Bema_, or make the marble and
the canvass breathe. The battle of Cheronea overthrew at the same
time the state governments, the liberties, the prosperity, and, worst
of all, the virtue and the towering intellect of Greece.
With the destruction of the governments of her independent states,
Greece lost the great animating principle of her system. Forming but
an insignificant subject province of the great Macedonian kingdom,
and afterwards of the still greater empire of Rome, her sons
preserved for a time the books and the mere learning of their
renowned ancestors; but the spirit, the energy, the principle of
thought and reflection,--the mind,--were all gone. "For more than ten
centuries, (says an eloquent historian) the Greeks of Byzantium
possessed models of every kind, yet they did not suggest to them one
original idea; they did not give birth to a copy worthy of coming
after these masterpieces. Thirty millions of Greeks, the surviving
depositaries of ancient wisdom, made not a single step, during twelve
centuries, in any one of the social sciences. There was not a citizen
of free Athens who was not better skilled in the science of politics
than the most erudite scholar of Byzantium; their morality was far
inferior to that of Socrates--their philosophy to that of Plato and
Aristotle, upon whom they were continually commenting. They made not
a single discovery in any one of the physical sciences, unless we
except the lucky accident which produced the Greek fire. They loaded
the ancient poets with annotations, but they were incapable of
treading in their footsteps; not a comedy or a tragedy was written at
the foot of the ruins of the theatres of Greece; no epic poem was
produced by the worshippers of Homer; not an ode by those of Pindar.
Their highest literary efforts do not go beyond a few epigrams
collected in the Greek Anthology, and a few romances. Such is the
unworthy use which the depositaries of every treasure of human wit
and genius make of their wealth, during an uninterrupted course of
transmission for more than a thousand years." And such will always be
the destiny of states as soon as they are moulded into one
consolidated empire, with a controlling despotism at the centre.
But while the states of Greece were thus sinking into insignificance,
under the crushing weight of one great consolidated government,--in
another part of Europe, almost as small and secluded as Greece,
little confederacies or associations of independent states were
rapidly developing a literature and a character equal to those of the
ancient Greek, and affording perhaps a still more striking and
beautiful illustration of the truth of the principles for which I
have contended this night. It was Italy that first restored
intellectual light to Europe, after the long and gloomy night of
ignorance and barbarism, which the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun had
shed over the western half of the Roman world. It was Italy which
recalled youth to the study of laws and philosophy--created the taste
for poetry and the fine arts--revived the science and literature of
antiquity, and gave prosperity to commerce, manufactures and
agriculture. And what was it, let me ask, which made this small
peninsula the cradle of commerce, of the arts, sciences and
literature--in one word, of the civilization of modern Europe? It was
because the whole of this beautiful and interesting country was
dotted over with little republics or democracies, which, like those
of Greece, applied their stimulating power to every portion of the
soil of Italy. These little states, it is true, were factious,
turbulent and revolutionary, but they awakened the genius and
stimulated the energies of the whole people.
The exertions of this people were truly wonderful. No nation in any
age of the world has ever raised up in its cities, and even in its
villages, so many magnificent temples,--which even now attract the
stranger from every country and clime to the classic soil of Italy.
We find throughout this land, whether on the extensive plains of
Lombardy, or on the fertile hills of Tuscany and Romagna, or on the
now deserted _campania_ of the Patrimony of St. Peter, towns of the
most splendid character, reared during the palmy days of modern
Italy; and in those cities we find long lines of once stately palaces
now tumbling into ruins. Their gates, their columns, their
architraves, says the eloquent historian of Italy, remain, but the
wood is worm-eaten and decayed, the crystal glasses have been broken,
the lead has been taken from the roofs, and the stranger from one end
to the {275} other of this _monumental_ land, asks in mournful
sadness in each town through which he passes,--Where now is the
population which could have required so many habitations? Where is
the commerce which could have filled so many magazines? Where are
those opulent citizens who could have lived in so many palaces? Where
now are those numerous crowds that bowed in reverential awe and
devotion before the altars of Christ, of the Virgin and the Saints?
Where now are the grandeur and magnificence of the living, which
should have replaced that grandeur and magnificence of the dead, of
which their monuments so eloquently tell? All are gone. While other
nations have been growing in importance and multiplying the materials
of their history as they approach the age in which we live, how
different has been the mournful destiny of Italy! The present has
well been called the epoch of death in that lovely land. When we
observe, says the historian, the whole of Italy, whether we examine
the physiognomy of the soil, or the works of man, or man himself, we
always regard ourselves as being in the land of the dead; every where
we are struck by the feebleness and degeneracy of the race that now
is, compared with that which has been. The sun of Italy now sheds as
warm and vivifying rays over the land as before--the earth remains as
fertile--the Appenines present to our view the same varient smiling
aspect--the fields are as abundantly watered by the genial showers of
heaven, and all the lower animals of nature preserve here their
pristine beauty and habits. Man too, at birth, seems in this
delightful climate, to be endowed still with the same quick creative
imagination, with the same susceptibility of deep, passionate
feeling--with the same wonderful aptitude of mind--and yet man alone
has changed here! In contrast with his fathers--
"As the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
That drives the sailor shipless to his home."
It is the change in government--the fatal change in the political
destiny of the Italian, which has wrought this melancholy change in
his whole nature. When this beautiful land was covered with leagues
of independent states, inspired with the genius of liberty and
political independence,--the stimulating influence of the government
was felt every where--it animated and aroused all--it communicated
the spirit of activity and enterprise, the love of home and the
ardent love of country to all the citizens alike--from the proud lord
of Venice, whose stately palace was lashed by the wave of the
Adriatic, to the poor peasant whose thatched and humble cottage lay
in some secluded solitary hollow of the Alps or the Appenines. Under
this system of government there was no favored spot upon which the
treasures of the nation were expended; there was no Thebes, no
Babylon, no imperial Rome built up, adorned and beautified by the
degradation and utter prostration of all the rest. We might almost
say of Italy what has been affirmed of Omnipotence itself--its centre
was every where, its circumference no where. Every little independent
state, no matter how limited its area or small its population, had
its great men, its thriving cities, its noble monuments. The little
Florentine democracy with but eighty thousand souls, had more great
men within its limits than any of the great kingdoms of Europe; and
all were animated with the spirit of patriotism, of industry,[13] of
learning.
[Footnote 13: "The habit of industry," says Sismondi, "was the
distinctive characteristic of the Italians even to the middle of the
15th century. The first rank at Florence, Venice, and Genoa, was
occupied by merchants; and the families who possessed the offices of
the state, of the church or the army, did not for that reason give up
their business. Philip Strozzi, brother-in-law of Leo X, the father
of Mareschal Strozzi, and the grandfather of Capua, the friend of
several sovereigns, and the first citizen of Italy, remained even to
the end of his life chief of a banking house. He had seven sons, but
in spite of his immense fortune, he suffered none of them to be
brought up in idleness."]
No wonder then that the citizens of Italy should have prospered amid
their domestic broils, their factions, their revolutions--even amid
the sanguinary conflicts of the Guelph and the Ghibeline. If the
energy and elasticity of the mind be not destroyed by the pressure of
despotism, it is curious to contemplate the wonderfully recuperative
powers of man, and to behold the appalling difficulties which he can
surmount, undismayed and unscathed. You may prostrate him to day, but
the energy and vitality that is within him will raise him up on the
morrow.[14] Of all sorts of destruction, of every kind of death, that
is the worst, because the most productive of melancholy consequences,
which reaches the mind itself. That system of government which slays
the mind, is the system which, at the same time reaches the sanctuary
of the heart, overthrows the purity of morals, and forges the fetters
for the slave. And such a government as this have the Spaniard the
Frenchman and the German rivetted but too fatally upon Italy. The day
that saw those modern Goths and Vandals pouring their mercenary
hordes over the Alps to rob and plunder, was a black day for Italy,
and well might the friend of that lovely land have then exclaimed in
the language of the poet,
"Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France,
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
But Tiber shall become a mournful river."
[Footnote 14: Whilst Italy was free, there was no country which could
repair its losses with so much despatch; the town that was sacked and
burnt to-day, would be built up and stored with wealth on the morrow,
and the losses of one excited the sympathies and support of all those
engaged in the same cause. When the Emperor Frederic carried fire and
sword through the Milanese territory, and left the treasury of that
state completely exhausted, we are told that the rich citizens soon
replenished it from their private purses, contenting themselves in
the mean time with coarse bread, and cloaks of black stuff. And at
the command of their consuls they left Milan to join their fellow
citizens in rebuilding _with their own hands_ the walls and houses of
Tortona, Rosata, Tricate, Galiate, and other towns, which had
suffered in the contest for the common cause.]
The independence of the little states of Italy is now gone, and with
it all the real greatness of that country. The power that now sways
the Italian, emanates from a nation situated afar off on the banks of
the Danube. And can we wonder while the Austrian soldier stands
sentinel in the Italian cities, that their citizens should
"Creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets."