Chapter Summary
Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part I
Chapter Summary
Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part II
Chapter III: Social Conditions Of The Anglo-Americans
Chapter Summary
Chapter IV: The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People In America
Chapter Summary
Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part I
Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part II
Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part III
Chapter VI: Judicial Power In The United States
Chapter Summary
Chapter VII: Political Jurisdiction In The United States
Chapter Summary
Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part I
Chapter Summary
Summary Of The Federal Constitution
Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part II
Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part III
Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part IV
Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part V
Chapter IX: Why The People May Strictly Be Said To Govern In The
United
Chapter X: Parties In The United States
Chapter Summary
Parties In The United States
Chapter XI: Liberty Of The Press In The United States
Chapter Summary
Chapter XII: Political Associations In The United States
Chapter Summary
Chapter XIII: Government Of The Democracy In America—Part I
Chapter XIII: Government Of The Democracy In America—Part II
Chapter XIII: Government Of The Democracy In America—Part III
Chapter XIV: Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy—Part I
Chapter XIV: Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy—Part II
Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part I
Chapter Summary
Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part II
Chapter XVI: Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States—Part I
Chapter Summary
Chapter XVI: Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States—Part II
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part I
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part II
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part III
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part IV
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races In The United
States—Part I
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part II
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part III
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part IV
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part V
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VI
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VII
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VIII
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part IX
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part X
Conclusion
Book One
Introductory Chapter
Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in
the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general
equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence
which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by
giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to
the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar
habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this
fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the
country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over
the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the
ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce.
The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I
perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from
which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all
my observations constantly terminated.
I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that
I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World
presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily
progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached
in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American
communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence
conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader.
It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going
on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and
consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such
may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is
the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency
which is to be found in history. Let us recollect the situation of
France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided amongst
a small number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the
rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the
family inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only
means by which man could act on man, and landed property was the sole
source of power. Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was
founded, and began to exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all
classes, to the poor and the rich, the villein and the lord; equality
penetrated into the Government through the Church, and the being who as
a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a
priest in the midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of
kings.
The different relations of men became more complicated and more
numerous as society gradually became more stable and more civilized.
Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal
functionaries soon rose from the obscurity of the tribunals and their
dusty chambers, to appear at the court of the monarch, by the side of
the feudal barons in their ermine and their mail. Whilst the kings were
ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles
exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were
enriching themselves by commerce. The influence of money began to be
perceptible in State affairs. The transactions of business opened a new
road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political
influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. Gradually the
spread of mental acquirements, and the increasing taste for literature
and art, opened chances of success to talent; science became a means of
government, intelligence led to social power, and the man of letters
took a part in the affairs of the State. The value attached to the
privileges of birth decreased in the exact proportion in which new
paths were struck out to advancement. In the eleventh century nobility
was beyond all price; in the thirteenth it might be purchased; it was
conferred for the first time in 1270; and equality was thus introduced
into the Government by the aristocracy itself.
In the course of these seven hundred years it sometimes happened that
in order to resist the authority of the Crown, or to diminish the power
of their rivals, the nobles granted a certain share of political rights
to the people. Or, more frequently, the king permitted the lower orders
to enjoy a degree of power, with the intention of repressing the
aristocracy. In France the kings have always been the most active and
the most constant of levellers. When they were strong and ambitious
they spared no pains to raise the people to the level of the nobles;
when they were temperate or weak they allowed the people to rise above
themselves. Some assisted the democracy by their talents, others by
their vices. Louis XI and Louis XIV reduced every rank beneath the
throne to the same subjection; Louis XV descended, himself and all his
Court, into the dust.
As soon as land was held on any other than a feudal tenure, and
personal property began in its turn to confer influence and power,
every improvement which was introduced in commerce or manufacture was a
fresh element of the equality of conditions. Henceforward every new
discovery, every new want which it engendered, and every new desire
which craved satisfaction, was a step towards the universal level. The
taste for luxury, the love of war, the sway of fashion, and the most
superficial as well as the deepest passions of the human heart,
co-operated to enrich the poor and to impoverish the rich.
From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of
strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to consider every addition
to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea as a germ of power
placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory,
the grace of wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and
all the gifts which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand,
turned to the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in
the possession of its adversaries they still served its cause by
throwing into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests
spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge, and
literature became an arsenal where the poorest and the weakest could
always find weapons to their hand.
In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with a
single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which has not
turned to the advantage of equality. The Crusades and the wars of the
English decimated the nobles and divided their possessions; the
erection of communities introduced an element of democratic liberty
into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized
the villein and the noble on the field of battle; printing opened the
same resources to the minds of all classes; the post was organized so
as to bring the same information to the door of the poor man’s cottage
and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all
men are alike able to find the road to heaven. The discovery of America
offered a thousand new paths to fortune, and placed riches and power
within the reach of the adventurous and the obscure. If we examine what
has happened in France at intervals of fifty years, beginning with the
eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive that a twofold
revolution has taken place in the state of society. The noble has gone
down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up; the one
descends as the other rises. Every half century brings them nearer to
each other, and they will very shortly meet.
Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. Whithersoever we turn
our eyes we shall witness the same continual revolution throughout the
whole of Christendom. The various occurrences of national existence
have everywhere turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have
aided it by their exertions: those who have intentionally labored in
its cause, and those who have served it unwittingly; those who have
fought for it and those who have declared themselves its opponents,
have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to one
end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly; all have been blind
instruments in the hands of God.
The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a
providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine
decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human
interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its
progress. Would it, then, be wise to imagine that a social impulse
which dates from so far back can be checked by the efforts of a
generation? Is it credible that the democracy which has annihilated the
feudal system and vanquished kings will respect the citizen and the
capitalist? Will it stop now that it has grown so strong and its
adversaries so weak? None can say which way we are going, for all terms
of comparison are wanting: the equality of conditions is more complete
in the Christian countries of the present day than it has been at any
time or in any part of the world; so that the extent of what already
exists prevents us from foreseeing what may be yet to come.
The whole book which is here offered to the public has been written
under the impression of a kind of religious dread produced in the
author’s mind by the contemplation of so irresistible a revolution,
which has advanced for centuries in spite of such amazing obstacles,
and which is still proceeding in the midst of the ruins it has made. It
is not necessary that God himself should speak in order to disclose to
us the unquestionable signs of His will; we can discern them in the
habitual course of nature, and in the invariable tendency of events: I
know, without a special revelation, that the planets move in the orbits
traced by the Creator’s finger. If the men of our time were led by
attentive observation and by sincere reflection to acknowledge that the
gradual and progressive development of social equality is at once the
past and future of their history, this solitary truth would confer the
sacred character of a Divine decree upon the change. To attempt to
check democracy would be in that case to resist the will of God; and
the nations would then be constrained to make the best of the social
lot awarded to them by Providence.
The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming
spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it
cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided:
their fate is in their hands; yet a little while and it may be so no
longer. The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who
direct our affairs is to educate the democracy; to warm its faith, if
that be possible; to purify its morals; to direct its energies; to
substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an
acquaintance with its true interests for its blind propensities; to
adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in compliance
with the occurrences and the actors of the age. A new science of
politics is indispensable to a new world. This, however, is what we
think of least; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we
obstinately fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be described upon
the shore we have left, whilst the current sweeps us along, and drives
us backwards towards the gulf.
In no country in Europe has the great social revolution which I have
been describing made such rapid progress as in France; but it has
always been borne on by chance. The heads of the State have never had
any forethought for its exigencies, and its victories have been
obtained without their consent or without their knowledge. The most
powerful, the most intelligent, and the most moral classes of the
nation have never attempted to connect themselves with it in order to
guide it. The people has consequently been abandoned to its wild
propensities, and it has grown up like those outcasts who receive their
education in the public streets, and who are unacquainted with aught
but the vices and wretchedness of society. The existence of a democracy
was seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took possession of the
supreme power. Everything was then submitted to its caprices; it was
worshipped as the idol of strength; until, when it was enfeebled by its
own excesses, the legislator conceived the rash project of annihilating
its power, instead of instructing it and correcting its vices; no
attempt was made to fit it to govern, but all were bent on excluding it
from the government.
The consequence of this has been that the democratic revolution has
been effected only in the material parts of society, without that
concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and manners which was
necessary to render such a revolution beneficial. We have gotten a
democracy, but without the conditions which lessen its vices and render
its natural advantages more prominent; and although we already perceive
the evils it brings, we are ignorant of the benefits it may confer.
While the power of the Crown, supported by the aristocracy, peaceably
governed the nations of Europe, society possessed, in the midst of its
wretchedness, several different advantages which can now scarcely be
appreciated or conceived. The power of a part of his subjects was an
insurmountable barrier to the tyranny of the prince; and the monarch,
who felt the almost divine character which he enjoyed in the eyes of
the multitude, derived a motive for the just use of his power from the
respect which he inspired. High as they were placed above the people,
the nobles could not but take that calm and benevolent interest in its
fate which the shepherd feels towards his flock; and without
acknowledging the poor as their equals, they watched over the destiny
of those whose welfare Providence had entrusted to their care. The
people never having conceived the idea of a social condition different
from its own, and entertaining no expectation of ever ranking with its
chiefs, received benefits from them without discussing their rights. It
grew attached to them when they were clement and just, and it submitted
without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the
inevitable visitations of the arm of God. Custom, and the manners of
the time, had moreover created a species of law in the midst of
violence, and established certain limits to oppression. As the noble
never suspected that anyone would attempt to deprive him of the
privileges which he believed to be legitimate, and as the serf looked
upon his own inferiority as a consequence of the immutable order of
nature, it is easy to imagine that a mutual exchange of good-will took
place between two classes so differently gifted by fate. Inequality and
wretchedness were then to be found in society; but the souls of neither
rank of men were degraded. Men are not corrupted by the exercise of
power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a
power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which
they consider to be usurped and oppressive. On one side was wealth,
strength, and leisure, accompanied by the refinements of luxury, the
elegance of taste, the pleasures of wit, and the religion of art. On
the other was labor and a rude ignorance; but in the midst of this
coarse and ignorant multitude it was not uncommon to meet with
energetic passions, generous sentiments, profound religious
convictions, and independent virtues. The body of a State thus
organized might boast of its stability, its power, and, above all, of
its glory.
But the scene is now changed, and gradually the two ranks mingle; the
divisions which once severed mankind are lowered, property is divided,
power is held in common, the light of intelligence spreads, and the
capacities of all classes are equally cultivated; the State becomes
democratic, and the empire of democracy is slowly and peaceably
introduced into the institutions and the manners of the nation. I can
conceive a society in which all men would profess an equal attachment
and respect for the laws of which they are the common authors; in which
the authority of the State would be respected as necessary, though not
as divine; and the loyalty of the subject to its chief magistrate would
not be a passion, but a quiet and rational persuasion. Every individual
being in the possession of rights which he is sure to retain, a kind of
manly reliance and reciprocal courtesy would arise between all classes,
alike removed from pride and meanness. The people, well acquainted with
its true interests, would allow that in order to profit by the
advantages of society it is necessary to satisfy its demands. In this
state of things the voluntary association of the citizens might supply
the individual exertions of the nobles, and the community would be
alike protected from anarchy and from oppression.
I admit that, in a democratic State thus constituted, society will not
be stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be regulated and
directed forwards; if there be less splendor than in the halls of an
aristocracy, the contrast of misery will be less frequent also; the
pleasures of enjoyment may be less excessive, but those of comfort will
be more general; the sciences may be less perfectly cultivated, but
ignorance will be less common; the impetuosity of the feelings will be
repressed, and the habits of the nation softened; there will be more
vices and fewer crimes. In the absence of enthusiasm and of an ardent
faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a
commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their experience;
each individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his
fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that if
they are to assist he must co-operate, he will readily perceive that
his personal interest is identified with the interest of the community.
The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious,
and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a
greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not
because it despairs of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the
advantages of its condition. If all the consequences of this state of
things were not good or useful, society would at least have
appropriated all such as were useful and good; and having once and for
ever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would
enter into possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford.
But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place of those
institutions, those ideas, and those customs of our forefathers which
we have abandoned. The spell of royalty is broken, but it has not been
succeeded by the majesty of the laws; the people has learned to despise
all authority, but fear now extorts a larger tribute of obedience than
that which was formerly paid by reverence and by love.
I perceive that we have destroyed those independent beings which were
able to cope with tyranny single-handed; but it is the Government that
has inherited the privileges of which families, corporations, and
individuals have been deprived; the weakness of the whole community has
therefore succeeded that influence of a small body of citizens, which,
if it was sometimes oppressive, was often conservative. The division of
property has lessened the distance which separated the rich from the
poor; but it would seem that the nearer they draw to each other, the
greater is their mutual hatred, and the more vehement the envy and the
dread with which they resist each other’s claims to power; the notion
of Right is alike insensible to both classes, and Force affords to both
the only argument for the present, and the only guarantee for the
future. The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without
their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted
the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without
understanding the science which controls it, and his egotism is no less
blind than his devotedness was formerly. If society is tranquil, it is
not because it relies upon its strength and its well-being, but because
it knows its weakness and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it
its life; everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy
enough to seek the cure; the desires, the regret, the sorrows, and the
joys of the time produce nothing that is visible or permanent, like the
passions of old men which terminate in impotence.
We have, then, abandoned whatever advantages the old state of things
afforded, without receiving any compensation from our present
condition; we have destroyed an aristocracy, and we seem inclined to
survey its ruins with complacency, and to fix our abode in the midst of
them.
The phenomena which the intellectual world presents are not less
deplorable. The democracy of France, checked in its course or abandoned
to its lawless passions, has overthrown whatever crossed its path, and
has shaken all that it has not destroyed. Its empire on society has not
been gradually introduced or peaceably established, but it has
constantly advanced in the midst of disorder and the agitation of a
conflict. In the heat of the struggle each partisan is hurried beyond
the limits of his opinions by the opinions and the excesses of his
opponents, until he loses sight of the end of his exertions, and holds
a language which disguises his real sentiments or secret instincts.
Hence arises the strange confusion which we are witnessing. I cannot
recall to my mind a passage in history more worthy of sorrow and of
pity than the scenes which are happening under our eyes; it is as if
the natural bond which unites the opinions of man to his tastes and his
actions to his principles was now broken; the sympathy which has always
been acknowledged between the feelings and the ideas of mankind appears
to be dissolved, and all the laws of moral analogy to be abolished.
Zealous Christians may be found amongst us whose minds are nurtured in
the love and knowledge of a future life, and who readily espouse the
cause of human liberty as the source of all moral greatness.
Christianity, which has declared that all men are equal in the sight of
God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the
eye of the law. But, by a singular concourse of events, religion is
entangled in those institutions which democracy assails, and it is not
unfrequently brought to reject the equality it loves, and to curse that
cause of liberty as a foe which it might hallow by its alliance.
By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks are
turned to the earth more than to Heaven; they are the partisans of
liberty, not only as the source of the noblest virtues, but more
especially as the root of all solid advantages; and they sincerely
desire to extend its sway, and to impart its blessings to mankind. It
is natural that they should hasten to invoke the assistance of
religion, for they must know that liberty cannot be established without
morality, nor morality without faith; but they have seen religion in
the ranks of their adversaries, and they inquire no further; some of
them attack it openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it.
In former ages slavery has been advocated by the venal and
slavish-minded, whilst the independent and the warm-hearted were
struggling without hope to save the liberties of mankind. But men of
high and generous characters are now to be met with, whose opinions are
at variance with their inclinations, and who praise that servility
which they have themselves never known. Others, on the contrary, speak
in the name of liberty, as if they were able to feel its sanctity and
its majesty, and loudly claim for humanity those rights which they have
always disowned. There are virtuous and peaceful individuals whose pure
morality, quiet habits, affluence, and talents fit them to be the
leaders of the surrounding population; their love of their country is
sincere, and they are prepared to make the greatest sacrifices to its
welfare, but they confound the abuses of civilization with its
benefits, and the idea of evil is inseparable in their minds from that
of novelty.
Not far from this class is another party, whose object is to
materialize mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what
is just, to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from
virtue; assuming the title of the champions of modern civilization, and
placing themselves in a station which they usurp with insolence, and
from which they are driven by their own unworthiness. Where are we
then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of
liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate
subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence;
honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men
without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of
civilization and of intelligence. Has such been the fate of the
centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a
world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue
is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is
confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom
with a contempt of law; where the light thrown by conscience on human
actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or
allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true? I cannot, however,
believe that the Creator made man to leave him in an endless struggle
with the intellectual miseries which surround us: God destines a calmer
and a more certain future to the communities of Europe; I am
unacquainted with His designs, but I shall not cease to believe in them
because I cannot fathom them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity
than His justice.
There is a country in the world where the great revolution which I am
speaking of seems nearly to have reached its natural limits; it has
been effected with ease and simplicity, say rather that this country
has attained the consequences of the democratic revolution which we are
undergoing without having experienced the revolution itself. The
emigrants who fixed themselves on the shores of America in the
beginning of the seventeenth century severed the democratic principle
from all the principles which repressed it in the old communities of
Europe, and transplanted it unalloyed to the New World. It has there
been allowed to spread in perfect freedom, and to put forth its
consequences in the laws by influencing the manners of the country.
It appears to me beyond a doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive,
like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions. But I
do not conclude from this that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw
the same political consequences which the Americans have derived from a
similar social organization. I am far from supposing that they have
chosen the only form of government which a democracy may adopt; but the
identity of the efficient cause of laws and manners in the two
countries is sufficient to account for the immense interest we have in
becoming acquainted with its effects in each of them.
It is not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I have
examined America; my wish has been to find instruction by which we may
ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine that I have intended to write
a panegyric will perceive that such was not my design; nor has it been
my object to advocate any form of government in particular, for I am of
opinion that absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any
legislation; I have not even affected to discuss whether the social
revolution, which I believe to be irresistible, is advantageous or
prejudicial to mankind; I have acknowledged this revolution as a fact
already accomplished or on the eve of its accomplishment; and I have
selected the nation, from amongst those which have undergone it, in
which its development has been the most peaceful and the most complete,
in order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be possible,
to distinguish the means by which it may be rendered profitable. I
confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of
democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices,
and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope
from its progress.
In the first part of this work I have attempted to show the tendency
given to the laws by the democracy of America, which is abandoned
almost without restraint to its instinctive propensities, and to
exhibit the course it prescribes to the Government and the influence it
exercises on affairs. I have sought to discover the evils and the
advantages which it produces. I have examined the precautions used by
the Americans to direct it, as well as those which they have not
adopted, and I have undertaken to point out the causes which enable it
to govern society. I do not know whether I have succeeded in making
known what I saw in America, but I am certain that such has been my
sincere desire, and that I have never, knowingly, moulded facts to
ideas, instead of ideas to facts.
Whenever a point could be established by the aid of written documents,
I have had recourse to the original text, and to the most authentic and
approved works. I have cited my authorities in the notes, and anyone
may refer to them. Whenever an opinion, a political custom, or a remark
on the manners of the country was concerned, I endeavored to consult
the most enlightened men I met with. If the point in question was
important or doubtful, I was not satisfied with one testimony, but I
formed my opinion on the evidence of several witnesses. Here the reader
must necessarily believe me upon my word. I could frequently have
quoted names which are either known to him, or which deserve to be so,
in proof of what I advance; but I have carefully abstained from this
practice. A stranger frequently hears important truths at the fire-side
of his host, which the latter would perhaps conceal from the ear of
friendship; he consoles himself with his guest for the silence to which
he is restricted, and the shortness of the traveller’s stay takes away
all fear of his indiscretion. I carefully noted every conversation of
this nature as soon as it occurred, but these notes will never leave my
writing-case; I had rather injure the success of my statements than add
my name to the list of those strangers who repay the generous
hospitality they have received by subsequent chagrin and annoyance.
I am aware that, notwithstanding my care, nothing will be easier than
to criticise this book, if anyone ever chooses to criticise it. Those
readers who may examine it closely will discover the fundamental idea
which connects the several parts together. But the diversity of the
subjects I have had to treat is exceedingly great, and it will not be
difficult to oppose an isolated fact to the body of facts which I
quote, or an isolated idea to the body of ideas I put forth. I hope to
be read in the spirit which has guided my labors, and that my book may
be judged by the general impression it leaves, as I have formed my own
judgment not on any single reason, but upon the mass of evidence. It
must not be forgotten that the author who wishes to be understood is
obliged to push all his ideas to their utmost theoretical consequences,
and often to the verge of what is false or impracticable; for if it be
necessary sometimes to quit the rules of logic in active life, such is
not the case in discourse, and a man finds that almost as many
difficulties spring from inconsistency of language as usually arise
from inconsistency of conduct.
I conclude by pointing out myself what many readers will consider the
principal defect of the work. This book is written to favor no
particular views, and in composing it I have entertained no designs of
serving or attacking any party; I have undertaken not to see
differently, but to look further than parties, and whilst they are
busied for the morrow I have turned my thoughts to the Future.
Chapter I: Exterior Form Of North America
Chapter Summary
North America divided into two vast regions, one inclining towards the
Pole, the other towards the Equator—Valley of the Mississippi—Traces of
the Revolutions of the Globe—Shore of the Atlantic Ocean where the
English Colonies were founded—Difference in the appearance of North and
of South America at the time of their Discovery—Forests of North
America—Prairies—Wandering Tribes of Natives—Their outward appearance,
manners, and language—Traces of an unknown people.
Exterior Form Of North America
North America presents in its external form certain general features
which it is easy to discriminate at the first glance. A sort of
methodical order seems to have regulated the separation of land and
water, mountains and valleys. A simple, but grand, arrangement is
discoverable amidst the confusion of objects and the prodigious variety
of scenes. This continent is divided, almost equally, into two vast
regions, one of which is bounded on the north by the Arctic Pole, and
by the two great oceans on the east and west. It stretches towards the
south, forming a triangle whose irregular sides meet at length below
the great lakes of Canada. The second region begins where the other
terminates, and includes all the remainder of the continent. The one
slopes gently towards the Pole, the other towards the Equator.
The territory comprehended in the first region descends towards the
north with so imperceptible a slope that it may almost be said to form
a level plain. Within the bounds of this immense tract of country there
are neither high mountains nor deep valleys. Streams meander through it
irregularly: great rivers mix their currents, separate and meet again,
disperse and form vast marshes, losing all trace of their channels in
the labyrinth of waters they have themselves created; and thus, at
length, after innumerable windings, fall into the Polar Seas. The great
lakes which bound this first region are not walled in, like most of
those in the Old World, between hills and rocks. Their banks are flat,
and rise but a few feet above the level of their waters; each of them
thus forming a vast bowl filled to the brim. The slightest change in
the structure of the globe would cause their waters to rush either
towards the Pole or to the tropical sea.
The second region is more varied on its surface, and better suited for
the habitation of man. Two long chains of mountains divide it from one
extreme to the other; the Alleghany ridge takes the form of the shores
of the Atlantic Ocean; the other is parallel with the Pacific. The
space which lies between these two chains of mountains contains
1,341,649 square miles. *a Its surface is therefore about six times as
great as that of France. This vast territory, however, forms a single
valley, one side of which descends gradually from the rounded summits
of the Alleghanies, while the other rises in an uninterrupted course
towards the tops of the Rocky Mountains. At the bottom of the valley
flows an immense river, into which the various streams issuing from the
mountains fall from all parts. In memory of their native land, the
French formerly called this river the St. Louis. The Indians, in their
pompous language, have named it the Father of Waters, or the
Mississippi.
a
[ Darby’s “View of the United States.”]
The Mississippi takes its source above the limit of the two great
regions of which I have spoken, not far from the highest point of the
table-land where they unite. Near the same spot rises another river, *b
which empties itself into the Polar seas. The course of the Mississippi
is at first dubious: it winds several times towards the north, from
whence it rose; and at length, after having been delayed in lakes and
marshes, it flows slowly onwards to the south. Sometimes quietly
gliding along the argillaceous bed which nature has assigned to it,
sometimes swollen by storms, the Mississippi waters 2,500 miles in its
course. *c At the distance of 1,364 miles from its mouth this river
attains an average depth of fifteen feet; and it is navigated by
vessels of 300 tons burden for a course of nearly 500 miles.
Fifty-seven large navigable rivers contribute to swell the waters of
the Mississippi; amongst others, the Missouri, which traverses a space
of 2,500 miles; the Arkansas of 1,300 miles, the Red River 1,000 miles,
four whose course is from 800 to 1,000 miles in length, viz., the
Illinois, the St. Peter’s, the St. Francis, and the Moingona; besides a
countless multitude of rivulets which unite from all parts their
tributary streams.
b
[ The Red River.]
c
[ Warden’s “Description of the United States.”]
The valley which is watered by the Mississippi seems formed to be the
bed of this mighty river, which, like a god of antiquity, dispenses
both good and evil in its course. On the shores of the stream nature
displays an inexhaustible fertility; in proportion as you recede from
its banks, the powers of vegetation languish, the soil becomes poor,
and the plants that survive have a sickly growth. Nowhere have the
great convulsions of the globe left more evident traces than in the
valley of the Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the
powerful effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness.
The waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable
mould in the valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the
right shore of the river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the
husbandman had passed over them with his roller. As you approach the
mountains the soil becomes more and more unequal and sterile; the
ground is, as it were, pierced in a thousand places by primitive rocks,
which appear like the bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly
consumed. The surface of the earth is covered with a granite sand and
huge irregular masses of stone, among which a few plants force their
growth, and give the appearance of a green field covered with the ruins
of a vast edifice. These stones and this sand discover, on examination,
a perfect analogy with those which compose the arid and broken summits
of the Rocky Mountains. The flood of waters which washed the soil to
the bottom of the valley afterwards carried away portions of the rocks
themselves; and these, dashed and bruised against the neighboring
cliffs, were left scattered like wrecks at their feet. *d The valley of
the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwelling-place
prepared by God for man’s abode; and yet it may be said that at present
it is but a mighty desert.
d
[ See Appendix, A.]
On the eastern side of the Alleghanies, between the base of these
mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, there lies a long ridge of rocks and
sand, which the sea appears to have left behind as it retired. The mean
breadth of this territory does not exceed one hundred miles; but it is
about nine hundred miles in length. This part of the American continent
has a soil which offers every obstacle to the husbandman, and its
vegetation is scanty and unvaried.
Upon this inhospitable coast the first united efforts of human industry
were made. The tongue of arid land was the cradle of those English
colonies which were destined one day to become the United States of
America. The centre of power still remains here; whilst in the
backwoods the true elements of the great people to whom the future
control of the continent belongs are gathering almost in secrecy
together.
When the Europeans first landed on the shores of the West Indies, and
afterwards on the coast of South America, they thought themselves
transported into those fabulous regions of which poets had sung. The
sea sparkled with phosphoric light, and the extraordinary transparency
of its waters discovered to the view of the navigator all that had
hitherto been hidden in the deep abyss. *e Here and there appeared
little islands perfumed with odoriferous plants, and resembling baskets
of flowers floating on the tranquil surface of the ocean. Every object
which met the sight, in this enchanting region, seemed prepared to
satisfy the wants or contribute to the pleasures of man. Almost all the
trees were loaded with nourishing fruits, and those which were useless
as food delighted the eye by the brilliancy and variety of their
colors. In groves of fragrant lemon-trees, wild figs, flowering
myrtles, acacias, and oleanders, which were hung with festoons of
various climbing plants, covered with flowers, a multitude of birds
unknown in Europe displayed their bright plumage, glittering with
purple and azure, and mingled their warbling with the harmony of a
world teeming with life and motion. *f Underneath this brilliant
exterior death was concealed. But the air of these climates had so
enervating an influence that man, absorbed by present enjoyment, was
rendered regardless of the future.
e
[ Malte Brun tells us (vol. v. p. 726) that the water of the Caribbean
Sea is so transparent that corals and fish are discernible at a depth
of sixty fathoms. The ship seemed to float in air, the navigator became
giddy as his eye penetrated through the crystal flood, and beheld
submarine gardens, or beds of shells, or gilded fishes gliding among
tufts and thickets of seaweed.]
f
[ See Appendix, B.]
North America appeared under a very different aspect; there everything
was grave, serious, and solemn: it seemed created to be the domain of
intelligence, as the South was that of sensual delight. A turbulent and
foggy ocean washed its shores. It was girt round by a belt of granite
rocks, or by wide tracts of sand. The foliage of its woods was dark and
gloomy, for they were composed of firs, larches, evergreen oaks, wild
olive-trees, and laurels. Beyond this outer belt lay the thick shades
of the central forest, where the largest trees which are produced in
the two hemispheres grow side by side. The plane, the catalpa, the
sugar-maple, and the Virginian poplar mingled their branches with those
of the oak, the beech, and the lime. In these, as in the forests of the
Old World, destruction was perpetually going on. The ruins of
vegetation were heaped upon each other; but there was no laboring hand
to remove them, and their decay was not rapid enough to make room for
the continual work of reproduction. Climbing plants, grasses, and other
herbs forced their way through the mass of dying trees; they crept
along their bending trunks, found nourishment in their dusty cavities,
and a passage beneath the lifeless bark. Thus decay gave its assistance
to life, and their respective productions were mingled together. The
depths of these forests were gloomy and obscure, and a thousand
rivulets, undirected in their course by human industry, preserved in
them a constant moisture. It was rare to meet with flowers, wild
fruits, or birds beneath their shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by
age, the rushing torrent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and
the howling of the wind were the only sounds which broke the silence of
nature.
To the east of the great river, the woods almost disappeared; in their
stead were seen prairies of immense extent. Whether Nature in her
infinite variety had denied the germs of trees to these fertile plains,
or whether they had once been covered with forests, subsequently
destroyed by the hand of man, is a question which neither tradition nor
scientific research has been able to resolve.
These immense deserts were not, however, devoid of human inhabitants.
Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered among the forest
shades or the green pastures of the prairie. From the mouth of the St.
Lawrence to the delta of the Mississippi, and from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean, these savages possessed certain points of resemblance
which bore witness of their common origin; but at the same time they
differed from all other known races of men: *g they were neither white
like the Europeans, nor yellow like most of the Asiatics, nor black
like the negroes. Their skin was reddish brown, their hair long and
shining, their lips thin, and their cheekbones very prominent. The
languages spoken by the North American tribes are various as far as
regarded their words, but they were subject to the same grammatical
rules. These rules differed in several points from such as had been
observed to govern the origin of language. The idiom of the Americans
seemed to be the product of new combinations, and bespoke an effort of
the understanding of which the Indians of our days would be incapable.
*h
g
[ With the progress of discovery some resemblance has been found to
exist between the physical conformation, the language, and the habits
of the Indians of North America, and those of the Tongous, Mantchous,
Mongols, Tartars, and other wandering tribes of Asia. The land occupied
by these tribes is not very distant from Behring’s Strait, which allows
of the supposition, that at a remote period they gave inhabitants to
the desert continent of America. But this is a point which has not yet
been clearly elucidated by science. See Malte Brun, vol. v.; the works
of Humboldt; Fischer, “Conjecture sur l’Origine des Americains”; Adair,
“History of the American Indians.”]
h
[ See Appendix, C.]
The social state of these tribes differed also in many respects from
all that was seen in the Old World. They seemed to have multiplied
freely in the midst of their deserts without coming in contact with
other races more civilized than their own. Accordingly, they exhibited
none of those indistinct, incoherent notions of right and wrong, none
of that deep corruption of manners, which is usually joined with
ignorance and rudeness among nations which, after advancing to
civilization, have relapsed into a state of barbarism. The Indian was
indebted to no one but himself; his virtues, his vices, and his
prejudices were his own work; he had grown up in the wild independence
of his nature.
If, in polished countries, the lowest of the people are rude and
uncivil, it is not merely because they are poor and ignorant, but that,
being so, they are in daily contact with rich and enlightened men. The
sight of their own hard lot and of their weakness, which is daily
contrasted with the happiness and power of some of their
fellow-creatures, excites in their hearts at the same time the
sentiments of anger and of fear: the consciousness of their inferiority
and of their dependence irritates while it humiliates them. This state
of mind displays itself in their manners and language; they are at once
insolent and servile. The truth of this is easily proved by
observation; the people are more rude in aristocratic countries than
elsewhere, in opulent cities than in rural districts. In those places
where the rich and powerful are assembled together the weak and the
indigent feel themselves oppressed by their inferior condition. Unable
to perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give up
to despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human
nature.
This unfortunate effect of the disparity of conditions is not
observable in savage life: the Indians, although they are ignorant and
poor, are equal and free. At the period when Europeans first came among
them the natives of North America were ignorant of the value of riches,
and indifferent to the enjoyments which civilized man procures to
himself by their means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in their
demeanor; they practised an habitual reserve and a kind of aristocratic
politeness. Mild and hospitable when at peace, though merciless in war
beyond any known degree of human ferocity, the Indian would expose
himself to die of hunger in order to succor the stranger who asked
admittance by night at the door of his hut; yet he could tear in pieces
with his hands the still quivering limbs of his prisoner. The famous
republics of antiquity never gave examples of more unshaken courage,
more haughty spirits, or more intractable love of independence than
were hidden in former times among the wild forests of the New World. *i
The Europeans produced no great impression when they landed upon the
shores of North America; their presence engendered neither envy nor
fear. What influence could they possess over such men as we have
described? The Indian could live without wants, suffer without
complaint, and pour out his death-song at the stake. *j Like all the
other members of the great human family, these savages believed in the
existence of a better world, and adored under different names, God, the
creator of the universe. Their notions on the great intellectual truths
were in general simple and philosophical. *k
i
[ We learn from President Jefferson’s “Notes upon Virginia,” p. 148,
that among the Iroquois, when attacked by a superior force, aged men
refused to fly or to survive the destruction of their country; and they
braved death like the ancient Romans when their capital was sacked by
the Gauls. Further on, p. 150, he tells us that there is no example of
an Indian who, having fallen into the hands of his enemies, begged for
his life; on the contrary, the captive sought to obtain death at the
hands of his conquerors by the use of insult and provocation.]
j
[ See “Histoire de la Louisiane,” by Lepage Dupratz; Charlevoix,
“Histoire de la Nouvelle France”; “Lettres du Rev. G. Hecwelder;”
“Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” v. I; Jefferson’s
“Notes on Virginia,” pp. 135-190. What is said by Jefferson is of
especial weight, on account of the personal merit of the writer, of his
peculiar position, and of the matter-of-fact age in which he lived.]
k
[ See Appendix, D.]
Although we have here traced the character of a primitive people, yet
it cannot be doubted that another people, more civilized and more
advanced in all respects, had preceded it in the same regions.
An obscure tradition which prevailed among the Indians to the north of
the Atlantic informs us that these very tribes formerly dwelt on the
west side of the Mississippi. Along the banks of the Ohio, and
throughout the central valley, there are frequently found, at this day,
tumuli raised by the hands of men. On exploring these heaps of earth to
their centre, it is usual to meet with human bones, strange
instruments, arms and utensils of all kinds, made of metal, or destined
for purposes unknown to the present race. The Indians of our time are
unable to give any information relative to the history of this unknown
people. Neither did those who lived three hundred years ago, when
America was first discovered, leave any accounts from which even an
hypothesis could be formed. Tradition—that perishable, yet ever renewed
monument of the pristine world—throws no light upon the subject. It is
an undoubted fact, however, that in this part of the globe thousands of
our fellow-beings had lived. When they came hither, what was their
origin, their destiny, their history, and how they perished, no one can
tell. How strange does it appear that nations have existed, and
afterwards so completely disappeared from the earth that the
remembrance of their very names is effaced; their languages are lost;
their glory is vanished like a sound without an echo; though perhaps
there is not one which has not left behind it some tomb in memory of
its passage! The most durable monument of human labor is that which
recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.
Although the vast country which we have been describing was inhabited
by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said at the time of its
discovery by Europeans to have formed one great desert. The Indians
occupied without possessing it. It is by agricultural labor that man
appropriates the soil, and the early inhabitants of North America lived
by the produce of the chase. Their implacable prejudices, their
uncontrolled passions, their vices, and still more perhaps their savage
virtues, consigned them to inevitable destruction. The ruin of these
nations began from the day when Europeans landed on their shores; it
has proceeded ever since, and we are now witnessing the completion of
it. They seem to have been placed by Providence amidst the riches of
the New World to enjoy them for a season, and then surrender them.
Those coasts, so admirably adapted for commerce and industry; those
wide and deep rivers; that inexhaustible valley of the Mississippi; the
whole continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the abode of a great
nation, yet unborn.
In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of
the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there,
for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed
impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not
been prepared by the history of the past.
Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part I
Chapter Summary
Utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to understand their
social condition and their laws—America the only country in which the
starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable—In what
respects all who emigrated to British America were similar—In what they
differed—Remark applicable to all Europeans who established themselves
on the shores of the New World—Colonization of Virginia—Colonization of
New England—Original character of the first inhabitants of New
England—Their arrival—Their first laws—Their social contract—Penal code
borrowed from the Hebrew legislation—Religious fervor—Republican
spirit—Intimate union of the spirit of religion with the spirit of
liberty.
Origin Of The Anglo-Americans, And Its Importance In Relation To Their
Future Condition.
After the birth of a human being his early years are obscurely spent in
the toils or pleasures of childhood. As he grows up the world receives
him, when his manhood begins, and he enters into contact with his
fellows. He is then studied for the first time, and it is imagined that
the germ of the vices and the virtues of his maturer years is then
formed. This, if I am not mistaken, is a great error. We must begin
higher up; we must watch the infant in its mother’s arms; we must see
the first images which the external world casts upon the dark mirror of
his mind; the first occurrences which he witnesses; we must hear the
first words which awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by
his earliest efforts, if we would understand the prejudices, the
habits, and the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is,
so to speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.
The growth of nations presents something analogous to this: they all
bear some marks of their origin; and the circumstances which
accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise affect the whole
term of their being. If we were able to go back to the elements of
states, and to examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt
not that we should discover the primal cause of the prejudices, the
habits, the ruling passions, and, in short, of all that constitutes
what is called the national character; we should then find the
explanation of certain customs which now seem at variance with the
prevailing manners; of such laws as conflict with established
principles; and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there to be
met with in society, like those fragments of broken chains which we
sometimes see hanging from the vault of an edifice, and supporting
nothing. This might explain the destinies of certain nations, which
seem borne on by an unknown force to ends of which they themselves are
ignorant. But hitherto facts have been wanting to researches of this
kind: the spirit of inquiry has only come upon communities in their
latter days; and when they at length contemplated their origin, time
had already obscured it, or ignorance and pride adorned it with
truth-concealing fables.
America is the only country in which it has been possible to witness
the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where the influences
exercised on the future condition of states by their origin is clearly
distinguishable. At the period when the peoples of Europe landed in the
New World their national characteristics were already completely
formed; each of them had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had
already attained that stage of civilization at which men are led to
study themselves, they have transmitted to us a faithful picture of
their opinions, their manners, and their laws. The men of the sixteenth
century are almost as well known to us as our contemporaries. America,
consequently, exhibits in the broad light of day the phenomena which
the ignorance or rudeness of earlier ages conceals from our researches.
Near enough to the time when the states of America were founded, to be
accurately acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently removed
from that period to judge of some of their results, the men of our own
day seem destined to see further than their predecessors into the
series of human events. Providence has given us a torch which our
forefathers did not possess, and has allowed us to discern fundamental
causes in the history of the world which the obscurity of the past
concealed from them. If we carefully examine the social and political
state of America, after having studied its history, we shall remain
perfectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, I may
even say not an event, is upon record which the origin of that people
will not explain. The readers of this book will find the germ of all
that is to follow in the present chapter, and the key to almost the
whole work.
The emigrants who came, at different periods to occupy the territory
now covered by the American Union differed from each other in many
respects; their aim was not the same, and they governed themselves on
different principles. These men had, however, certain features in
common, and they were all placed in an analogous situation. The tie of
language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite
mankind. All the emigrants spoke the same tongue; they were all offsets
from the same people. Born in a country which had been agitated for
centuries by the struggles of faction, and in which all parties had
been obliged in their turn to place themselves under the protection of
the laws, their political education had been perfected in this rude
school, and they were more conversant with the notions of right and the
principles of true freedom than the greater part of their European
contemporaries. At the period of their first emigrations the parish
system, that fruitful germ of free institutions, was deeply rooted in
the habits of the English; and with it the doctrine of the sovereignty
of the people had been introduced into the bosom of the monarchy of the
House of Tudor.
The religious quarrels which have agitated the Christian world were
then rife. England had plunged into the new order of things with
headlong vehemence. The character of its inhabitants, which had always
been sedate and reflective, became argumentative and austere. General
information had been increased by intellectual debate, and the mind had
received a deeper cultivation. Whilst religion was the topic of
discussion, the morals of the people were reformed. All these national
features are more or less discoverable in the physiognomy of those
adventurers who came to seek a new home on the opposite shores of the
Atlantic.
Another remark, to which we shall hereafter have occasion to recur, is
applicable not only to the English, but to the French, the Spaniards,
and all the Europeans who successively established themselves in the
New World. All these European colonies contained the elements, if not
the development, of a complete democracy. Two causes led to this
result. It may safely be advanced, that on leaving the mother-country
the emigrants had in general no notion of superiority over one another.
The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer
guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune. It
happened, however, on several occasions, that persons of rank were
driven to America by political and religious quarrels. Laws were made
to establish a gradation of ranks; but it was soon found that the soil
of America was opposed to a territorial aristocracy. To bring that
refractory land into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions
of the owner himself were necessary; and when the ground was prepared,
its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a
farmer at the same time. The land was then naturally broken up into
small portions, which the proprietor cultivated for himself. Land is
the basis of an aristocracy, which clings to the soil that supports it;
for it is not by privileges alone, nor by birth, but by landed property
handed down from generation to generation, that an aristocracy is
constituted. A nation may present immense fortunes and extreme
wretchedness, but unless those fortunes are territorial there is no
aristocracy, but simply the class of the rich and that of the poor.
All the British colonies had then a great degree of similarity at the
epoch of their settlement. All of them, from their first beginning,
seemed destined to witness the growth, not of the aristocratic liberty
of their mother-country, but of that freedom of the middle and lower
orders of which the history of the world had as yet furnished no
complete example.
In this general uniformity several striking differences were however
discernible, which it is necessary to point out. Two branches may be
distinguished in the Anglo-American family, which have hitherto grown
up without entirely commingling; the one in the South, the other in the
North.
Virginia received the first English colony; the emigrants took
possession of it in 1607. The idea that mines of gold and silver are
the sources of national wealth was at that time singularly prevalent in
Europe; a fatal delusion, which has done more to impoverish the nations
which adopted it, and has cost more lives in America, than the united
influence of war and bad laws. The men sent to Virginia *a were seekers
of gold, adventurers, without resources and without character, whose
turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony, *b and
rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and agriculturists
arrived afterwards; and, although they were a more moral and orderly
race of men, they were in nowise above the level of the inferior
classes in England. *c No lofty conceptions, no intellectual system,
directed the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was
scarcely established when slavery was introduced, *d and this was the
main circumstance which has exercised so prodigious an influence on the
character, the laws, and all the future prospects of the South.
Slavery, as we shall afterwards show, dishonors labor; it introduces
idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury
and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind, and benumbs the
activity of man. The influence of slavery, united to the English
character, explains the manners and the social condition of the
Southern States.
a
[ The charter granted by the Crown of England in 1609 stipulated,
amongst other conditions, that the adventurers should pay to the Crown
a fifth of the produce of all gold and silver mines. See Marshall’s
“Life of Washington,” vol. i. pp. 18-66.] [Footnote b: A large portion
of the adventurers, says Stith (“History of Virginia”), were
unprincipled young men of family, whom their parents were glad to ship
off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees; and
others of the same class, people more apt to pillage and destroy than
to assist the settlement, were the seditious chiefs, who easily led
this band into every kind of extravagance and excess. See for the
history of Virginia the following works:—
“History of Virginia, from the First Settlements in the year 1624,” by
Smith.
“History of Virginia,” by William Stith.
“History of Virginia, from the Earliest Period,” by Beverley.]
c
[ It was not till some time later that a certain number of rich English
capitalists came to fix themselves in the colony.]
d
[ Slavery was introduced about the year 1620 by a Dutch vessel which
landed twenty negroes on the banks of the river James. See Chalmer.]
In the North, the same English foundation was modified by the most
opposite shades of character; and here I may be allowed to enter into
some details. The two or three main ideas which constitute the basis of
the social theory of the United States were first combined in the
Northern English colonies, more generally denominated the States of New
England. *e The principles of New England spread at first to the
neighboring states; they then passed successively to the more distant
ones; and at length they imbued the whole Confederation. They now
extend their influence beyond its limits over the whole American world.
The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit upon a hill,
which, after it has diffused its warmth around, tinges the distant
horizon with its glow.
e
[ The States of New England are those situated to the east of the
Hudson; they are now six in number: 1, Connecticut; 2, Rhode Island; 3,
Massachusetts; 4, Vermont; 5, New Hampshire; 6, Maine.]
The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and all the
circumstances attending it were singular and original. The large
majority of colonies have been first inhabited either by men without
education and without resources, driven by their poverty and their
misconduct from the land which gave them birth, or by speculators and
adventurers greedy of gain. Some settlements cannot even boast so
honorable an origin; St. Domingo was founded by buccaneers; and the
criminal courts of England originally supplied the population of
Australia.
The settlers who established themselves on the shores of New England
all belonged to the more independent classes of their native country.
Their union on the soil of America at once presented the singular
phenomenon of a society containing neither lords nor common people,
neither rich nor poor. These men possessed, in proportion to their
number, a greater mass of intelligence than is to be found in any
European nation of our own time. All, without a single exception, had
received a good education, and many of them were known in Europe for
their talents and their acquirements. The other colonies had been
founded by adventurers without family; the emigrants of New England
brought with them the best elements of order and morality—they landed
in the desert accompanied by their wives and children. But what most
especially distinguished them was the aim of their undertaking. They
had not been obliged by necessity to leave their country; the social
position they abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of
subsistence were certain. Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve
their situation or to increase their wealth; the call which summoned
them from the comforts of their homes was purely intellectual; and in
facing the inevitable sufferings of exile their object was the triumph
of an idea.
The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the Pilgrims,
belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose principles had
acquired for them the name of Puritans. Puritanism was not merely a
religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the most
absolute democratic and republican theories. It was this tendency which
had aroused its most dangerous adversaries. Persecuted by the
Government of the mother-country, and disgusted by the habits of a
society opposed to the rigor of their own principles, the Puritans went
forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, where they
could live according to their own opinions, and worship God in freedom.
A few quotations will throw more light upon the spirit of these pious
adventures than all we can say of them. Nathaniel Morton, *f the
historian of the first years of the settlement, thus opens his subject:
f
[ “New England’s Memorial,” p. 13; Boston, 1826. See also “Hutchinson’s
History,” vol. ii. p. 440.]
“Gentle Reader,—I have for some length of time looked upon it as a duty
incumbent, especially on the immediate successors of those that have
had so large experience of those many memorable and signal
demonstrations of God’s goodness, viz., the first beginners of this
Plantation in New England, to commit to writing his gracious
dispensations on that behalf; having so many inducements thereunto, not
onely otherwise but so plentifully in the Sacred Scriptures: that so,
what we have seen, and what our fathers have told us (Psalm lxxviii. 3,
4), we may not hide from our children, showing to the generations to
come the praises of the Lord; that especially the seed of Abraham his
servant, and the children of Jacob his chosen (Psalm cv. 5, 6), may
remember his marvellous works in the beginning and progress of the
planting of New England, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth;
how that God brought a vine into this wilderness; that he cast out the
heathen, and planted it; that he made room for it and caused it to take
deep root; and it filled the land (Psalm lxxx. 8, 9). And not onely so,
but also that he hath guided his people by his strength to his holy
habitation and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance in
respect of precious Gospel enjoyments: and that as especially God may
have the glory of all unto whom it is most due; so also some rays of
glory may reach the names of those blessed Saints that were the main
instruments and the beginning of this happy enterprise.”
It is impossible to read this opening paragraph without an involuntary
feeling of religious awe; it breathes the very savor of Gospel
antiquity. The sincerity of the author heightens his power of language.
The band which to his eyes was a mere party of adventurers gone forth
to seek their fortune beyond seas appears to the reader as the germ of
a great nation wafted by Providence to a predestined shore.
The author thus continues his narrative of the departure of the first
pilgrims:—
“So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, *g which had
been their resting-place for above eleven years; but they knew that
they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on
these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest
country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. xi. 16), and
therein quieted their spirits. When they came to Delfs-Haven they found
the ship and all things ready; and such of their friends as could not
come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to
see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent
with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and
Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.
The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where
truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear
what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did
gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart,
that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators
could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man)
calling them away, that were thus loth to depart, their Reverend Pastor
falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks
commended them with most fervent prayers unto the Lord and his
blessing; and then, with mutual embraces and many tears they took their
leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of
them.”
g
[ The emigrants were, for the most part, godly Christians from the
North of England, who had quitted their native country because they
were “studious of reformation, and entered into covenant to walk with
one another according to the primitive pattern of the Word of God.”
They emigrated to Holland, and settled in the city of Leyden in 1610,
where they abode, being lovingly respected by the Dutch, for many
years: they left it in 1620 for several reasons, the last of which was,
that their posterity would in a few generations become Dutch, and so
lose their interest in the English nation; they being desirous rather
to enlarge His Majesty’s dominions, and to live under their natural
prince.—Translator’s Note.]
The emigrants were about 150 in number, including the women and the
children. Their object was to plant a colony on the shores of the
Hudson; but after having been driven about for some time in the
Atlantic Ocean, they were forced to land on that arid coast of New
England which is now the site of the town of Plymouth. The rock is
still shown on which the pilgrims disembarked. *h
h
[ This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I
have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of the Union.
Does not this sufficiently show how entirely all human power and
greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a
few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it
is treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic: and
what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces?]
“But before we pass on,” continues our historian, “let the reader with
me make a pause and seriously consider this poor people’s present
condition, the more to be raised up to admiration of God’s goodness
towards them in their preservation: for being now passed the vast
ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectation, they had now
no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no
houses, or much less towns to repair unto to seek for succour: and for
the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country
know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms,
dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown
coasts. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate
wilderness, full of wilde beasts, and wilde men? and what multitudes of
them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned
their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or
content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all
things stand in appearance with a weather-beaten face, and the whole
country full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew;
if they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had
passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all
the civil parts of the world.”
It must not be imagined that the piety of the Puritans was of a merely
speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the course of
worldly affairs. Puritanism, as I have already remarked, was scarcely
less a political than a religious doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants
landed on the barren coast described by Nathaniel Morton than it was
their first care to constitute a society, by passing the following Act:
“In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal
subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, etc., etc., Having
undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian
Faith, and the honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the
first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; Do by these presents
solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant
and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our
better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends
aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute and frame such
just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers,
from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the
general good of the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission
and obedience,” etc. *i
i
[ The emigrants who founded the State of Rhode Island in 1638, those
who landed at New Haven in 1637, the first settlers in Connecticut in
1639, and the founders of Providence in 1640, began in like manner by
drawing up a social contract, which was acceded to by all the
interested parties. See “Pitkin’s History,” pp. 42 and 47.]
This happened in 1620, and from that time forwards the emigration went
on. The religious and political passions which ravaged the British
Empire during the whole reign of Charles I drove fresh crowds of
sectarians every year to the shores of America. In England the
stronghold of Puritanism was in the middle classes, and it was from the
middle classes that the majority of the emigrants came. The population
of New England increased rapidly; and whilst the hierarchy of rank
despotically classed the inhabitants of the mother-country, the colony
continued to present the novel spectacle of a community homogeneous in
all its parts. A democracy, more perfect than any which antiquity had
dreamt of, started in full size and panoply from the midst of an
ancient feudal society.
Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part II
The English Government was not dissatisfied with an emigration which
removed the elements of fresh discord and of further revolutions. On
the contrary, everything was done to encourage it, and great exertions
were made to mitigate the hardships of those who sought a shelter from
the rigor of their country’s laws on the soil of America. It seemed as
if New England was a region given up to the dreams of fancy and the
unrestrained experiments of innovators.
The English colonies (and this is one of the main causes of their
prosperity) have always enjoyed more internal freedom and more
political independence than the colonies of other nations; but this
principle of liberty was nowhere more extensively applied than in the
States of New England.
It was generally allowed at that period that the territories of the New
World belonged to that European nation which had been the first to
discover them. Nearly the whole coast of North America thus became a
British possession towards the end of the sixteenth century. The means
used by the English Government to people these new domains were of
several kinds; the King sometimes appointed a governor of his own
choice, who ruled a portion of the New World in the name and under the
immediate orders of the Crown; *j this is the colonial system adopted
by other countries of Europe. Sometimes grants of certain tracts were
made by the Crown to an individual or to a company, *k in which case
all the civil and political power fell into the hands of one or more
persons, who, under the inspection and control of the Crown, sold the
lands and governed the inhabitants. Lastly, a third system consisted in
allowing a certain number of emigrants to constitute a political
society under the protection of the mother-country, and to govern
themselves in whatever was not contrary to her laws. This mode of
colonization, so remarkably favorable to liberty, was only adopted in
New England. *l
j
[ This was the case in the State of New York.]
k
[ Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were in this
situation. See “Pitkin’s History,” vol. i. pp. 11-31.]
l
[ See the work entitled “Historical Collection of State Papers and
other authentic Documents intended as materials for a History of the
United States of America, by Ebenezer Hasard. Philadelphia, 1792,” for
a great number of documents relating to the commencement of the
colonies, which are valuable from their contents and their
authenticity: amongst them are the various charters granted by the King
of England, and the first acts of the local governments.
See also the analysis of all these charters given by Mr. Story, Judge
of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Introduction to his
“Commentary on the Constitution of the United States.” It results from
these documents that the principles of representative government and
the external forms of political liberty were introduced into all the
colonies at their origin. These principles were more fully acted upon
in the North than in the South, but they existed everywhere.]
In 1628 *m a charter of this kind was granted by Charles I to the
emigrants who went to form the colony of Massachusetts. But, in
general, charters were not given to the colonies of New England till
they had acquired a certain existence. Plymouth, Providence, New Haven,
the State of Connecticut, and that of Rhode Island *n were founded
without the co-operation and almost without the knowledge of the
mother-country. The new settlers did not derive their incorporation
from the seat of the empire, although they did not deny its supremacy;
they constituted a society of their own accord, and it was not till
thirty or forty years afterwards, under Charles II. that their
existence was legally recognized by a royal charter.
m
[ See “Pitkin’s History,” p, 35. See the “History of the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay,” by Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 9.] [Footnote n: See
“Pitkin’s History,” pp. 42, 47.]
This frequently renders its it difficult to detect the link which
connected the emigrants with the land of their forefathers in studying
the earliest historical and legislative records of New England. They
exercised the rights of sovereignty; they named their magistrates,
concluded peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted
laws as if their allegiance was due only to God. *o Nothing can be more
curious and, at the same time more instructive, than the legislation of
that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem
which the United States now present to the world is to be found.
o
[ The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the forms which
are preserved in the criminal and civil procedure of England; in 1650
the decrees of justice were not yet headed by the royal style. See
Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 452.]
Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially characteristic,
the code of laws promulgated by the little State of Connecticut in
1650. *p The legislators of Connecticut *q begin with the penal laws,
and, strange to say, they borrow their provisions from the text of Holy
Writ. “Whosoever shall worship any other God than the Lord,” says the
preamble of the Code, “shall surely be put to death.” This is followed
by ten or twelve enactments of the same kind, copied verbatim from the
books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Blasphemy, sorcery,
adultery, *r and rape were punished with death; an outrage offered by a
son to his parents was to be expiated by the same penalty. The
legislation of a rude and half-civilized people was thus applied to an
enlightened and moral community. The consequence was that the
punishment of death was never more frequently prescribed by the
statute, and never more rarely enforced towards the guilty.
p
[ Code of 1650, p. 28; Hartford, 1830.]
q
[ See also in “Hutchinson’s History,” vol. i. pp. 435, 456, the
analysis of the penal code adopted in 1648 by the Colony of
Massachusetts: this code is drawn up on the same principles as that of
Connecticut.]
r
[ Adultery was also punished with death by the law of Massachusetts:
and Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 441, says that several persons actually
suffered for this crime. He quotes a curious anecdote on this subject,
which occurred in the year 1663. A married woman had had criminal
intercourse with a young man; her husband died, and she married the
lover. Several years had elapsed, when the public began to suspect the
previous intercourse of this couple: they were thrown into prison, put
upon trial, and very narrowly escaped capital punishment.]
The chief care of the legislators, in this body of penal laws, was the
maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in the community: they
constantly invaded the domain of conscience, and there was scarcely a
sin which was not subject to magisterial censure. The reader is aware
of the rigor with which these laws punished rape and adultery;
intercourse between unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed.
The judge was empowered to inflict a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or
marriage *s on the misdemeanants; and if the records of the old courts
of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not
unfrequent. We find a sentence bearing date the first of May, 1660,
inflicting a fine and reprimand on a young woman who was accused of
using improper language, and of allowing herself to be kissed. *t The
Code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness and
drunkenness with severity. *u Innkeepers are forbidden to furnish more
than a certain quantity of liquor to each consumer; and simple lying,
whenever it may be injurious, *v is checked by a fine or a flogging. In
other places, the legislator, entirely forgetting the great principles
of religious toleration which he had himself upheld in Europe, renders
attendance on divine service compulsory, *w and goes so far as to visit
with severe punishment, ** and even with death, the Christians who
chose to worship God according to a ritual differing from his own. *x
Sometimes indeed the zeal of his enactments induces him to descend to
the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same
Code which prohibits the use of tobacco. *y It must not be forgotten
that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by
authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons
interested, and that the manners of the community were even more
austere and more puritanical than the laws. In 1649 a solemn
association was formed in Boston to check the worldly luxury of long
hair. *z
s
[ Code of 1650, p. 48. It seems sometimes to have happened that the
judges superadded these punishments to each other, as is seen in a
sentence pronounced in 1643 (p. 114, “New Haven Antiquities”), by which
Margaret Bedford, convicted of loose conduct, was condemned to be
whipped, and afterwards to marry Nicholas Jemmings, her accomplice.]
t
[ “New Haven Antiquities,” p. 104. See also “Hutchinson’s History,” for
several causes equally extraordinary.]
u
[ Code of 1650, pp. 50, 57.]
v
[ Ibid., p. 64.]
w
[ Ibid., p. 44.]
*
[ This was not peculiar to Connecticut. See, for instance, the law
which, on September 13, 1644, banished the Anabaptists from the State
of Massachusetts. (“Historical Collection of State Papers,” vol. i. p.
538.) See also the law against the Quakers, passed on October 14, 1656:
“Whereas,” says the preamble, “an accursed race of heretics called
Quakers has sprung up,” etc. The clauses of the statute inflict a heavy
fine on all captains of ships who should import Quakers into the
country. The Quakers who may be found there shall be whipped and
imprisoned with hard labor. Those members of the sect who should defend
their opinions shall be first fined, then imprisoned, and finally
driven out of the province.—“Historical Collection of State Papers,”
vol. i. p. 630.]
x
[ By the penal law of Massachusetts, any Catholic priest who should set
foot in the colony after having been once driven out of it was liable
to capital punishment.]
y
[ Code of 1650, p. 96.]
z
[ “New England’s Memorial,” p. 316. See Appendix, E.]
These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; they attest
the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold
upon what is true and just, and is often reduced to the alternative of
two excesses. In strict connection with this penal legislation, which
bears such striking marks of a narrow sectarian spirit, and of those
religious passions which had been warmed by persecution and were still
fermenting among the people, a body of political laws is to be found,
which, though written two hundred years ago, is still ahead of the
liberties of our age. The general principles which are the groundwork
of modern constitutions—principles which were imperfectly known in
Europe, and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, in the
seventeenth century—were all recognized and determined by the laws of
New England: the intervention of the people in public affairs, the free
voting of taxes, the responsibility of authorities, personal liberty,
and trial by jury, were all positively established without discussion.
From these fruitful principles consequences have been derived and
applications have been made such as no nation in Europe has yet
ventured to attempt.
In Connecticut the electoral body consisted, from its origin, of the
whole number of citizens; and this is readily to be understood, *a when
we recollect that this people enjoyed an almost perfect equality of
fortune, and a still greater uniformity of opinions. *b In Connecticut,
at this period, all the executive functionaries were elected, including
the Governor of the State. *c The citizens above the age of sixteen
were obliged to bear arms; they formed a national militia, which
appointed its own officers, and was to hold itself at all times in
readiness to march for the defence of the country. *d
a
[ Constitution of 1638, p. 17.]
b
[ In 1641 the General Assembly of Rhode Island unanimously declared
that the government of the State was a democracy, and that the power
was vested in the body of free citizens, who alone had the right to
make the laws and to watch their execution.—Code of 1650, p. 70.]
c
[ “Pitkin’s History,” p. 47.]
d
[ Constitution of 1638, p. 12.]
In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in all those of New England, we
find the germ and gradual development of that township independence
which is the life and mainspring of American liberty at the present
day. The political existence of the majority of the nations of Europe
commenced in the superior ranks of society, and was gradually and
imperfectly communicated to the different members of the social body.
In America, on the other hand, it may be said that the township was
organized before the county, the county before the State, the State
before the Union. In New England townships were completely and
definitively constituted as early as 1650. The independence of the
township was the nucleus round which the local interests, passions,
rights, and duties collected and clung. It gave scope to the activity
of a real political life most thoroughly democratic and republican. The
colonies still recognized the supremacy of the mother-country; monarchy
was still the law of the State; but the republic was already
established in every township. The towns named their own magistrates of
every kind, rated themselves, and levied their own taxes. *e In the
parish of New England the law of representation was not adopted, but
the affairs of the community were discussed, as at Athens, in the
market-place, by a general assembly of the citizens.
e
[ Code of 1650, p. 80.]
In studying the laws which were promulgated at this first era of the
American republics, it is impossible not to be struck by the remarkable
acquaintance with the science of government and the advanced theory of
legislation which they display. The ideas there formed of the duties of
society towards its members are evidently much loftier and more
comprehensive than those of the European legislators at that time:
obligations were there imposed which were elsewhere slighted. In the
States of New England, from the first, the condition of the poor was
provided for; *f strict measures were taken for the maintenance of
roads, and surveyors were appointed to attend to them; *g registers
were established in every parish, in which the results of public
deliberations, and the births, deaths, and marriages of the citizens
were entered; *h clerks were directed to keep these registers; *i
officers were charged with the administration of vacant inheritances,
and with the arbitration of litigated landmarks; and many others were
created whose chief functions were the maintenance of public order in
the community. *j The law enters into a thousand useful provisions for
a number of social wants which are at present very inadequately felt in
France. [Footnote f: Ibid., p. 78.]
g
[ Ibid., p. 49.]
h
[ See “Hutchinson’s History,” vol. i. p. 455.]
i
[ Code of 1650, p. 86.]
j
[ Ibid., p. 40.]
But it is by the attention it pays to Public Education that the
original character of American civilization is at once placed in the
clearest light. “It being,” says the law, “one chief project of Satan
to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture by persuading from the
use of tongues, to the end that learning may not be buried in the
graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord
assisting our endeavors. . . .” *k Here follow clauses establishing
schools in every township, and obliging the inhabitants, under pain of
heavy fines, to support them. Schools of a superior kind were founded
in the same manner in the more populous districts. The municipal
authorities were bound to enforce the sending of children to school by
their parents; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who
refused compliance; and in case of continued resistance society assumed
the place of the parent, took possession of the child, and deprived the
father of those natural rights which he used to so bad a purpose. The
reader will undoubtedly have remarked the preamble of these enactments:
in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the
divine laws leads man to civil freedom.
k
[ Ibid., p. 90.]
If, after having cast a rapid glance over the state of American society
in 1650, we turn to the condition of Europe, and more especially to
that of the Continent, at the same period, we cannot fail to be struck
with astonishment. On the Continent of Europe, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, absolute monarchy had everywhere triumphed over
the ruins of the oligarchical and feudal liberties of the Middle Ages.
Never were the notions of right more completely confounded than in the
midst of the splendor and literature of Europe; never was there less
political activity among the people; never were the principles of true
freedom less widely circulated; and at that very time those principles,
which were scorned or unknown by the nations of Europe, were proclaimed
in the deserts of the New World, and were accepted as the future creed
of a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put
into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman
condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without a precedent was
produced offhand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of
this obscure democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither
generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the
face of a free people and pronounce the following fine definition of
liberty. *l
l
[ Mather’s “Magnalia Christi Americana,” vol. ii. p. 13. This speech
was made by Winthrop; he was accused of having committed arbitrary
actions during his magistracy, but after having made the speech of
which the above is a fragment, he was acquitted by acclamation, and
from that time forwards he was always re-elected governor of the State.
See Marshal, vol. i. p. 166.]
“Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty.
There is a liberty of a corrupt nature which is effected both by men
and beasts to do what they list, and this liberty is inconsistent with
authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty ‘sumus omnes
deteriores’: ’tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the
ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a
federal liberty which is the proper end and object of authority; it is
a liberty for that only which is just and good: for this liberty you
are to stand with the hazard of your very lives and whatsoever crosses
it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is
maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority set
over you will, in all administrations for your good, be quietly
submitted unto by all but such as have a disposition to shake off the
yoke and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the honor and
power of authority.”
The remarks I have made will suffice to display the character of
Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the result (and
this should be constantly present to the mind of two distinct
elements), which in other places have been in frequent hostility, but
which in America have been admirably incorporated and combined with one
another. I allude to the spirit of Religion and the spirit of Liberty.
The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent sectarians and
daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some of their religious
opinions were, they were entirely free from political prejudices. Hence
arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are constantly
discernible in the manners as well as in the laws of the country.
It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, their
family, and their native land to a religious conviction were absorbed
in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at
so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the
acquirement of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as
liberties of the world, is scarcely inferior to that with which they
devoted themselves to Heaven.
Political principles and all human laws and institutions were moulded
and altered at their pleasure; the barriers of the society in which
they were born were broken down before them; the old principles which
had governed the world for ages were no more; a path without a turn and
a field without an horizon were opened to the exploring and ardent
curiosity of man: but at the limits of the political world he checks
his researches, he discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable
faculties, he no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully
abstaining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields with
submissive respect to truths which he will not discuss. Thus, in the
moral world everything is classed, adapted, decided, and foreseen; in
the political world everything is agitated, uncertain, and disputed: in
the one is a passive, though a voluntary, obedience; in the other an
independence scornful of experience and jealous of authority.
These two tendencies, apparently so discrepant, are far from
conflicting; they advance together, and mutually support each other.
Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the
faculties of man, and that the political world is a field prepared by
the Creator for the efforts of the intelligence. Contented with the
freedom and the power which it enjoys in its own sphere, and with the
place which it occupies, the empire of religion is never more surely
established than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by
aught beside its native strength. Religion is no less the companion of
liberty in all its battles and its triumphs; the cradle of its infancy,
and the divine source of its claims. The safeguard of morality is
religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest
pledge of freedom. *m
m
[ See Appendix, F.]
Reasons Of Certain Anomalies Which The Laws And Customs Of The
Anglo-Americans Present
Remains of aristocratic institutions in the midst of a complete
democracy—Why?—Distinction carefully to be drawn between what is of
Puritanical and what is of English origin.
The reader is cautioned not to draw too general or too absolute an
inference from what has been said. The social condition, the religion,
and the manners of the first emigrants undoubtedly exercised an immense
influence on the destiny of their new country. Nevertheless they were
not in a situation to found a state of things solely dependent on
themselves: no man can entirely shake off the influence of the past,
and the settlers, intentionally or involuntarily, mingled habits and
notions derived from their education and from the traditions of their
country with those habits and notions which were exclusively their own.
To form a judgment on the Anglo-Americans of the present day it is
therefore necessary to distinguish what is of Puritanical and what is
of English origin.
Laws and customs are frequently to be met with in the United States
which contrast strongly with all that surrounds them. These laws seem
to be drawn up in a spirit contrary to the prevailing tenor of the
American legislation; and these customs are no less opposed to the tone
of society. If the English colonies had been founded in an age of
darkness, or if their origin was already lost in the lapse of years,
the problem would be insoluble.
I shall quote a single example to illustrate what I advance. The civil
and criminal procedure of the Americans has only two means of
action—committal and bail. The first measure taken by the magistrate is
to exact security from the defendant, or, in case of refusal, to
incarcerate him: the ground of the accusation and the importance of the
charges against him are then discussed. It is evident that a
legislation of this kind is hostile to the poor man, and favorable only
to the rich. The poor man has not always a security to produce, even in
a civil cause; and if he is obliged to wait for justice in prison, he
is speedily reduced to distress. The wealthy individual, on the
contrary, always escapes imprisonment in civil causes; nay, more, he
may readily elude the punishment which awaits him for a delinquency by
breaking his bail. So that all the penalties of the law are, for him,
reducible to fines. *n Nothing can be more aristocratic than this
system of legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law,
and they usually reserve the greatest social advantages to themselves.
The explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws
of which I speak are English, *o and the Americans have retained them,
however repugnant they may be to the tenor of their legislation and the
mass of their ideas. Next to its habits, the thing which a nation is
least apt to change is its civil legislation. Civil laws are only
familiarly known to legal men, whose direct interest it is to maintain
them as they are, whether good or bad, simply because they themselves
are conversant with them. The body of the nation is scarcely acquainted
with them; it merely perceives their action in particular cases; but it
has some difficulty in seizing their tendency, and obeys them without
premeditation. I have quoted one instance where it would have been easy
to adduce a great number of others. The surface of American society is,
if I may use the expression, covered with a layer of democracy, from
beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.
n
[ Crimes no doubt exist for which bail is inadmissible, but they are
few in number.]
o
[ See Blackstone; and Delolme, book I chap. x.]