CONCLUSION.
In one of the earlier chapters of this volume,--now some seven or
eight chapters past,--I brought myself on my travels back to Boston.
It was not that my way homewards lay by that route, seeing that my
fate required me to sail from New York; but I could not leave the
country without revisiting my friends in Massachusetts. I have told
how I was there in the sleighing time, and how pleasant were the
mingled slush and frost of the snowy winter. In the morning the
streets would be hard and crisp, and the stranger would surely fall
if he were not prepared to walk on glaciers. In the afternoon he
would be wading through rivers,--and if properly armed at all points
with india-rubber, would enjoy the rivers as he waded. But the air
would be always kindly, and the east wind there, if it was east as
I was told, had none of that power of dominion which makes us all so
submissive to its behests in London. For myself, I believe that the
real east wind blows only in London.
And when the snow went in Boston I went with it. The evening before
I left I watched them as they carted away the dirty uncouth blocks
which had been broken up with pickaxes in Washington Street, and was
melancholy as I reflected that I too should no longer be known in the
streets. My weeks in Boston had not been very many, but nevertheless
there were haunts there which I knew as though my feet had trodden
them for years. There were houses to which I could have gone with
my eyes blindfold; doors of which the latches were familiar to my
hands; faces which I knew so well that they had ceased to put on
for me the fictitious smiles of courtesy. Faces, houses, doors, and
haunts, where are they now? For me they are as though they had never
been. They are among the things which one would fain remember as
one remembers a dream. Look back on it as a vision and it is all
pleasant. But if you realize your vision and believe your dream to be
a fact, all your pleasure is obliterated by regret.
I know that I shall never again be at Boston, and that I have said
that about the Americans which would make me unwelcome as a guest if
I were there. It is in this that my regret consists;--for this reason
that I would wish to remember so many social hours as though they had
been passed in sleep. They who will expect blessings from me, will
say among themselves that I have cursed them. As I read the pages
which I have written I feel that words which I intended for blessings
when I prepared to utter them have gone nigh to turn themselves into
curses.
I have ever admired the United States as a nation. I have loved their
liberty, their prowess, their intelligence, and their progress. I
have sympathized with a people who themselves have had no sympathy
with passive security and inaction. I have felt confidence in them,
and have known, as it were, that their industry must enable them to
succeed as a people, while their freedom would insure to them success
as a nation. With these convictions I went among them wishing to
write of them good words,--words which might be pleasant for them to
read, while they might assist perhaps in producing a true impression
of them here at home. But among my good words there are so many which
are bitter, that I fear I shall have failed in my object as regards
them. And it seems to me, as I read once more my own pages, that in
saying evil things of my friends, I have used language stronger than
I intended; whereas I have omitted to express myself with emphasis
when I have attempted to say good things. Why need I have told of the
mud of Washington, or have exposed the nakedness of Cairo? Why did
I speak with such eager enmity of those poor women in the New York
cars, who never injured me, now that I think of it? Ladies of New
York, as I write this, the words which were written among you, are
printed and cannot be expunged; but I tender to you my apologies from
my home in England. And as to that Van Wyck committee! Might I not
have left those contractors to be dealt with by their own Congress,
seeing that that Congress committee was by no means inclined to spare
them? I might have kept my pages free from gall, and have sent my
sheets to the press unhurt by the conviction that I was hurting those
who had dealt kindly by me! But what then? Was any people ever truly
served by eulogy; or an honest cause furthered by undue praise?
O my friends with thin skins,--and here I protest that a thick skin
is a fault not to be forgiven in a man or a nation, whereas a thin
skin is in itself a merit, if only the wearer of it will be the
master and not the slave of his skin,--O, my friends with thin skins,
ye whom I call my cousins and love as brethren, will ye not forgive
me these harsh words that I have spoken? They have been spoken in
love,--with a true love, a brotherly love, a love that has never been
absent from the heart while the brain was coining them. I had my task
to do, and I could not take the pleasant and ignore the painful. It
may perhaps be that as a friend I had better not have written either
good or bad. But no! To say that would indeed be to speak calumny of
your country. A man may write of you truly, and yet write that which
you would read with pleasure;--only that your skins are so thin!
The streets of Washington are muddy and her ways are desolate. The
nakedness of Cairo is very naked. And those ladies of New York--is
it not to be confessed that they are somewhat imperious in their
demands? As for the Van Wyck committee, have I not repeated the tale
which you have told yourselves? And is it not well that such tales
should be told?
And yet ye will not forgive me; because your skins are thin, and
because the praise of others is the breath of your nostrils.
I do not know that an American as an individual is more thin-skinned
than an Englishman; but as the representative of a nation it may
almost be said of him that he has no skin at all. Any touch comes
at once upon the net-work of his nerves and puts in operation all
his organs of feeling with the violence of a blow. And for this
peculiarity he has been made the mark of much ridicule. It shows
itself in two ways; either by extreme displeasure when anything is
said disrespectful of his country; or by the strong eulogy with which
he is accustomed to speak of his own institutions and of those of his
countrymen whom at the moment he may chance to hold in high esteem.
The manner in which this is done is often ridiculous. "Sir, what
do you think of our Mr. Jefferson Brick? Mr. Jefferson Brick,
sir, is one of our most remarkable men." And again. "Do you like
our institutions, sir? Do you find that philanthropy, religion,
philosophy, and the social virtues are cultivated on a scale
commensurate with the unequalled liberty and political advancement of
the nation?" There is something absurd in such a mode of address when
it is repeated often. But hero-worship and love of country are not
absurd; and do not these addresses show capacity for hero-worship
and an aptitude for the love of country? Jefferson Brick may not be
a hero; but a capacity for such worship is something. Indeed the
capacity is everything, for the need of a hero will at last produce
the hero needed. And it is the same with that love of country.
A people that are proud of their country will see that there is
something in their country to justify their pride. Do we not all of
us feel assured by the intense nationality of an American that he
will not desert his nation in the hour of her need? I feel that
assurance respecting them; and at those moments in which I am moved
to laughter by the absurdities of their addresses, I feel it the
strongest.
I left Boston with the snow, and returning to New York found that
the streets there were dry and that the winter was nearly over. As
I had passed through New York to Boston the streets had been by no
means dry. The snow had lain in small mountains over which the
omnibuses made their way down Broadway, till at the bottom of that
thoroughfare, between Trinity Church and Bowling Green, alp became
piled upon alp, and all traffic was full of danger. The accursed love
of gain still took men to Wall Street, but they had to fight their
way thither through physical difficulties which must have made even
the state of the money market a matter almost of indifference to
them. They do not seem to me to manage the winter in New York so well
as they do in Boston. But now, on my last return thither, the alps
were gone, the roads were clear, and one could travel through the
city with no other impediment than those of treading on women's
dresses if one walked, or having to look after women's band-boxes and
pay their fares and take their change, if one used the omnibuses.
And now had come the end of my adventures, and as I set my foot
once more upon the deck of the Cunard steamer I felt that my work
was done. Whether it were done ill or well, or whether indeed any
approach to the doing of it had been attained, all had been done that
I could accomplish. No further opportunity remained to me of seeing,
hearing, or of speaking. I had come out thither, having resolved to
learn a little that I might if possible teach that little to others;
and now the lesson was learned, or must remain unlearned. But in
carrying out my resolution I had gradually risen in my ambition, and
had mounted from one stage of inquiry to another, till at last I had
found myself burdened with the task of ascertaining whether or no the
Americans were doing their work as a nation well or ill; and now, if
ever, I must be prepared to put forth the result of my inquiry. As I
walked up and down the deck of the steamboat I confess I felt that I
had been somewhat arrogant.
I had been a few days over six months in the States, and I was
engaged in writing a book of such a nature that a man might well
engage himself for six years, or perhaps for sixty, in obtaining the
materials for it. There was nothing in the form of government, or
legislature, or manners of the people, as to which I had not taken
upon myself to say something. I was professing to understand their
strength and their weakness; and was daring to censure their faults
and to eulogize their virtues. "Who is he," an American would say,
"that he comes and judges us? His judgment is nothing." "Who is he,"
an Englishman would say, "that he comes and teaches us? His teaching
is of no value."
In answer to this I have but a small plea to make. I have done
my best. I have nothing "extenuated, and have set down nought in
malice." I do feel that my volumes have blown themselves out into
proportions greater than I had intended;--greater not in mass of
pages, but in the matter handled. I am frequently addressing my own
muse, who I am well aware is not Clio, and asking her whither she
is wending. "Cease, thou wrong-headed one, to meddle with these
mysteries." I appeal to her frequently, but ever in vain. One cannot
drive one's muse, nor yet always lead her. Of the various women with
which a man is blessed, his muse is by no means the least difficult
to manage.
But again I put in my slight plea. In doing as I have done, I have
at least done my best. I have endeavoured to judge without prejudice,
and to hear with honest ears, and to see with honest eyes. The
subject, moreover, on which I have written, is one which, though
great, is so universal in its bearings, that it may be said to admit
of being handled without impropriety by the unlearned as well as the
learned;--by those who have grown gray in the study of constitutional
lore, and by those who have simply looked on at the government of men
as we all look on at those matters which daily surround us. There are
matters as to which a man should never take a pen in hand unless he
has given to them much labour. The botanist must have learned to
trace the herbs and flowers before he can presume to tell us how God
has formed them. But the death of Hector is a fit subject for a boy's
verses though Homer also sang of it. I feel that there is scope for a
book on the United States' form of government as it was founded, and
as it has since framed itself, which might do honour to the life-long
studies of some one of those great constitutional pundits whom we
have among us; but, nevertheless, the plain words of a man who is no
pundit need not disgrace the subject, if they be honestly written,
and if he who writes them has in his heart an honest love of liberty.
Such were my thoughts as I walked the deck of the Cunard steamer.
Then I descended to my cabin, settled my luggage, and prepared
for the continuance of my work. It was fourteen days from that
time before I reached London, but the fourteen days to me were not
unpleasant. The demon of sea-sickness usually spares me, and if I can
find on board one or two who are equally fortunate--who can eat with
me, drink with me, and talk with me--I do not know that a passage
across the Atlantic is by any means a terrible evil.
In finishing these volumes after the fashion in which they have been
written throughout, I feel that I am bound to express a final opinion
on two or three points, and that if I have not enabled myself to
do so, I have travelled through the country in vain. I am bound by
the very nature of my undertaking to say whether, according to such
view as I have enabled myself to take of them, the Americans have
succeeded as a nation politically and socially; and in doing this I
ought to be able to explain how far slavery has interfered with such
success. I am bound also, writing at the present moment, to express
some opinion as to the result of this war, and to declare whether the
North or the South may be expected to be victorious,--explaining in
some rough way what may be the results of such victory, and how such
results will affect the question of slavery. And I shall leave my
task unfinished if I do not say what may be the possible chances of
future quarrel between England and the States. That there has been
and is much hot blood and angry feeling no man doubts; but such angry
feeling has existed among many nations without any probability of
war. In this case, with reference to this ill-will that has certainly
established itself between us and that other people, is there any
need that it should be satisfied by war and allayed by blood?
No one, I think, can doubt that the founders of the great American
Commonwealth made an error in omitting to provide some means for the
gradual extinction of slavery throughout the States. That error did
not consist in any liking for slavery. There was no feeling in favour
of slavery on the part of those who made themselves prominent at the
political birth of the nation. I think I shall be justified in saying
that at that time the opinion that slavery is itself a good thing,
that it is an institution of divine origin and fit to be perpetuated
among men as in itself excellent, had not found that favour in the
southern States in which it is now held. Jefferson, who has been
regarded as the leader of the southern or democratic party, has
left ample testimony that he regarded slavery as an evil. It is, I
think, true that he gave such testimony much more freely when he was
speaking or writing as a private individual than he ever allowed
himself to do when his words were armed with the weight of public
authority. But it is clear that, on the whole, he was opposed to
slavery, and I think there can be little doubt that he and his party
looked forward to a natural death for that evil. Calculation was made
that slavery when not recruited afresh from Africa could not maintain
its numbers, and that gradually the negro population would become
extinct. This was the error made. It was easier to look forward
to such a result and hope for such an end of the difficulty, than
to extinguish slavery by a great political movement, which must
doubtless have been difficult and costly. The northern States got
rid of slavery by the operation of their separate legislatures, some
at one date and some at others. The slaves were less numerous in
the North than in the South, and the feeling adverse to slaves was
stronger in the North than in the South. Mason and Dixon's line,
which now separates slave soil from free soil, merely indicates the
position in the country at which the balance turned. Maryland and
Virginia were not inclined to make great immediate sacrifices for the
manumission of their slaves; but the gentlemen of those States did
not think that slavery was a divine institution, destined to flourish
for ever as a blessing in their land.
The maintenance of slavery was, I think, a political mistake;--a
political mistake, not because slavery is politically wrong, but
because the politicians of the day made erroneous calculations as
to the probability of its termination. So the income tax may be a
political blunder with us;--not because it is in itself a bad tax,
but because those who imposed it conceived that they were imposing it
for a year or two, whereas, now, men do not expect to see the end of
it. The maintenance of slavery was a political mistake; and I cannot
think that the Americans in any way lessen the weight of their own
error by protesting, as they occasionally do, that slavery was a
legacy made over to them from England. They might as well say, that
travelling in carts without springs, at the rate of three miles an
hour, was a legacy made over to them by England. On that matter of
travelling they have not been contented with the old habits left
to them, but have gone ahead and made railroads. In creating those
railways the merit is due to them; and so also is the demerit of
maintaining those slaves.
That demerit and that mistake have doubtless brought upon the
Americans the grievances of their present position; and will, as I
think, so far be accompanied by ultimate punishment that they will
be the immediate means of causing the first disintegration of their
nation. I will leave it to the Americans themselves to say, whether
such disintegration must necessarily imply that they have failed in
their political undertaking. The most loyal citizens of the northern
States would have declared a month or two since,--and for aught
I know would declare now,--that any disintegration of the States
implied absolute failure. One stripe erased from the banner, one star
lost from the firmament, would entail upon them all the disgrace
of national defeat! It had been their boast that they would always
advance, never retreat. They had looked forward to add ever State
upon State, and territory to territory, till the whole continent
should be bound together in the same union. To go back from that now,
to fall into pieces and be divided, to become smaller in the eyes
of the nations,--to be absolutely halfed, as some would say of such
division, would be national disgrace, and would amount to political
failure. "Let us fight for the whole," such men said, and probably do
say. "To lose anything is to lose all!"
But the citizens of the States who speak and think thus, though they
may be the most loyal, are perhaps not politically the most wise. And
I am inclined to think that that defiant claim of every star, that
resolve to possess every stripe upon the banner, had become somewhat
less general when I was leaving the country than I had found it to be
at the time of my arrival there. While things were going badly with
the North,--while there was no tale of any battle to be told except
of those at Bull's Run and Springfield, no northern man would admit
a hint that secession might ultimately prevail in Georgia or Alabama.
But the rebels had been driven out of Missouri when I was leaving
the States, they had retreated altogether from Kentucky, having
been beaten in one engagement there, and from a great portion of
Tennessee, having been twice beaten in that State. The coast of North
Carolina, and many points of the southern coast, were in the hands of
the northern army, while the army of the South was retreating from
all points into the centre of their country. Whatever may have been
the strategetical merits or demerits of the northern generals, it
is at any rate certain that their apparent successes were greedily
welcomed by the people, and created an idea that things were going
well with the cause. And, as all this took place, it seemed to me
that I heard less about the necessary integrity of the old flag.
While as yet they were altogether unsuccessful, they were minded to
make no surrender. But with their successes came the feeling, that in
taking much they might perhaps allow themselves to yield something.
This was clearly indicated by the message sent to Congress by the
President in February, 1862, in which he suggested that Congress
should make arrangements for the purchase of the slaves in the border
States; so that in the event of secession--accomplished secession--in
the gulf States, the course of those border States might be made
clear for them. They might hesitate as to going willingly with the
North, while possessing slaves,--as to setting themselves peaceably
down as a small slave adjunct to a vast free soil nation, seeing that
their property would always be in peril. Under such circumstances
a slave adjunct to the free soil nation would not long be possible.
But if it could be shown to them that in the event of their adhering
to the North, compensation would be forthcoming, then, indeed,
the difficulty in arranging an advantageous line between the two
future nations might be considerably modified. This message of the
President's was intended to signify, that secession on favourable
terms might be regarded by the North as not undesirable. Moderate men
were beginning to whisper that, after all, the gulf States were no
source either of national wealth or of national honour. Had there not
been enough at Washington of cotton lords and cotton laws? When I
have suggested that no senator from Georgia would ever again sit in
the United States senate, American gentlemen have received my remark
with a slight demur, and have then proceeded to argue the case. Six
months before they would have declaimed against me and not have
argued.
I will leave it to Americans themselves to say whether that
disintegration of the States, should it ever be realized, will imply
that they have failed in their political undertaking. If they do not
protest that it argues failure, their feelings will not be hurt by
any such protestations on the part of others. I have said that the
blunder made by the founders of the nation with regard to slavery
has brought with it this secession as its punishment. But such
punishments come generally upon nations as great mercies. Ireland's
famine was the punishment of her imprudence and idleness, but it has
given to her prosperity and progress. And indeed, to speak with more
logical correctness, the famine was no punishment to Ireland, nor
will secession be a punishment to the northern States. In the long
result step will have gone on after step, and effect will have
followed cause, till the American people will at last acknowledge,
that all these matters have been arranged for their advantage and
promotion. It may be that a nation now and then goes to the wall, and
that things go from bad to worse with a large people. It has been so
with various nations and with many people since history was first
written. But when it has been so, the people thus punished have been
idle and bad. They have not only done evil in their generation, but
have done more evil than good, and have contributed their power to
the injury rather than to the improvement of mankind. It may be that
this or that national fault may produce or seem to produce some
consequent calamity. But the balance of good or evil things which
fall to a people's share will indicate with certainty their average
conduct as a nation. The one will be the certain consequence of the
other. If it be that the Americans of the northern States have done
well in their time, that they have assisted in the progress of the
world, and made things better for mankind rather than worse, then
they will come out of this trouble without eventual injury. That
which came in the guise of punishment for a special fault, will be a
part of the reward resulting from good conduct in the general. And as
to this matter of slavery, in which I think that they have blundered
both politically and morally,--has it not been found impossible
hitherto for them to cleanse their hands of that taint? But that
which they could not do for themselves the course of events is doing
for them. If secession establish herself, though it be only secession
of the gulf States, the people of the United States will soon be free
from slavery.
In judging of the success or want of success of any political
institutions or of any form of government, we should be guided, I
think, by the general results, and not by any abstract rules as to
the right or wrong of those institutions or of that form. It might
be easy for a German lawyer to show that our system of trial by jury
is open to the gravest objections, and that it sins against common
sense. But if that system gives us substantial justice, and protects
us from the tyranny of men in office, the German lawyer will not
succeed in making us believe that it is a bad system. When looking
into the matter of the schools at Boston, I observed to one of
the committee of management that the statements with which I was
supplied, though they told me how many of the children went to
school, did not tell me how long they remained at school. The
gentleman replied that that information was to be obtained from the
result of the schooling of the population generally. Every boy and
girl around us could read and write, and could enjoy reading and
writing. There was therefore evidence to show that they remained at
school sufficiently long for the required purposes. It was fair that
I should judge of the system from the results. Here in England, we
generally object to much that the Americans have adopted into their
form of government, and think that many of their political theories
are wrong. We do not like universal suffrage. We do not like a
periodical change in the first magistrate; and we like quite as
little a periodical permanence in the political officers immediately
under the chief magistrate. We are, in short, wedded to our own forms
and therefore opposed by judgment to forms differing from our own.
But I think we all acknowledge that the United States, burdened as
they are with these political evils,--as we think them, have grown in
strength and material prosperity with a celerity of growth hitherto
unknown among nations. We may dislike Americans personally, we may
find ourselves uncomfortable when there, and unable to sympathize
with them when away; we may believe them to be ambitious, unjust,
self-idolatrous, or irreligious. But, unless we throw our judgment
altogether overboard, we cannot believe them to be a weak people, a
poor people, a people with low spirits or a people with idle hands.
To what is it that the government of a country should chiefly look?
What special advantages do we expect from our own government? Is it
not that we should be safe at home and respected abroad;--that laws
should be maintained, but that they should be so maintained that
they should not be oppressive? There are, doubtless, countries in
which the government professes to do much more than this for its
people,--countries in which the government is paternal; in which it
regulates the religion of the people, and professes to enforce on all
the national children respect for the governors, teachers, spiritual
pastors, and masters. But that is not our idea of a government.
That is not what we desire to see established among ourselves or
established among others. Safety from foreign foes, respect from
foreign foes and friends, security under the law and security from
the law,--this is what we expect from our government; and if I add to
this that we expect to have these good things provided at a fairly
moderate cost, I think I have exhausted the list of our requirements.
And if the Americans with their form of government have done for
themselves all that we expect our government to do for us; if they
have with some fair approach to general excellence obtained respect
abroad and security at home from foreign foes; if they have made
life, liberty, and property safe under their laws, and have also so
written and executed their laws as to secure their people from legal
oppression,--I maintain that they are entitled to a verdict in their
favour, let us object as we may to universal suffrage, to four years'
Presidents, and four years' presidential cabinets. What, after all,
matters the theory or the system, whether it be King or President,
universal suffrage or ten-pound voter, so long as the people be free
and prosperous? King and President, suffrage by poll and suffrage by
property, are but the means. If the end be there, if the thing has
been done, King and President, open suffrage and close suffrage may
alike be declared to have been successful. The Americans have been
in existence as a nation for seventy-five years, and have achieved
an amount of foreign respect during that period greater than any
other nation ever obtained in double the time. And this has been
given to them, not in deference to the statesman-like craft of
their diplomatic and other officers, but on grounds the very
opposite of those. It has been given to them because they form a
numerous, wealthy, brave, and self-asserting nation. It is, I think,
unnecessary to prove that such foreign respect has been given to
them: but were it necessary, nothing would prove it more strongly
than the regard which has been universally paid by European
governments to the blockade placed during this war on the southern
ports by the government of the United States. Had the United States
been placed by general consent in any class of nations below the
first, England, France, and perhaps Russia would have taken the
matter into their own hands, and have settled for the States, either
united or disunited, at any rate that question of the blockade. And
the Americans have been safe at home from foreign foes; so safe,
that no other strong people but ourselves have enjoyed anything
approaching to their security since their foundation. Nor has our
security been equal to theirs if we are to count our nationality
as extending beyond the British Isles. Then as to security under
their laws and from their laws! Those laws and the system of their
management have been taken almost entirely from us, and have so been
administered that life and property have been safe, and the subject
also has been free from oppression. I think that this may be taken
for granted, seeing that they who have been most opposed to American
forms of government, have never asserted the reverse. I may be told
of a man being lynched in one State, or tarred and feathered in
another, or of a duel in a third being "fought at sight." So I may be
told also of men garotted in London, and of tithe proctors buried in
a bog without their ears in Ireland. Neither will seventy years of
continuance nor will seven hundred secure such an observance of laws
as will prevent temporary ebullition of popular feeling, or save a
people from the chance disgrace of occasional outrage. Taking the
general, life and limb and property have been as safe in the States
as in other civilized countries with which we are acquainted.
As to their personal liberty under their laws, I know it will be said
that they have surrendered all claim to any such precious possession
by the facility with which they have now surrendered the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus. It has been taken from them, as I have
endeavoured to show, illegally, and they have submitted to the loss
and to the illegality without a murmur! But in such a matter I do
not think it fair to judge them by their conduct in such a moment as
the present. That this is the very moment in which to judge of the
efficiency of their institutions generally, of the aptitude of those
institutions for the security of the nation, I readily acknowledge.
But when a ship is at sea in a storm, riding out all that the winds
and waves can do to her, one does not condemn her because a yard-arm
gives way, nor even though the mainmast should go by the board. If
she can make her port, saving life and cargo, she is a good ship, let
her losses in spars and rigging be what they may. In this affair of
the habeas corpus we will wait a while before we come to any final
judgment. If it be that the people, when the war is over, shall
consent to live under a military or other dictatorship,--that they
shall quietly continue their course as a nation without recovery
of their rights of freedom, then we shall have to say that their
institutions were not founded in a soil of sufficient depth, and that
they gave way before the first high wind that blew on them. I myself
do not expect such a result.
I think we must admit that the Americans have received from their
government, or rather from their system of policy, that aid and
furtherance which they required from it; and, moreover, such aid and
furtherance as we expect from our system of government. We must admit
that they have been great, and free, and prosperous, as we also have
become. And we must admit, also, that in some matters they have gone
forward in advance of us. They have educated their people, as we
have not educated ours. They have given to their millions a personal
respect, and a standing above the abjectness of poverty, which with
us are much less general than with them. These things, I grant, have
not come of their government, and have not been produced by their
written constitution. They are the happy results of their happy
circumstances. But so, also, those evil attributes which we sometimes
assign to them are not the creatures of their government, or of their
constitution. We acknowledge them to be well educated, intelligent,
philanthropic, and industrious; but we say that they are ambitious,
unjust, self-idolatrous, and irreligious. If so, let us at any rate
balance the virtues against the vices. As to their ambition, it is a
vice that leans so to virtue's side, that it hardly needs an apology.
As to their injustice, or rather dishonesty, I have said what I have
to say on that matter. I am not going to flinch from the accusation
I have brought, though I am aware that in bringing it I have thrown
away any hope that I might have had of carrying with me the good will
of the Americans for my book. The love of money,--or rather of making
money,--carried to an extreme, has lessened that instinctive respect
for the rights of meum and tuum which all men feel more or less, and
which, when encouraged within the human breast, finds its result in
perfect honesty. Other nations, of which I will not now stop to name
even one, have had their periods of natural dishonesty. It may be
that others are even now to be placed in the same category. But it
is a fault which industry and intelligence combined will after a
while serve to lessen and to banish. The industrious man desires to
keep the fruit of his own industry, and the intelligent man will
ultimately be able to do so. That the Americans are self-idolaters is
perhaps true,--with a difference. An American desires you to worship
his country, or his brother; but he does not often, by any of the
usual signs of conceit, call upon you to worship himself. As an
American, treating of America, he is self-idolatrous; but that
is a self-idolatry which I can endure. Then, as to his want of
religion--and it is a very sad want--I can only say of him, that
I, as an Englishman, do not feel myself justified in flinging the
first stone at him. In that matter of religion, as in the matter of
education, the American, I think, stands on a level higher than ours.
There is not in the States so absolute an ignorance of religion as
is to be found in some of our manufacturing and mining districts,
and also, alas! in some of our agricultural districts; but also, I
think, there is less of respect and veneration for God's word among
their educated classes, than there is with us; and, perhaps, also
less knowledge as to God's word. The general religious level is, I
think, higher with them; but there is with us, if I am right in my
supposition, a higher eminence in religion, as there is also a deeper
depth of ungodliness.
I think then that we are bound to acknowledge that the Americans
have succeeded as a nation, politically and socially. When I speak
of social success, I do not mean to say that their manners are
correct according to this or that standard. I will not say that they
are correct, or are not correct. In that matter of manners I have
found that those, with whom it seemed to me natural that I should
associate, were very pleasant according to my standard. I do not
know that I am a good critic on such a subject, or that I have ever
thought much of it with the view of criticising. I have been happy
and comfortable with them, and for me that has been sufficient. In
speaking of social success I allude to their success in private
life as distinguished from that which they have achieved in public
life;--to their successes in commerce, in mechanics, in the comforts
and luxuries of life, in medicine and all that leads to the solace of
affliction, in literature, and I may add also, considering the youth
of the nation, in the arts. We are, I think, bound to acknowledge
that they have succeeded. And if they have succeeded, it is vain for
us to say that a system is wrong which has, at any rate, admitted of
such success. That which was wanted from some form of government, has
been obtained with much more than average excellence; and therefore
the form adopted has approved itself as good. You may explain to a
farmer's wife with indisputable logic, that her churn is a bad churn;
but as long as she turns out butter in greater quantity, in better
quality, and with more profit than her neighbours, you will hardly
induce her to change it. It may be that with some other churn she
might have done even better; but, under such circumstances, she will
have a right to think well of the churn she uses.
The American constitution is now, I think, at the crisis of its
severest trial. I conceive it to be by no means perfect, even for
the wants of the people who use it; and I have already endeavoured
to explain what changes it seems to need. And it has had this
defect,--that it has permitted a falling away from its intended
modes of action, while its letter has been kept sacred. As I have
endeavoured to show, universal suffrage and democratic action in the
Senate were not intended by the framers of the constitution. In this
respect, the constitution has, as it were, fallen through, and it is
needed that its very beams should be re-strengthened. There are also
other matters as to which it seems that some change is indispensable.
So much I have admitted. But, not the less, judging of it by the
entirety of the work that it has done, I think that we are bound to
own that it has been successful.
And now, with regard to this tedious war, of which from day to day we
are still, in this month of May, 1862, hearing details which teach us
to think that it can hardly as yet be near its end;--to what may we
rationally look as its result? Of one thing I myself feel tolerably
certain,--that its result will not be nothing, as some among us
have seemed to suppose may be probable. I cannot believe that all
this energy on the part of the North will be of no avail, more
than I suppose that southern perseverance will be of no avail.
There are those among us who say that as secession will at last be
accomplished, the North should have yielded to the South at once, and
that nothing will be gained by their great expenditure of life and
treasure. I can by no means bring myself to agree with these. I also
look to the establishment of secession. Seeing how essential and
thorough are the points of variance between the North and the South,
how unlike the one people is to the other, and how necessary it is
that their policies should be different; seeing how deep are their
antipathies, and how fixed is each side in the belief of its own
rectitude and in the belief also of the other's political baseness,
I cannot believe that the really southern States will ever again be
joined in amicable union with those of the North. They, the States of
the Gulf, may be utterly subjugated, and the North may hold over them
military power. Georgia and her sisters may for a while belong to
the Union, as one conquered country belongs to another. But I do not
think that they will ever act with the Union;--and, as I imagine,
the Union before long will agree to a separation. I do not mean
to prophesy that the result will be thus accomplished. It may be
that the South will effect their own independence before they lay
down their arms. I think, however, that we may look forward to such
independence, whether it be achieved in that way, or in this, or in
some other.
But not on that account will the war have been of no avail to the
North. I think it must be already evident to all those who have
looked into the matter that had the North yielded to the first call
made by the South for secession all the slave States must have gone.
Maryland would have gone, carrying Delaware in its arms; and if
Maryland, all south of Maryland. If Maryland had gone, the capital
would have gone. If the Government had resolved to yield, Virginia to
the east would assuredly have gone, and I think there can be no doubt
that Missouri, to the west, would have gone also. The feeling for
the Union in Kentucky was very strong, but I do not think that even
Kentucky could have saved itself. To have yielded to the southern
demands would have been to have yielded everything. But no man now
believes, let the contest go as it will, that Maryland and Delaware
will go with the South. The secessionists of Baltimore do not think
so, nor the gentlemen and ladies of Washington, whose whole hearts
are in the southern cause. No man thinks that Maryland will go; and
few, I believe, imagine that either Missouri or Kentucky will be
divided from the North. I will not pretend what may be the exact
line, but I myself feel confident that it will run south both of
Virginia and of Kentucky.
If the North do conquer the South, and so arrange their matters that
the southern States shall again become members of the Union, it will
be admitted that they have done all that they sought to do. If they
do not do this;--if instead of doing this, which would be all that
they desire, they were in truth to do nothing;--to win finally not
one foot of ground from the South,--a supposition which I regard as
impossible;--I think that we should still admit after a while that
they had done their duty in endeavouring to maintain the integrity of
the empire. But if, as a third and more probable alternative, they
succeed in rescuing from the South and from slavery four or five of
the finest States of the old Union,--a vast portion of the continent,
to be beaten by none other in salubrity, fertility, beauty, and
political importance,--will it not then be admitted that the war has
done some good, and that the life and treasure have not been spent in
vain?
That is the termination of the contest to which I look forward. I
think that there will be secession, but that the terms of secession
will be dictated by the North, not by the South; and among these
terms I expect to see an escape from slavery for those border States
to which I have alluded. In that proposition which, in February
last (1862), was made by the President, and which has since been
sanctioned by the Senate, I think we may see the first step towards
this measure. It may probably be the case that many of the slaves
will be driven south; that as the owners of those slaves are driven
from their holdings in Virginia they will take their slaves with
them, or send them before them. The manumission, when it reaches
Virginia, will not probably enfranchise the half million of slaves
who, in 1860, were counted among its population. But as to that I
confess myself to be comparatively careless. It is not the concern
which I have now at heart. For myself, I shall feel satisfied if that
manumission shall reach the million of whites by whom Virginia is
populated; or if not that million in its integrity then that other
million by which its rich soil would soon be tenanted. There are
now about four millions of white men and women inhabiting the slave
States which I have described, and I think it will be acknowledged
that the northern States will have done something with their armies
if they succeed in rescuing those four millions from the stain and
evil of slavery.
There is a third question which I have asked myself, and to which I
have undertaken to give some answer. When this war be over between
the northern and southern States will there come upon us Englishmen
a necessity of fighting with the Americans? If there do come such
necessity, arising out of our conduct to the States during the period
of their civil war, it will indeed be hard upon us, as a nation,
seeing the struggle that we have made to be just in our dealings
towards the States generally, whether they be North or South. To
be just in such a period, and under such circumstances, is very
difficult. In that contest between Sardinia and Austria it was all
but impossible to be just to the Italians without being unjust to
the Emperor of Austria. To have been strictly just at the moment
one should have begun by confessing the injustice of so much that
had gone before! But in this American contest such justice, though
difficult, was easier. Affairs of trade rather than of treaties
chiefly interfered; and these affairs, by a total disregard of our
own pecuniary interests, could be so managed that justice might be
done. This I think was effected. It may be, of course, that I am
prejudiced on the side of my own nation; but striving to judge of
the matter as best I may without prejudice, I cannot see that we,
as a nation, have in aught offended against the strictest justice
in our dealings with America during this contest. But justice has
not sufficed. I do not know that our bitterest foes in the northern
States have accused us of acting unjustly. It is not justice which
they have looked for at our hands, and looked for in vain;--not
justice, but generosity! We have not, as they say, sympathized with
them in their trouble! It seems to me that such a complaint is
unworthy of them as a nation, as a people, or as individuals. In such
a matter generosity is another name for injustice,--as it too often
is in all matters. A generous sympathy with the North would have been
an ostensible and crashing enmity to the South. We could not have
sympathized with the North without condemning the South, and telling
to the world that the South were our enemies. In ordering his own
household a man should not want generosity or sympathy from the
outside; and if not a man, then certainly not a nation. Generosity
between nations must in its very nature be wrong. One nation may be
just to another, courteous to another, even considerate to another
with propriety. But no nation can be generous to another without
injustice either to some third nation, or to itself.
But though no accusation of unfairness has, as far as I am aware,
ever been made by the government of Washington against the government
of London, there can be no doubt that a very strong feeling of
antipathy to England has sprung up in America during this war, and
that it is even yet so intense in its bitterness, that were the North
to become speedily victorious in their present contest very many
Americans would be anxious to turn their arms at once against Canada.
And I fear that that fight between the Monitor and the Merrimac has
strengthened this wish by giving to the Americans an unwarranted
confidence in their capability of defending themselves against any
injury from British shipping. It may be said by them, and probably
would be said by many of them, that this feeling of enmity had not
been engendered by any idea of national injustice on our side;--that
it might reasonably exist, though no suspicion of such injustice had
arisen in the minds of any. They would argue that the hatred on their
part had been engendered by scorn on ours,--by scorn and ill words
heaped upon them in their distress.
They would say that slander, scorn, and uncharitable judgments create
deeper feuds than do robbery and violence, and produce deeper enmity
and worse rancour. "It is because we have been scorned by England,
that we hate England. We have been told from week to week, and from
day to day, that we were fools, cowards, knaves, and madmen. We have
been treated with disrespect, and that disrespect we will avenge." It
is thus that they speak of England, and there can be no doubt that
the opinion so expressed is very general. It is not my purpose here
to say whether in this respect England has given cause of offence
to the States, or whether either country has given cause of offence
to the other. On both sides have many hard words been spoken, and
on both sides also have good words been spoken. It is unfortunately
the case that hard words are pregnant, and as such they are read,
digested, and remembered; while good words are generally so dull that
nobody reads them willingly, and when read they are forgotten. For
many years there have been hard words bandied backwards and forwards
between England and the United States, showing mutual jealousies and
a disposition on the part of each nation to spare no fault committed
by the other. This has grown of rivalry between the two, and in fact
proves the respect which each has for the other's power and wealth.
I will not now pretend to say with which side has been the chiefest
blame, if there has been chiefest blame on either side. But I do say
that it is monstrous in any people or in any person to suppose that
such bickerings can afford a proper ground for war. I am not about to
dilate on the horrors of war. Horrid as war may be, and full of evil,
it is not so horrid to a nation, nor so full of evil, as national
insult unavenged, or as national injury unredressed. A blow taken by
a nation and taken without atonement is an acknowledgment of national
inferiority than which any war is preferable. Neither England nor the
States are inclined to take such blows. But such a blow, before it
can be regarded as a national insult, as a wrong done by one nation
on another, must be inflicted by the political entity of the one on
the political entity of the other. No angry clamours of the press,
no declamations of orators, no voices from the people, no studied
criticisms from the learned few or unstudied censures from society
at large, can have any fair weight on such a question or do aught
towards justifying a national quarrel. They cannot form a casus
belli. Those two Latin words, which we all understand, explain this
with the utmost accuracy. Were it not so, the peace of the world
would indeed rest upon sand. Causes of national difference will
arise,--for governments will be unjust as are individuals. And
causes of difference will arise because governments are too blind
to distinguish the just from the unjust. But in such cases the
government acts on some ground which it declares. It either shows or
pretends to show some casus belli. But in this matter of threatened
war between the States and England it is declared openly that such
war is to take place because the English have abused the Americans,
and because, consequently, the Americans hate the English. There
seems to exist an impression that no other ostensible ground for
fighting need be shown, although such an event as that of war between
the two nations would, as all men acknowledge, be terrible in
its results. "Your newspapers insulted us when we were in our
difficulties. Your writers said evil things of us. Your legislators
spoke of us with scorn. You exacted from us a disagreeable duty of
retribution just when the performance of such a duty was most odious
to us. You have shown symptoms of joy at our sorrow. And, therefore,
as soon as our hands are at liberty, we will fight you." I have
known schoolboys to argue in that way, and the arguments have been
intelligible. But I cannot understand that any government should
admit such an argument.
Nor will the American government willingly admit it. According to
existing theories of government the armies of nations are but the
tools of the governing powers. If at the close of the present civil
war the American government,--the old civil government consisting of
the President with such checks as Congress constitutionally has over
him,--shall really hold the power to which it pretends, I do not fear
that there will be any war. No President, and I think no Congress,
will desire such a war. Nor will the people clamour for it, even
should the idea of such a war be popular. The people of America are
not clamorous against their government. If there be such a war it
will be because the army shall have then become more powerful than
the Government. If the President can hold his own the people will
support him in his desire for peace. But if the President do not hold
his own;--if some General with two or three hundred thousand men at
his back shall then have the upper hand in the nation,--it is too
probable that the people may back him. The old game will be played
again that has so often been played in the history of nations, and
some wretched military aspirant will go forth to flood Canada with
blood, in order that the feathers of his cap may flaunt in men's eyes
and that he may be talked of for some years to come as one of the
great curses let loose by the Almighty on mankind.
I must confess that there is danger of this. To us the danger is very
great. It cannot be good for us to send ships laden outside with
iron shields instead of inside with soft goods and hardware to those
thickly thronged American ports. It cannot be good for us to have
to throw millions into those harbours instead of taking millions
out from them. It cannot be good for us to export thousands upon
thousands of soldiers to Canada of whom only hundreds would return.
The whole turmoil, cost, and paraphernalia of such a course would be
injurious to us in the extreme, and the loss of our commerce would
be nearly ruinous. But the injury of such a war to us would be as
nothing to the injury which it would inflict upon the States. To them
for many years it would be absolutely ruinous. It would entail not
only all those losses which such a war must bring with it; but that
greater loss which would arise to the nation from the fact of its
having been powerless to prevent it. Such a war would prove that it
had lost the freedom for which it had struggled, and which for so
many years it has enjoyed. For the sake of that people as well as
for our own,--and for their sakes rather than for our own,--let us,
as far as may be, abstain from words which are needlessly injurious.
They have done much that is great and noble, even since this war
has begun, and we have been slow to acknowledge it. They have made
sacrifices for the sake of their country which we have ridiculed.
They have struggled to maintain a good cause, and we have disbelieved
in their earnestness. They have been anxious to abide by their
constitution, which to them has been as it were a second gospel, and
we have spoken of that constitution as though it had been a thing of
mere words in which life had never existed. This has been done while
their hands were very full and their back heavily laden. Such words
coming from us, or from parties among us, cannot justify those
threats of war which we hear spoken; but that they should make the
hearts of men sore and their thoughts bitter against us can hardly be
matter of surprise.
As to the result of any such war between us and them, it would depend
mainly, I think, on the feelings of the Canadians. Neither could
they annex Canada without the good-will of the Canadians, nor could
we keep Canada without that good-will. At present the feeling in
Canada against the northern States is so strong and so universal that
England has little to fear on that head.
I have now done my task, and may take leave of my readers on either
side of the water with a hearty hope that the existing war between
the North and South may soon be over, and that none other may follow
on its heels to exercise that new-fledged military skill which
the existing quarrel will have produced on the other side of the
Atlantic. I have written my book in obscure language if I have not
shown that to me social successes and commercial prosperity are much
dearer than any greatness that can be won by arms. The Americans had
fondly thought that they were to be exempt from the curse of war,--at
any rate from the bitterness of the curse. But the days for such
exemption have not come as yet. While we are hurrying on to make
twelve-inch shield-plates for our men-of-war, we can hardly dare
to think of the days when the sword shall be turned into the
ploughshare. May it not be thought well for us if, with such work
on our hands, any scraps of iron shall be left to us with which to
pursue the purposes of peace? But at least let us not have war with
these children of our own. If we must fight, let us fight the French,
"for King George upon the throne." The doing so will be disagreeable,
but it will not be antipathetic to the nature of an Englishman. For
my part, when an American tells me that he wants to fight with me,
I regard his offence as compared with that of a Frenchman under the
same circumstances, as I would compare the offence of a parricide
or a fratricide with that of a mere common-place murderer. Such a
war would be plus quam civile bellum. Which of us two could take a
thrashing from the other and afterwards go about our business with
contentment?
On our return to Liverpool, we stayed for a few hours at Queenstown,
taking in coal, and the passengers landed that they might stretch
their legs and look about them. I also went ashore at the dear old
place which I had known well in other days, when the people were not
too grand to call it Cove, and were contented to run down from Cork
in river steamers, before the Passage railway was built. I spent a
pleasant summer there once in those times;--God be with the good
old days! And now I went ashore at Queenstown, happy to feel that
I should be again in a British isle, and happy also to know that I
was once more in Ireland. And when the people came around me as they
did, I seemed to know every face and to be familiar with every voice.
It has been my fate to have so close an intimacy with Ireland, that
when I meet an Irishman abroad, I always recognize in him more of a
kinsman than I do in an Englishman. I never ask an Englishman from
what county he comes, or what was his town. To Irishmen I usually put
such questions, and I am generally familiar with the old haunts which
they name. I was happy therefore to feel myself again in Ireland, and
to walk round from Queenstown to the river at Passage by the old way
that had once been familiar to my feet.
Or rather I should have been happy if I had not found myself
instantly disgraced by the importunities of my friends! A legion of
women surrounded me, imploring alms, begging my honour to bestow my
charity on them for the love of the Virgin, using the most holy names
in their adjurations for halfpence, clinging to me with that half
joking, half lachrymose air of importunity which an Irish beggar has
assumed as peculiarly her own. There were men too, who begged as well
as women. And the women were sturdy and fat, and, not knowing me as
well as I knew them, seemed resolved that their importunities should
be successful. After all, I had an old world liking for them in their
rags. They were endeared to me by certain memories and associations
which I cannot define. But then what would those Americans think of
them;--of them and of the country which produced them? That was the
reflection which troubled me. A legion of women in rags clamorous for
bread, protesting to heaven that they are starving, importunate with
voices and with hands, surrounding the stranger when he puts his foot
on the soil so that he cannot escape, does not afford to the cynical
American who then first visits us,--and they all are cynical when
they visit us,--a bad opportunity for his sarcasm. He can at any rate
boast that he sees nothing of that at home. I myself am fond of Irish
beggars. It is an acquired taste,--which comes upon one as does that
for smoked whisky, or Limerick tobacco. But I certainly did wish that
there were not so many of them at Queenstown.
I tell all this here not to the disgrace of Ireland;--not for the
triumph of America. The Irishman or American who thinks rightly on
the subject will know that the state of each country has arisen from
its opportunities. Beggary does not prevail in new countries, and but
few old countries have managed to exist without it. As to Ireland we
may rejoice to say that there is less of it now than there was twenty
years since. Things are mending there. But though such excuses may
be truly made,--although an Englishman when he sees this squalor and
poverty on the quays at Queenstown, consoles himself with reflecting
that the evil has been unavoidable, but will perhaps soon be
avoided,--nevertheless he cannot but remember that there is no such
squalor and no such poverty in the land from which he has returned.
I claim no credit for the new country. I impute no blame to the old
country. But there is the fact. The Irishman when he expatriates
himself to one of those American States loses much of that
affectionate, confiding, master-worshipping nature which makes him so
good a fellow when at home. But he becomes more of a man. He assumes
a dignity which he never has known before. He learns to regard his
labour as his own property. That which he earns he takes without
thanks, but he desires to take no more than he earns. To me
personally he has perhaps become less pleasant than he was. But to
himself--! It seems to me that such a man must feel himself half a
god, if he has the power of comparing what he is with what he was.
It is right that all this should be acknowledged by us. When we speak
of America and of her institutions we should remember that she has
given to our increasing population rights and privileges which we
could not give;--which as an old country we probably can never give.
That self-asserting, obtrusive independence which so often wounds us,
is, if viewed aright, but an outward sign of those good things which
a new country has produced for its people. Men and women do not beg
in the States;--they do not offend you with tattered rags; they do
not complain to heaven of starvation; they do not crouch to the
ground for halfpence. If poor, they are not abject in their poverty.
They read and write. They walk like human beings made in God's form.
They know that they are men and women, owing it to themselves and
to the world that they should earn their bread by their labour, but
feeling that when earned it is their own. If this be so,--if it be
acknowledged that it is so,--should not such knowledge in itself
be sufficient testimony of the success of the country and of her
institutions?
APPENDIX A.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed; and that, whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations
on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments, long established,
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and,
accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But,
when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such
has been the patient sufferance of the colonies, and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of
government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct
object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent
should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected
to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right
of representation in the legislature--a right inestimable to them,
and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public
records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with
his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable
of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their
exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the
dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for
that purpose, obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners,
refusing to pass others to encourage their migration thither, and
raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his
assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies, without the
consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior
to, the civil power.
He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign
to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his
assent to their acts of pretended legislation.
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States.
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.
For imposing taxes on us without our consent
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury.
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences.
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging
its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these
colonies.
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and
altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments.
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his
protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries
to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already
begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled
in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high
seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners
of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian
savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered
only by repeated injuries. A prince, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of
a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren.
We have warned them, from time to time, of the attempts by their
legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement
here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and
we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow
these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections
and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice
and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity
which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of
mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by
the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish
and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection
between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be,
totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent States, they
have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which
independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this
declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honour.
The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and
signed by the following members:
JOHN HANCOCK.
_New Hampshire._
Josiah Bartlett,
William Whipple,
Matthew Thornton.
_Massachusetts Bay._
Samuel Adams,
John Adams,
Robert Treat Paine,
Elbridge Gerry.
_Rhode Island._
Stephen Hopkins,
William Ellery.
_Connecticut._
Roger Sherman,
Samuel Huntington,
William Williams,
Oliver Wolcott.
_New York._
William Floyd,
Philip Livingston,
Francis Lewis,
Lewis Morris.
_New Jersey._
Richard Stockton,
John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson,
John Hart,
Abraham Clark.
_Pennsylvania._
Robert Morris,
Benjamin Rush,
Benjamin Franklin,
John Morton,
George Clymer,
James Smith,
George Taylor,
James Wilson,
George Ross.
_Delaware._
Cæsar Rodney,
George Read,
Thomas M'Kean.
_Maryland._
Samuel Chase,
William Paca,
Thomas Stone,
Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
_Virginia._
George Wythie,
Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee,
Carter Braxton.
_North Carolina._
William Hooper,
Joseph Hewes,
John Penn.
_South Carolina._