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Democratic jealousy, by the dependence | states. which it exacts, and the scanty remu- tions, the Americans have no literaneration which it offers, may effectually exclude elevated character or shining abilities from public situations; but by fixing the attention of all on public functionaries, it provides the only effectual antidote to official corruption. 75. Literary and intellectual ability of the highest class are comparatively rare in America. The names of Cooper, Channing, and Washington Irving, indeed, amply demonstrate that the Americian soil is not wanting in genius of the most elevated and fascinating character. Bancroft has given a history of the United States distinguished by profound thought, accurate research, and a manly eloquence; and Prescott, in his fascinating pages, has communicated to the romance of Castilian exploit the riches of classic lore, the colours of painting, and the glow of poetry. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. Such is the concentration of public interest on objects of present, and often passing concern, that neither the future nor the past excite general attention. The classics are in little esteem, except with the very highest class of writers; a certain amount of average education in the dead languages is general, considerable knowledge of them uncommon. Works in the abstruse branches of philosophy or speculation are rare. We have the authority of Tocqueville for the assertion, that so generally are they regardless of historical records or monuments, that half a century hence the national annals, even of these times, could only be written from the archives of other

ture; they have only pamphleteers and journalists.* Literary talent is, in a great degree, directed to the wants or amusements of the day; it is vehement and impassioned, often in the highest degree able, among them; but in general regardless of other and more durable concerns. The poetry of America is often beautiful: there is nothing more touching in literature than some of the fugitive pieces in their general collections. But, generally speaking, it is descriptive, not reflective: the wide expanse of natural beauty, not the receding recesses of national event, seem to have chiefly struck their imaginations. This peculiarity, however, is not owing to any deficiency in the national taste for the higher branches of literature, but to the fact that England, as the older state, has hitherto in a great degree kept possession of the American market in the productions of thought. So great is still the influence of this start, that the highest class of American authors, such as Cooper, Prescott, and Washington Irving, publish all their works in London in preference to their own country. But the taste for English classical writing is not only general, but almost universal. The leading popular authors of Great Britain are all published in America, and read with avidity. So numerous are the editions of the more celebrated writers of this country which appear on the other side of the Atlantic, that they exceed those published in England itself. This affords decisive evidence, that if their own writers are

door-keeper or macer would think himself well paid with half of what his brother in Ame-rica enjoys. Human nature is the same on both sides of the water. Aristocracy in Europe liberally provides for the functionaries who are drawn from its own class, or the splendour with which it sympathises; democracy in America rewards in the most niggardly manner the elevated class of public servants, with which it feels no identity of interest, and reserves. all its liberality for the inferior one, from which it itself expects to derive benefit.-See TOCQUEVILLE, ii. 73, 75; CHEVALIER, ii. 151.

"In the New World there is no literature either classic, romantic, or Indian:classic, the Americans have no models; romantic, they have no middle ages; Indian, the Americans despise the savages, and regard the woods with horror, as a prison reserved for them. Thus it is not literature by itself, literature properly so called, that exists in America: it is literature made serviceable to the various requirements of society; it is the literature of mechanics, of merchants, of mariners, of labourers."CHATEAUBRIAND's Memoirs, ii. 315. This description applies to America fifty years ago, since which her great authors have arisen; but that it is generally true at this moment, may be judged of by the fact that it is precisely the condition, so far as regards literature, of the manufacturing districts of Great Britain at this time.

chiefly occupied with objects of local | the irresistible impulse of public opinor party contention, the taste for a ion, that it may truly be said to be the higher class of literature is diffused to ruler of the state, though itself is a surprising degree through the com- swayed by the interests and passions munity. The Americans say this gen- of those to whom its productions are eral taste for foreign literature is in- addressed. It is well known in the consistent with a deficiency in native United States, that public services the literary talent. They might as well most important, private character the say, that because a vast quantity of most immaculate, furnish no protection French wine is drunk in England, there- whatever against its calumnies; and fore Great Britain has vineyards equal that by a combination among the edito those of Champagne or Burgundy. tors of newspapers, should so unlikeAmerica," says De Tocqueville, "is ly an event occur, the noblest and best the country in the world where the citizens of America may at any time be people are most fond of literature, and driven into exile.+ where it is least cultivated by themselves."*

66

77. In one most important branch of knowledge, the Americans have already acquired great and deserved distinction. Their legal writers exhibit a degree of learning, judgment, and penetration, which, honourable to any country, is in the highest degree remarkable in one, the career of which has so re

76. Legislation, stamped with the same character, is almost entirely engrossed with objects of material, and often only temporary importance. The struggles of interest between contending provinces or classes in society; the formation of railroads, canals, or har-cently commenced. The works of bours, for the advantage of particular districts; the establishment of jointstock companies as a source of individual profit, engross nine-tenths both of the general and local legislation of the United States. The press, which everywhere abounds, and is diffused to a degree unexampled in any other country, though by no means deficient in ability, is generally distinguished by violence, personalities, and rancour. Its influence is so considerable in guiding

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* The Author hopes he will not be accused of vanity, if he refers to the success of his own work for a proof of this assertion. Notwithstanding the repugnance which is felt among us to Mr Alison's misrepresentations of the United States, and the still stronger antipathy to anti-republican heresies, such are the cravings for historical literature, and the avidity with which it is read, that fifteen thousand copies of his own work are already disseminated before the printing of the entire work is finished."Note to American edition of this History, vol. iv. 445. New York, 1845: Harper and Brothers. It is a curious proof, however, of the inability of the American majority to bear a free discussion on their customs and institutions, that a popular edition of this History has been published in the United States without the chapter on America; and this is held forth by the advertiser as a great recommendation. They seem to have embraced the old principle of the English law," the greater the truth, the greater the libel, because it is the more difficult to bear."

Storey, Kent, and Greenleaf are distinguished alike by industry, research, and reflection, arranged in systematic order, and guided by the spirit of extensive and enlightened observation. It is not going too far to assert, that they are superior to any systematic writings of a similar description which England has produced. Nor is it difficult to discern the cause of this remarkable excellence. Every great system of law is the result of experience. The greatest intellect, the most penetrating genius, is unequal to the task, till enlightened by the wisdom learned, the disappointments felt, during many

"It is certain that, for a series of dangerous years, the American press has become the vehicle of the most atrocious personal calumny, and the most flatulent national selfadulation. Bodies of men, however ignorant and small, have come to consider themselves as integral portions of a community which never errs, and consequently entitled to esteem themselves infallible. When in debt, they have fancied it political liberty to pay their debts with the strong hand. This disease has already passed out of New York into Pennsylvania: it will spread, like any other epidemic, over the whole country; and there will soon be a severe struggle amongst us, between the knave and the honest man. Let the class of the latter look to it; it is to be hoped it is still sufficiently powerful to conquer."-COOPER, Preface to Lucy Hardinge,

1844.

successive ages. The Roman law, one of the most extraordinary monuments of uninspired wisdom which the world has ever seen, slowly grew up from the wisdom of the prætors, largely aided by the experience of other states, during thirty generations. It is the hasty and ill-considered enactments of positive legislation, often dictated by selfishness, directed by impulse, and drawn up in ignorance, which form the greatest, because the most irremediable obstacles to the formation of a perfect system of jurisprudence.

78. That England has felt, in its utmost extent, the force of this evil, need be told to none who are acquainted with the gigantic intricacies of its statute-book, or felt the blessing which it would be if nineteen-twentieths of it were by one sweeping enactment consigned to oblivion. The Americans have got quit, by their independence, of the authority of English acts of parliament; while their want of any adequate store of national decisions has compelled them to have recourse to the great masters of English law, for those equitable precedents which the English judges had mainly adopted from the wisdom and experience of Roman jurisprudence. Thus the American law is based upon the best parts of the laws of Rome and England, and is at the same time in a great degree free of the positive enactments which have constituted the principal difficulty in both. By this means their systematic writers are enabled to follow out principle to its consequences, and exhibit a consistent system of jurisprudence to a degree impossible in an older state, in which the shock of long-contending interests has estab

lished numerous points of statute law, irreconcilable either with principle or expedience. The decisions of the American courts are in general unexceptionable in cases between man and man: between man and the prejudices or passions of the despotic majority, the decisions of their courts, constrained by the absolute power of juries deeply impregnated with their feelings, are often of a very different description.

79. Slavery, as all the world knows, exists to a great extent in a large part of the United States. It is in the southern states that this dreadful evil almost exclusively prevails; for although the Negro race extends into the northern parts of the Union, yet their number is declining in these districts, while it is rapidly increasing in those to the south; and the present comparative rate of increase of the two races justifies the hope, that ere long slavery will be entirely confined to those parts of America which border on the tropics. There, however, it prevails to a prodigious extent, and nearly the whole labour, both field and domestic, is performed by the African race. In the six states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi,* there were in 1840 no less than 1,751,529 slaves-a vast number, considering that the total free white population of the same districts is only 2,406,876. History has not yet solved the questions, either whether the Negro race can ever be induced to labour continuously and effectively without the coercion of a master; or whether the whites are capable of bearing the effect of rural work in hot climates. But the experience, alike of Africa in every

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age, of St Domingo in the last, and of the British West India colonies in the present, seems to lead to the belief that both questions must be resolved in the negative: that the Negro constitution posseses an aptitude for bearing the effect of tropical heat to which the European is a stranger; and that the utmost which philanthropy can do for the descendants of Canaan in the New World-of whom it was prophesied that they should be the servants of those of Japhet *-is to mitigate their sufferings, and restrain the severity of their oppression.

self the main cause of the obstinate retention of the servient race in slavery; that in every country and age of the world, those who are loudest in the assertion of their own privileges, are the least inclined to share them with others; that they are extremely willing to level down to a certain point, but extremely unwilling to level up from below to the same point; and that that point is always to be found in that stratum of society where the majority of the electors is placed. There cannot be a doubt that the observations of Mr Burke on this subject are well founded. The English Reformed House of Commons would never have emancipated the West India Negroes, if they had been in the employment of even a part of the electors. Witness the obstinate resistance the democratic members of the legislature make to any restriction on the practical slavery of the factory children.

80. The most energetic efforts have been made for a number of years back, by a humane and philanthropic party in the United States, headed by not a few leaders of genius and ability, to produce a general feeling against the farther continuance of slavery in any part of the Union; but although they have succeeded in procuring its abolition in a few states where the Negroes 81. Volumes without number have were inconsiderable in number, they been written on the manners of the have made no sort of impression in Americans: their exclusive system in those where they are numerous. All society; their national vanity and irthe efforts of philanthropy, all the ritability at censure; and many of force of eloquence, have been shat- these productions, lively and amusing, tered against the obvious interests of a are penned in no friendly, and often in body of proprietors dependent for their no just spirit. The whole subject may existence on slave labour, and the ex- be dismissed in a single paragraph. perienced dangers of precipitate eman- The manners of the Americans are the cipation. It is perfectly understood manners of Great Britain, minus the arin every part of the Union, that the istocracy, the landowners, the army, a 7, and first serious attempt to force the free- the established church. Their standard dom of the Negroes upon the country of morality is not high, but it is in an by a general measure, will be the eminent degree practical. It is not signal for an immediate separation of founded on chivalrous recollections, the southern states from the confede- but on every day's experience. They ration. Superficial observers are never do not speak of the beauty of virtue; weary of throwing their tenacious re- they speak of its utility. The Ameritention of slavery in America in the can moralists have abandoned all hope face of the republicans of that coun- of counteracting the selfish propensitry, and proclaiming it as the greatest ties of our nature-they labour only of all inconsistencies, for those who to turn them into the safest channel. are so ambitious of maintaining and In New York and Philadelphia, the extending their own privileges, to deny society of the great merchants is uneven common freedom to others who distinguishable from that of the same happen to be subject to their power. rank in the greatest towns of the BritMore profound thinkers have observ-ish Islands: the habits of the Ameed, that this democratic principle is it-rican middle class, if a few revolting customs are excepted, will find a parallel in our steam-boats, railway-trains, and stage-coaches. Exclusive society

* "God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaau shall be his servant."-Genesis, ix. 27.

is practised to an extent, and pervades all ranks to a depth, altogether unknown in most European communities, where the distinctions of rank have been long established, are well understood, and not liable to be infringed upon, except by peculiar merit or good fortune.* But this is the necessary result of the total absence of all hereditary rank, and may be witnessed to nearly the same extent, and from the same causes, in the commercial and manufacturing cities of Great Britain.

over.

82. The admiration for rank which is generally felt in America, especially by the fair sex, is excessive. They are in an especial manner desirous of the lustre of descent from old families in Great Britain. But that is common to them with republicans all the world The abolition of titles of honour in democratic communities is the result, not of a contempt, but of an inordinate desire, for such distinctions; they injure, when enjoyed by a few, the self-love of those who do not possess them; and since the majority cannot enjoy that advantage, for if they could it would cease to be one,-they are resolved that none shall. Hence it is that, in the first fervour of each of their many revolutions, the French abolished titles of honour; and as uniformly recurred to them when the burst of the moment was over. The Americans are vain on all national subjects, and excessively sensitive to censure, however slight, and most of all to ridicule; but * "You can't imagine,' said an American girl, the daughter of a milliner, to Miss Martineau, what a nice set we have at school; we never let any of the haberdashery daughters associate with us.' My informant went on to mention how anxious she and her set

that obtains invariably with those classes or individuals who have not historic descent or great personal achievements or qualities to rest upon, and who, desirous of general applause, have a secret sense that in some particulars they may be undeserving of it. The Americans have already done great things: when they have continued a century longer in the same career, they will, like the English, be a proud, and cease to be a vain people. Vanity, as Bulwer has well remarked, is a passion which feeds on little gratifications, but requires them constantly; pride rests on great things, and is indifferent to momentary applause. The English not only noway resent, but positively enjoy, the ludicrous exhibitions made of their manners on the French stage. Such burlesques would be to the Americans like flaying alive. The English recollect that the French learned these peculiarities when the British troops occupied Paris.

83. How, then, has it happened that a country possessing none of the securities against external danger or internal convulsion, which have been elsewhere found to be indispensable, has still gone on increasing and flourishing; extending alike in internal strength and external consideration; and still exhibiting, though with several ominous heaves, an unruffled surface in general society? The solution of this peculiarity is to be found in the circumstance, that the United States have no neighbouring powers either capable of endangering their security, or likely to gain by provoking their hostility; that the majority of the electors, as yet, are owners of land, and therefore have an interest in resisting or preventing of about sixty young people were to visit ex- spoliation of real property; and that clusively' among themselves: how delightful the back settlements furnish a perpeit would be to have no grocers' daughters tual and ready issue for all their restamong them;' but 'that was found to be impossible.""-MARTINEAU, iii. 33. "Cœlum less activity and discontented energy, non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt." to exhaust and enrich itself in pacific "The Americans, who freely mix with one warfare with the forest. When these another in political assemblies, carefully separate themselves into small but very distinct peculiarities have ceased to distinguish associations, in order to taste apart the en- them, as cease they must in the projoyments of private life. Each would will-gress of things; when the growth of ingly receive his fellow-citizens as his equals, population, and completed appropriabut it is a very few indeed that he receives tion of land, have rendered the class among his friends or his guests."-TOCQUEVILLE, iv. 107. of workmen who live by wages more

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