FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[O]For observations on these statements seeLetterXXI., andthe Notes.

[O]For observations on these statements seeLetterXXI., andthe Notes.

THE BANKS.—THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.

Washington, April 10, 1834.

The drama which has been passing in the United States since the opening of the session, has now reached the end of the first act. The two Houses have had under consideration the subject of the removal of the public deposits from the Bank of the United States to the local banks, by the Executive, and both of them have come to a decision. The Senate has declared, by a majority of 28 to 18, thatthe reasons alleged by the Secretary of the Treasury in justification of the measure, were neither satisfactory nor sufficient, and, by a majority of 26 to 20, that the conduct of the President in this matter was neither conformable to the constitution nor to the laws. This is the first instance, since the adoption of the Federal constitution, of a censure of the chief magistrate of the nation by the Senate. The House has resolved, on its part, that the charter of the Bank ought not to be renewed, that the public deposits ought not to be restored to it, and that they should remain in the safe-keeping of the local banks. The first resolve passed by a vote of 132 to 92; the majority for the two others was much less, 118 to 103, and 117 to 105. It has been resolved, by a large majority, 171 to 42, that the conduct of the Bank should be made a subject of investigation, but this majority includes many friends of the Bank.

It is to be hoped that the Bank will not be the object of this campaign; the more vigourously it is defended, the more hateful it becomes to the democracy. Those who feel an interest in their country and its institutions, ought to make an effort to turn the debate toward some other point, for both sides have become heated and exasperated in the struggle, and already violence has been threatened. The most brilliant services have been forgotten, the purest characters trampled under foot. The Globe, the avowed organ of the administration, pours forth the vilest slanders on men, such as Messrs Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, of whom any country in the world would be proud. It repeated, and unhappily it reiterates still, that the votes of, the Senate have been bought by the Bank. On the other hand, General Jackson, to whom it is impossible to deny the possession of eminent qualities, has been himself exposed to the vilest indignities; the gray hairs of that brave old man have been insulted in the most scandalousmanner. Attempts have even been made to throw ridicule on his victory at New Orleans, the most brilliant affair in the American annals, as if his glory were not the common property of the country. Some hot heads have even talked of recurring to violence; commerce and enterprise have been struck numb; for want of means, the great works of Pennsylvania have been in danger of being brought to a stand. But at present there appears to be a general wish to bring back a calm; the failure of a certain number of individuals, and especially that of some banks, have proved a signal of alarm, which has recalled every one to a sense of the common danger, the general ruin that threatened the country. There has been a failure of a bank in Florida, of one in New Jersey, and of two in Maryland, one of which, that of the Bank of Maryland in Baltimore, has caused a great sensation. The leading men of all parties have set themselves in earnest to search out some means of bringing the commercial crisis to an end. There is room to hope, therefore, that the debate will lose its bitterness, and at the same time will take a wider range; instead of quarrelling about the particular question of the Bank, it were to be wished that the higher questions of political economy should be discussed, such as that of a mixed currency, in which there should be the proper mixture of paper and the metals necessary to give it stability, without keeping, as is the case in Europe, a large unproductive capital in the shape of specie; and that of a system of institutions of credit, banks of loan and discount, of deposit and exchange, powerful enough to serve as a spring and a stay to the industry of the country, and yet so balanced in respect to each other and the powers of the government, as not to be dangerous to the public liberties. A very able speech of Mr Calhoun's has already drawn the general attention to the subject of financial reform, and one of the senators friendly to the administration, Mr Benton, has embodied some of Mr Calhoun's ideas in the shape of a bill.

It is now universally agreed, that to obtain a solid and stable currency, it is necessary to keep a certain quantity of gold and silver in the country; it is seen that while there are paper dollars, the silver dollars will disappear, that ten-dollar notes necessarily expel the eagles, and that half-eagles will not stay where there are five-dollar bills. It is, therefore, proposed to abolish the issue of notes of less than ten or even twenty dollars, but all that Congress can do without the aid of a National Bank, is to prohibit the reception, by the collectors of the customs, of the bills of any bank which has in circulation notes of less than ten or twenty dollars; for Congress has no direct power over the local banks. This measure, however, would be insufficient; for the amount of money paid for customs bears a very small proportion to the whole circulation of the country, and consequently would not affect the circulation in districts remote from the sea coast. The Administration does not deny the necessity of a police for controlling and regulating the banks; it seems disposed to effect it by means of some of the local banks, which should act under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, and to which should be granted certain privileges, such as that of being the depositories of the public money without paying interest. But this plan has some disadvantages; it would invest the Secretary, that is the President, with a great discretionary power, which is wholly at war with the political maxims of American government. It is a received truth in the United States, that the sword and the purse ought not to be in the same hands. Beside it is doubtful whether this control would be sufficiently powerful and sufficiently enlightened, and finally it would be difficult by means of this chain of local banks to answer one of the most pressing wants of the country,facility of exchange; because they are, and must be as slightly connected with each other, as the sovereign States from which they hold their charters. To exterminate small bank-notes the surest agent would be a National Bank, and Congress has the power to establish one. This power, which is disputed because all its powers are disputed, would not be contested, if it were stipulated that the Bank should obtain the consent of each State, before establishing a branch within its limits. It would then be sufficient that the Bank should not receive the bills of any other bank, which issued notes of less than 10 or 20 dollars, or which received the bills of other banks, that issued notes less than the same minimum. In fine, a National Bank is an admirable instrument of exchange, and the most influential friends of the Administration are convinced of the necessity of an institution of the sort. I cannot believe that the President, and especially the Vice-President, are really as much opposed to one, as they have the air of being. As it is possible to conceive of a combination of circumstances, which may reconcile its existence with the interests and views of Mr Van Buren (such would be, for instance, the creation of a Bank of which the seat should be New York, instead of Philadelphia), it may be hoped that sooner or later, under one form or another, Mr Van Buren may yield to the necessity of the case. It is true that out of hatred to the present Bank, the prejudices of the multitude have been excited against the establishment of any bank at all, and it is much more easy to rouse the popular passions than to control them when once let loose; this kind of game has resulted in the self-murder of many a man's popularity. But in this matter the voice of the public interest and of individual interest will speak so loud, that it would be astonishing if it did not make itself heard by a people, so much more sensible and reflectingthan most of the European people. There is, then, in short, still some chance for a Bank of the United States.

The following are the principal features, in which both parties seem to me to be at present tacitly agreed. The capital of the Bank to be about 50 millions. The shares of the present Bank, representing a capital of 35 millions, to be exchanged at par for shares in the new bank; the rest of the capital to be subscribed by the individual States, thus giving the Bank a more truly national character: The rate of discount to be reduced from 6 to 5 per cent.; Mr Forsyth, a Senator friendly to the administration, has demanded this modification: The laws relative to public and private deposits to be changed in conformity with the propositions of Mr Cambreleng: The seat of the mother bank to be transferred to New York: The operations of the Bank to be subjected to more strict regulations than those of the old Bank have been: The Bank to be required to keep on hand a larger amount of reserved profits, or some other provision borrowed from the bank of England to be adopted, in order to give more security to the institution.

It would not, probably, be impossible to unite a majority of the two Houses in favour of a plan which should embrace these features. But there is another subject about which little is said, and upon which no one has yet publicly declared himself, although there are many who have thought much about it, and it will not be easy to reconcile opinions upon it. How shall the Bank be governed? What relation shall there be between the administration of the Bank, and the Federal and State governments? How and by whom shall the President of the Bank be chosen? This subject, about which there is a total silence, appears to me to be of so vital importance, that I am convinced that what has occurred in the United States during the last six months, would never have taken place, if thenomination of the President of the Bank had been lodged with the President of the United States. In Europe and particularly in France, the government of the banks is more or less in the hands and under the control of the king and the ministers. In America, conformably with the principles of self-government, the Bank, like all the other industrial and financial institutions, has, up to this time, governed itself. The Federal government, owning one fifth of the shares, names one fifth of the directors; its powers stop there. The American axiom, which forbids the union of the sword and the purse in the same hand, is opposed to the exercise of a controlling influence over the choice of the President of the Bank by the President of the United States; and yet I am persuaded that the democratic party will not be willing to hear of a Bank, in the government of which it could not interfere.

The upper classes (bourgeoisie) are not here what they are in Europe; while in Europe they rule, here they are ruled. Democracy takes its revenge in America for the unjust contempt with which it has been so long treated in Europe. Now it is to these upper classes, that the private share-holders of the Bank belong; it is the merchants, manufacturers, and capitalists, who will always derive the most direct benefit from a National Bank, although all classes must indirectly derive great advantages from it. From the time when the upper classes sanctioned a completely universal suffrage, without making any exception in favour of natural superiority, whether industrial or scientific, from the day when they consented that number should be every thing, and knowledge and capital nothing, they have signed their own abdication. It is too late to agitate the questions, whether this is absolutely a good or an evil, or whether it is well, in the agricultural States, with a scattered population, such as Ohio, Indiana, andIllinois, and bad in large and populous cities, the seats of a vast commerce, such as Philadelphia and New York. This is a matter already settled past recall; when the sword is surrendered, the vanquished must submit to take the law from the victor. In case, then, of the creation of a new National Bank, the share-holders must consent to receive their head, either from the President and Senate, as other public functionaries are appointed, or from the House of Representatives alone, or from some other similar source. If in a new or a somewhat modified Bank, the Federal and local governments should be stockholders to a large amount, this participation of the President or the House of Representatives, or of special delegates chosen by the States, in the government of the Bank, would appear altogether natural, even in the eyes of the most exclusive partisans of self government. It remains to be seen, whether in this case, the Bank would not be more likely to become the instrument of party, aden of intrigue and corruption, a golden calf, amonster, as it is so often unjustly called, than in the present state of things.

If this quarrel should be terminated by a compromise, we may expect that it will be effected on the basis above stated. The upper classes will, perhaps, consider the conditions as hard, but they should beware of rejecting them. It would be a great gain to them to obtain, under any form, a decisive sanction of a National Bank, connected with the government, and therefore incorporated with the interests of the country. Not only are numbers at present against the Bank, and numbers give the law here, but the Opposition is not so well organised as the democratic party. The Opposition has, indeed, three leaders, who do not always agree; the views of Mr Calhoun of South Carolina do not coincide with those of Messrs Clay and Webster on the subjects of the tariff and States' rights; and Mr Clay, the son of the west, and Mr Webster, who comesfrom Boston, the focus of Federalism, differ on several constitutional questions. The democratic party, on the contrary, is better disciplined; the two heads, General Jackson and Mr Van Buren, present a formidable union of qualities and faculties. The old General is firm, prompt, bold, energetic; Mr Van Buren, who sets up for the American Talleyrand, is mild, conciliating, prudent, and sagacious; his adversaries call him the little magician. While the pretensions of Messrs Clay, Calhoun, and Webster are scarcely to be reconciled with each other, and neither of them is willing to be second, Mr Van Buren is ready to serve under General Jackson for the purpose of becoming his successor in the elections of 1836. Every kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. But, if no compromise can be made, if the democracy is too untractable, and the upper classes persist in claiming more than their position authorises them to do, if the feelings, kept in a state of excitement, become exasperated on both sides, and the contest be too much prolonged, the most frightful consequences may ensue; even the Union may be endangered.

At the close of the war of Independence, the American Confederacy occupied only a narrow strip along the Atlantic. Since that time the wave of an active, enterprising, and rapidly increasing population, has rolled over the Alleghanies, the Ohio, the Mississippi, more recently over the Missouri, the Red River, the Arkansas, and I know not how far. Toward the South it is already sweeping over the Sabine, and covering Texas, while toward the West, it has topped the Rocky Mountains, and is approaching the Pacific shore. Instead of thirteen States, there are twentyfour, and the number will soon be increased to twentysix. By the side of the old Atlantic strip, two other vast tracts with a more fertile soil, have yielded up their riches to civilised man; one, at the west, comprisesthe great triangle lying between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the lakes, and the other at the south, includes the fertile regions of Florida and Louisiana, which, under the French and Spanish rule, were a solitary wilderness. The geographical centre of the Union fifty years ago was on the banks of the Potomac, on the spot where the city of Washington—that paper capital—now stands; it is now at Cincinnati, and will soon be near St Louis. In proportion as the territory of the Confederacy has been extended, the Federal bond has been weakened. It was nearly snapped asunder during the Nullification crisis, occasioned by the resistance of South Carolina to the tariff adopted under the influence of New England, in order to protect her growing manufactures. If Congress had not satisfied the demands of South Carolina, Virginia would have made common cause with the latter, and her example would have carried the whole South. The patriotic eloquence of Mr Webster, the moderation of Mr Clay and his prodigies of parliamentary strategy, the efforts of Mr Livingston, then Secretary of State, the firm, and, at the same time, conciliatory conduct of the President, who, for the first time, heard a bold defiance with patience, and the calm attitude of the Northern States, prevented for the moment a general dissolution of the Union; but the germ of mischief remains; the charm is broken; the ear has become familiar with the ominous wordSEPARATION. A habit has grown up of thinking, and even of declaring, whenever the interests of the North and the South jar, that the cure-all will be a dissolution of the Union.

South Carolina keeps her militia organised, and exacts from the State officers a special oath of allegiance. Georgia and Alabama contest the validity of treaties concluded between the Federal government and the Cherokee and Creek nations. (SeeNote11.) Most of the States seek to extend the limits of their individual sovereignty. Thedoctrine of State rights has even insinuated itself into the bosom of orthodox Philadelphia, for I see by the journals, that a States' rights dinner is announced there. These symptoms may become full of danger in a moment of universal excitement. When the passions are at the helm, there is no pause in the course. What, for instance, would be the event, if Nullification should find an echo in the same States of the North, where it has lately been so firmly rejected? It is they that have the most direct interest in the establishment of a National Bank; it is they that suffer most from the financial combinations of General Jackson, and from the objections of Southern statesmen against the constitutionality of a bank. Although no allusion is made to this danger, it is evident that the solicitude of many persons has been aroused by it, and it is fortunate that it is so, for a more general disposition to conciliatory measures is the consequence.

The principle of separation is engaged in a deadly conflict with the spirit of centralisation or consolidation; hardly was the constitution signed, when twelve additional articles or Amendments were immediately adopted, almost all of which contained restrictions on the powers and attributes of the Federal government. At the same time the authority of Congress to charter a Bank, and give it powers within the territories of the States, was contested; on this point, however, the principle of union was victorious, and the Bank was established. Next, the right of engaging in Internal Improvements was denied to Congress, which, after a long struggle, has been compelled to resign its claims; General Jackson willed it, and it was done. The National Road, which extends from Washington to the western wilderness, and for which appropriations have been annually voted, each professing to be the last, shows what the Federal government could do and wished to do. Even the uniform system of weights and measures, seemsto be on the point of being broken up, in spite of the express provisions of the constitution. Pennsylvania has undertaken, nobody knows why, to establish regulations on this point contrary to the general usage.[P]The public debt is now paid; that is one Federal tie the less. The Bank, assailed afresh, is on the point of falling; that is an immense loss to the Federal principle. The Supreme Court of the United States, one of the bulwarks of the Union, is assaulted. The vast domain of the West, (seeNote12,) the national property, seems in danger of being given up to individual States, for this disposition is one of the favorite topics of the democratic party.

But if centralisation comes off the worse in Federal politics, it has the better within the States. The principal States are engaged in constructing vast systems of internal communication; they are establishing for themselves financial systems, and many of them are about to set up great banks, which shall exercise within their respective limits the salutary influence possessed by the Bank of the United States throughout the whole Union. Thus each State, as it detaches itself from the Federal Union, organises more fully its own powers, and binds more firmly together its imperfectly combined elements. But, on the other hand, industry and the spirit of enterprise restore to the Union the strength, of which political jealousy and party quarrels tend to deprive it. There is not a family at the North, that has not a son or a brother in the South; the community of interests daily grows stronger; commerce is a centripetal force; along the whole Atlantic coast there is only one mart, New York; there is only one of importance on the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans; and the relations of New York and New Orleans make these two cities, insteadof rivals, mutual supports. The railroads and the steamboats spread over the country the meshes of a net not easily broken; great distances vanish; before long it will be easy to go from Boston to New Orleans in eight days, less time than is generally required to go from Brest to Marseilles. When we reflect on the extent of the Roman empire for ages, we cannot doubt the possibility of maintaining a certain degree of unity on the American territory, immeasurably vast as it appears to an eye accustomed to the divisions of the map of Europe. The Romans had not attained that degree of perfection in the means of intercourse which we possess; not only had they no knowledge of steamboats and railroads, and the telegraph, but they had few highways, and were unacquainted with the use of carriages hung on springs. The progress of commercial and financial arts, makes it more easy to manage the financial concerns of the universe now, than it was to administer those of a province in the time of Cæsar. I cannot, therefore, make up my mind to believe, that the Union will be broken up into fragments, driven in different directions and dashing one against another.

And yet it is very possible, that the Union will not continue long on its present footing. Are the relations established between the States by the constitution of 1789, the most perfect that can be devised now? Ought not the unforeseen formation of the two great groups of the West and the Southwest be followed by some modification of those relations? Would not the subdivision of the general confederacy into three subordinate confederacies, conformable to the three great territorial divisions, the North, the South, and the West, with a more intimate union between the members of each group, have the effect of satisfying the advocates of State rights, without endangering the principle of union? Would not this arrangement be the means of giving more elasticity to the Union?Could not the existence of three partial confederacies be reconciled with that of a central authority, invested with the undisputed powers of the present Federal government, one army, one navy, one diplomatic representation abroad, one common right of citizenship, one Supreme Court, and, as far as possible, one system of customs, and one Bank? These are questions, which it will, perhaps, be worth while to examine some day, and even at no distant day. But it would be desirable, that they should be approached and discussed with calmness. If they should be unexpectedly raised in a period of irritation and bad feelings, they would be the signal of a deplorable catastrophe. Union gives strength; North America, once parcelled out into hostile fragments, would be of no more weight in the balance of the world, than the feeble republics of South America.

FOOTNOTES:[P]An act has been passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, providing that 2,000 pounds shall make a ton.

[P]An act has been passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, providing that 2,000 pounds shall make a ton.

THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.

Philadelphia, April 24, 1834.

Which is the first people in the world? There is no nation which does not make pretensions to this superiority. Who in France has not sung in the words of Béranger, "Queen of the world, oh my country! oh France!" in the full conviction, that the French nation was predestined to be forever at the head of the human race, to eclipse all others, in peace and in war? For myself, before I had crossed the frontier, I believed most implicitly,that we were not only the most generous and chivalric of people, the most intellectual and ingenious, the first in the fine arts, the most amiable and brilliant; but also that we were the most enlightened, the first in political and industrial arts, the most inventive and the most practical, in short, the pattern-nation, perfect and unrivalled. Notwithstanding the rains and fogs of Paris, I supposed our climate the mildest and the most serene in the world; in spite of the Landes and Champagne, I considered it undeniable, that our soil was the most fertile, our scenery the most picturesque, in the world. Trusting to the reports of our exhibitions of industrial skill, I was ready to swear that we had left our neighbours of England a hundred leagues behind, and that their manufacturers, to avoid being reduced to beggary by our competition, would soon be obliged to come over to learn how to smelt and refine iron, how to spin cotton, how to manufacture steel, how to manage the most gigantic establishments in the most economical manner, how to despatch mountains of merchandise beyond sea most expeditiously.

After having crossed the frontier one gradually lowers these magnificent pretensions; patriotism becomes purer and stronger. In visiting foreign parts one sees what is wanting to the prosperity and glory of his country, and how it might be possible to add some jewels to her crown. Thus it does not require long observation to see, that if England might borrow much from us, we have not less to receive from her. The English are not only more skilful manufacturers and better merchants than we are, but they possess in a higher degree than we do, those qualities which enable men, after having conceived grand projects, to carry them into execution. The English have that practical sagacity and that unbending perseverance, by which our Titan-like battles of the Revolution and the Empire, our impetuous and devoted enthusiasm, our unparalleled victories, our unmatched triumphs, were reduced to treaties of Vienna, that is to say, were made to result in our own humiliation, and in the enthronement of Great Britain on the apex of the European pyramid. The English have less of the gift of speech, but more capacity for action, than we have. And it is owing to this, that they have found means to extend their colonial possessions, while all other nations were losing theirs; what they lost in the West, they have supplied in the East tenfold. They possess that political sense, to which they owe the peaceful settlement, during the last three years, of questions, that seemed destined to shake the granite foundations of their island and bury it in the sea. They have achieved their Reform; they have abolished the monopoly of the East India Company; they have reconstructed the Bank; they have abolished slavery. During this period, we have been revolving about questions of secondary importance, without being able to make a decision; we do not know how to go to work with monopolies, which, in comparison with the colossal privileges of the East India Company, are grains of sand; we, who have given to the world the most conclusive arguments in favour of liberty of commerce!

If in Paris, we consider ourselves, in all, and for all, and forever, the pattern-people, at London, the opinion is not less exclusively and decidedly in favour of the English. In London, the duke of Wellington is called the conqueror of Napoleon, which, indeed, is true to the letter, but is nevertheless perfectly ridiculous, although Lord Wellington is certainly an extraordinary man. I have seen Englishmen pettishly shake their head, when they were told that the sky of England was foggy; with a little malice, one might drive them to maintain, that they need not envy the climate of Italy, and that even the atmosphere of Manchester, where the sight of the sun is a rarity, hascharms, in spite of the slanders of its detractors, even for those who have breathed the air of Naples. At Madrid, that heroic people, which seems to be awaking at last from its long lethargy, has not lost the habit of believing in the supremacy of Spain, and there, they dream that they are yet in the glorious days of Charles V., when the sun never sat on the Spanish dominions. And we can pardon this in the noble Castilians; but I verily believe, also, that Don Pedro and Don Miguel, those interminable pretenders, have each an official journal which tells them daily, that the breathless universe has its eyes fixed on their ragged armies, and that the destinies of the world are settled at Santarem and Setubal. At Constantinople, in the capital of an empire which exists only because the other European powers cannot agree in the division of the spoils, they call us Christian dogs. In Rome the people still call themselves Romans, and this ridiculous misnomer really makes the Trans-Tiberine populace believe, that military glory is yet the lot of the country, and that theRomanswill soon resume the character of lords of the world, magnanimously raising the humble and crushing the pride of the powerful (Parcere subjectis, &c.)! In Vienna, on the contrary, everybody thinks that Rome is no longer in Rome, but that it is, of right and in fact, in the archducal capital, that the emperor is heir by lineal descent to Augustus and Trajan. The devise of an early prince of the house of Austria (A. E. I. O. U.),[Q]attests that this pretension is almost as old as the house of Hapsburg. In Prussia, meanwhile, the young nobles, proud of having studied at the great universities of Jena and Berlin, and of having worn the sword in an army which was once the great Frederic's, affect an utter disdain for the Austrians. Elated by the rapid extension of their country, which hasnot, however, yet reached its full growth, the Prussians look upon their sandy land as the cradle of a new civilisation. It seems as if the waters of the Spree had some miraculous qualities, and that whoever has not tasted them, has but four senses instead of five. At St. Petersburg and Moscow, no one doubts, that the sword of the emperor, thrown into the scales of the world's destinies, would at once overbear the opposite balance. Perhaps we of Western Europe have done our part in filling the Russians with these high notions of the influence of the Czar. Thus in Europe, each nation arrogates to itself the first rank, and I do not see why the Americans should be more modest than the people on the other side of the Atlantic. The miracles which they have accomplished in fifty years give them a right to be proud, and they, also, in their turn, are persuaded that they are the first people in the world, and they boast loudly of their preëminence.

The fact is, there is no chosen people, on whom superiority is entailed for ages. The Jewish nation, in which this notion of predestination seemed to be most deeply rooted, has for centuries afforded the most melancholy refutation of the doctrine. Since the age of Richelieu and the Revolution of 1688, that is, since Spain has fallen asleep, France and England have been at the head of civilisation, and have divided the supremacy between themselves; the one ruling by the theoretical, the other by the practical; the one giving the tone in politics, the other in taste, the arts, and manners. But what were France and England three centuries ago, in the time of Charles V., when the generals of that emperor and king slew Bayard at Rebecque, made Francis I. prisoner at Pavia, and the Pope in Rome, whilst four thousand miles further west, Cortez was conquering for him the proud empire of Montezuma? Prussia, who now divides with Austria the dominion of Germany, and who is worthy of that dignity, who is theyouthful, the aspiring, the ambitious Germany, full of the future, as Austria is the patriarchal, sober, prudent, conservative Germany, clinging to the past and the old,—what was Prussia three generations ago? What shall we all be, French, English, Prussians, and Austrians three centuries hence, or perhaps one hundred years hence? Who can say that some northern blast, finding us divided, and enfeebled by our divisions, will not have laid low those who are now so high and haughty? Who knows if the vigourous race which is now bursting forth from this virgin soil, will not then have passed us in their turn, as we have outstripped our predecessors? Who can foretell, whether the two gigantic figures that are now rising above the horizon, the one in the East with one foot on Moscow and one just ready to fall on Constantinople, the other in the West, as yet half hidden by the vast forests of the New World, whose huge limbs stretch from the mouths of the St. Lawrence to those of the Mississippi: who can foresee, whether these youthful Titans, who are watching each other across the Atlantic, and already touch hands on the Pacific, will not soon divide the empire of the world?

Civilisation is a treasure, to which each generation adds something in transmitting it to its heirs, and which passes from hand to hand, from people to people, from country to country. Setting out from Asia it was four thousand years in reaching the borders of the Atlantic Ocean. Wo to the nations, that having become depositaries of the treasure, instead of keeping it with watchful care and labouring to increase it, lay it down by the road-side, and waste their time and strength in foolish quarrels; for they will soon be robbed of their trust! The Americans are the most enterprising of men, and the most aspiring of people; if we continue to be swallowed up in our barren disputes, they are the people to snatch from us at unawares the precious charge of the destinies of our race, and to place themselves at the head of its march.

Each people has its qualities, which are developed by education, which at certain moments shine with peculiar brilliancy, like a beacon light towards which the eyes of mankind are directed, and by which its march is guided, and which always command the esteem or love or respect of others. The people of the United States most undeniably have theirs. No people is so peculiarly fitted by its intrinsic character, as well as by the circumstances of the territory and the condition of the population, for democratic institutions. The Americans possess, therefore, in the highest degree, the better features of democracy, and they have also its inseparable defects; but if there is something in them to blame, there is still more to praise. There is much here for a European to learn, who should come to seek, not subjects for fault-finding, satire, and sarcasm (which have become vulgar common-places, since the small coin of Voltaire and Byron has passed through so many hands), but positive facts, which might be imitated in our old countries, with the necessary modifications required by the difference between our circumstances and the condition of America. Almost all English travellers in this country have seen a great deal that was bad and scarcely any thing good; the portrait they have drawn of America and the Americans, is a caricature, which, like all good caricatures, has some resemblance to the original. The Americans have a right to deny the jurisdiction of the tribunal, for they have a right to be tried by their peers, and it does not belong to the most complete aristocracy in Europe, the English aristocracy, to sit in judgment on a democracy. Yet all the English travellers in America have belonged to the aristocracy by their connexions or their opinions, or were aspiring to it, or aped its habits and judgments, that they might seem to belong to it.

A Yorkshire farmer or a Birmingham mechanic would certainly pass a very different judgment; they would probably be as exclusively disposed to praise, as the most disdainful tourists have been to blame. And the farmers and mechanics count for something in the numbers of the English population and in the elements of the British prosperity. Suppose an Ohio or Illinois farmer, after having sold his flour and salt pork to advantage, should enact the nabob six months in England, and on his return should describe, with the rude eloquence of the West, the distress of the British operatives, the corn laws, the poor rates, the frightful condition of the Irish peasantry, the impressment of sailors, the sale of military offices, and to complete his picture of manners, should add a boxing match, a scene of the guests at a dinner rolling dead-drunk under the table, and of the sale of a wife by her husband in open market; if he should give such a picture to his countrymen as a political and moral portrait of England, the English would shrug their shoulders, and with reason. Yet his story would be founded on facts, and could not be said to be actually false in any particular. Now such a story would be an exact counterpart of most of the representations of America by English travellers. Do not to others what you would not have others do to you.

There is one thing in the United States that strikes a stranger on stepping ashore, and is of a character to silence his sentiments of national pride, particularly if he is an Englishman; it is the appearance of general ease in the condition of the people of this country. While European communities are more or less cankered with the sore of pauperism, for which their ablest statesmen have as yet been able to find no healing balm, there are here no paupers, at least not in the Northern and Western States, which have protected themselves from the leprosy of slavery. If a few individuals are seen, they are only an imperceptibleminority of dissolute or improvident persons, commonly people of colour, or some newly landed emigrants, who have not been able to adopt industrious habits. Nothing is more easy than to live and to live well by labour. Objects of the first necessity, bread, meat, sugar, tea, coffee, fuel, are in general cheaper here than in France, and wages are double or triple. I happened, a few days ago, to be on the line of a railroad in process of construction, where they were throwing up some embankments. This sort of labour, which merely requires force, without skill, is commonly done in the United States by Irish new-comers, who have no resource but their arm, no quality but muscular strength. These Irish labourers are fed and lodged, and hear their bill of fare; three meals a day, and at each meal plenty of meat and wheat bread; coffee and sugar at two meals, and butter[R]once a day; in the course of the day, from six to eight glasses of whiskey are given them according to the state of the weather. Beside which they receive in money 40 cents a day under the most unfavourable circumstances, often from 60 to 75 cents. In France the same labour is worth about 24 cents a day the labourers finding themselves.

This positive and undeniable fact of the general ease, is connected with another, which gives it a singular importance in the eyes of a European, who is the friend of progressive reforms, and the enemy of violence; the prevalence of radicalism in politics. The termdemocrat, which elsewhere would fill even the republicans with terror, is here greeted with acclamations, and the name ofDemocraticis zealously claimed by every party as its exclusive property. But this is the only kind of property which is called in question; it is true that material property rapidly disappears in this country, unless it is preserved by themost constant vigilance, and renewed with untiring industry. But as long as it exists, it is the object of profound respect, which, I must confess, has rather surprised me. I should have expected that the social theory would have borrowed some notions from the predominant political theory; but there are those in Europe, who are not there considered the boldest speculators on this subject, who here would be looked upon as the most audacious innovators. From this simple statement, it seems natural to infer, that valuable lessons are to be learned here by those who seek to solve the great question that now agitates Europe, the amelioration of the greatest number. It would be interesting to inquire into the causes of this state of things, and to examine whether, with certain modifications, it could not be transferred to Europe, and particularly to France.

FOOTNOTES:[Q]Austriæ est imperare orbi universo; the empire of the world belongs to Austria.[R]Butter is dearer in the United States than in France.

[Q]Austriæ est imperare orbi universo; the empire of the world belongs to Austria.

[R]Butter is dearer in the United States than in France.

THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN.

Charleston, May 28, 1834.

The great flood of civilisation, which has poured over the vast regions of the West, in the south and the north, from the great lakes to the Cape of Florida, has flowed on with a wonderful power and an admirable regularity. Emigration has taken place, along the whole line of march, from east to west. The inhabitants of New England,[S]after having first spread themselves over their original territory, and founded the States of Maine and Vermont, have thrown themselves into the State of New York; thence, keeping as much as possible along the northern frontier of the United States, they have extended all along the coasts of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, and overrun the vast delta comprised between the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi, which now contains the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the Territory of Michigan. The New York and Pennsylvania emigrants have spread themselves comparatively little beyond the limits of their own territory, which are very extensive, and were thinly peopled in 1783. They have, however, furnished a small contingent to the great army of emigration from New England, and have helped to occupy the vast tract above-mentioned. Virginia, after having settled her western part with her own sons, has given birth to Kentucky, and then, acting the same part in the south as New England in the north, has sent forth to the Gulf of Mexico those numerous swarms that have invaded the southwest. North Carolina has taken part in this task, and has beside a child of her own in Tennessee. Georgia and South Carolina have contributed to create Alabama and Mississippi, and Tennessee and Kentucky have in turn furnished offsets for Missouri and Arkansas.

Thus the States in which there are no slaves, have brought forth a family of truly democratic republics, that is to say, with an essentially farming population, holding no slaves, and, excepting the vine, cultivating all the productions of temperate Europe. These young States are founded on equality and the subdivision of property, for most of the farms do not exceed 80 to 160 acres. The Southern States, on the other hand, have created aristocratical republics, based on slavery and the accumulation of property in a few hands, still more exclusively agricultural than the north-western States, and chiefly occupied in cultivating cotton, a precious commodity, which now furnishes for exportation, inclusive of what is consumed in the North, an annual value of 40 or 50 million dollars.[T]Thus amongst all the columns of emigration, two particularly attract attention, and form of themselves the main body of the army, the others are only auxiliaries; these two great masses are the New England and the Virginia columns.

That part of Virginia which was most peopled during the war of Independence has a low and nearly level surface, and a sandy, and in general, very poor soil. Along the rivers there are tracts formerly productive, but even these have been exhausted by the cultivation of tobacco. The proprietors of these estates must have been early led to think of quitting their plantations for the fertile lands of Kentucky, then occupied, or rather overrun, by warlike savages, of whom they were the favourite hunting-ground. Some bold and hardy pioneers, at the head of whom wasBoon, first ventured across the mountains with their rifles, and bravely sustained a bloody contest with the Indians. After many desperate fights, in which more than one unknown hero fell under the bullet or the tomahawk of some red-skinned Hector, after numerous assaults, in which more than one matron enacted the part of our Jeanne Hachette,[U]after many alarms and much suffering, the genius of civilisation carried it. At the call of the pioneers, roused by the fame of their exploits, the planters of the coast set out on their pilgrimage; arriving with their slaves, they cleared and cultivated large tracts, in the midst of which they led a patriarchal life, surrounded by their servants and flocks, following with ardour the chase of wild beasts, and sometimes of Indians, and too often spending the proceeds of their crop in betting on the speed of their horses, of which they are very proud, and whose pedigree is better known to them than their own. More lately, when the demand for cotton had increased, in consequence of the improvements in machinery, and the steamboat had opened the way into the heart of the Mississippi Valley, they have removed southwards, always taking their slaves with them; a prospect of future wealth and prosperity was thus opened for the south.

The industrious sons of New England likewise bade farewell to the rocky and ungrateful soil of their birthplace; loading a wagon with a plough, a bed, a barrel of salt meat, the indispensable supply of tea and molasses, a Bible and a wife, and with his axe on his shoulder, the Yankee sets out for the West, without a servant, without an assistant, often without a companion, to build himself alog hut, six hundred miles from his father's roof, and clear away a spot for a farm in the midst of the boundless forest. The first of these wanderers went from Connecticut,the land of steady habits, of Puritans among Puritans.

The Virginian and the Yankee have planted themselves in the wilderness, each in a manner conformable to his nature and condition. The part they have taken in founding the new States of the West, explains the fact so often mentioned of fifty or sixty members of Congress being natives of Virginia or Connecticut. In this conquest over nature, Europe has not remained an idle spectator; she has sent forth vigourous labourers, who have co-operated with the sons of New England, for slavery drives them from the men of the South. Many Irish and Scotch, a number of Germans, Swiss, and some French, are now settled in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The traveller who descends the Ohio, passes on the way Gallipolis, a French settlement, Vevay, a Swiss village, and Marietta, so called in honour of Marie Antoinette.[V]The terminations inburgare scattered amongst Indian names, Jacksonvilles, Washingtons, and Columbias. But the co-operation of Europeans does not deprive the Yankees of the principal share in the honour of the work; they began it, they have borne and still bear the burden and heat of the day. In comparison with them, the European has been only the eleventh-hour-man, the apprentice, the hireling. The fusion of the European with the Yankee takes place but slowly, even on the new soil of the West; for the Yankee is not a man of promiscuous society; he believes that Adam's oldest son was a Yankee. Enough, however, of foreign blood has been mingled with theYankee blood to modify the primitive character of the New England race, and to form a third American type, that of the West, whose features are not yet sharply defined, but are daily assuming more distinctness; this type is characterised by its athletic forms and ambitious pretensions, and seems destined ultimately to become superior to the others.

The Yankee and the Virginian are very unlike each other; they have no great love for each other, and are often at variance. They are the same men who cut each other's throats in England, under the name of Roundheads and Cavaliers. In England, they patched up a peace by the interposition of a third dynasty, which was neither Stuart nor Cromwell. In America, where there was no power to mediate between them, they would have devoured each other as they did in England, had not Providence thrown them wide apart, one party at the south, the other at the north, leaving between them the territory now occupied by thejustes-milieuxStates of New York and Pennsylvania, with their satellites, New Jersey and Delaware.

The Virginian of pure race is frank, hearty, open, cordial in his manners, noble in his sentiments, elevated in his notions, he is a worthy descendant of the English gentleman. Surrounded, from infancy, by his slaves, who relieve him from all personal exertion, he is rather indisposed to activity, and is even indolent. He is generous and profuse; around him, but rather in the new States than in impoverished Virginia, abundance reigns. When the cotton crop has been good and the price is high, he invites everybody, excepting only the slaves that cultivate his fields, to partake in his wealth, without much thought of next year's produce. To him, the practice of hospitality is at once a duty, a pleasure, and a happiness. Like the Eastern patriarchs or Homer's heroes, he spits an ox toregale the guest whom Providence sends him and an old friend recommends to his attention, and to moisten this solid repast, he offers Madeira, of which he is as proud as of his horses, which has been twice to the East Indies, and has been ripening full twenty years. He loves the institutions of his country, yet he shows with pride his family plate, the arms on which, half effaced by time, attest his descent from the first colonists, and prove that his ancestors were of a good family in England. When his mind has been cultivated by study, and a tour in Europe has polished his manners and refined his imagination, there is no place in the world in which he would not appear to advantage, no destiny too high for him to reach; he is one of those, whom a man is glad to have as a companion, and desires as a friend. Ardent and warm-hearted, he is of the block from which great orators are made. He is better able to command men, than to conquer nature and subdue the soil. When he has a certain degree of the spirit of method, and, I will not say of will, (for he has enough of that), but of that active perseverance so common among his brethren of the North, he has all the qualities needful to form a great statesman.

The Yankee, on the contrary, is reserved, cautious, distrustful; he is thoughtful and pensive, but equable; his manners are without grace, modest but dignified, cold, and often unprepossessing; he is narrow in his ideas, but practical, and possessing the idea of the proper, he never rises to the grand. He has nothing chivalric about him, and yet he is adventurous, and he loves a roving life. His imagination is active and original, producing, however, not poetry, but drollery. The Yankee is the laborious ant; he is industrious and sober, frugal, and, on the sterile soil of New England, niggardly; transplanted to the promised land in the West, he continues moderate in his habits, but less inclined to count the cents. In New England he hasa large share of prudence, but once thrown into the midst of the treasures of the West, he becomes a speculator, a gambler even, although he has a great horror of cards, dice, and all games of hazard and even of skill, except the innocent game at bowls. He is crafty, sly, always calculating, boasting even of the tricks which he plays upon the careless or trusting buyer, because he looks upon them as marks of his superior sagacity, and well provided with mental reservations to lull his conscience. With all his nice subtleties, he is, nevertheless, expeditious in business, because he knows the value of time. His house is a sanctuary, which he does not open to the profane; he is little given to hospitality, or rather he displays it only on rare occasions, and then he does so on a great scale. He is a ready speaker, and a close reasoner, but not a brilliant orator. For a statesman, he wants that greatness of mind and soul which enables a man to enter into and love another's nature, and leads him naturally to consult his neighbour's good, in consulting his own. He is individualism incarnate; in him the spirit of locality and division is carried to the utmost.[W]But if he is not a great statesman, he is an able administrator, an unrivalled man of business. If he is not suited to command men, he has no equal in acting upon things, in combining, arranging, and giving them a value. There are nowhere merchants of more consummate ability than those of Boston.

But it is particularly as the colonist of the wilderness, that the Yankee is admirable; fatigue has no hold on him. He has not, like the Spaniard, the capacity to bear hunger and thirst, but he has the much superior faculty of finding, at all times and in all places, something to eat and to drink,and of being always able to contrive a shelter from the cold, first for his wife and children, and afterward for himself. He grapples with nature in close fight, and more unyielding than she, subdues her at last, obliging her to surrender at discretion, to yield whatever he wills, and to take the shape he chooses. Like Hercules, he conquers the hydra of the pestilential morass, and chains the rivers; more daring than Hercules, he extends his dominion not only over the land, but over the sea; he is the best sailor in the world, the ocean is his tributary, and enriches him with the oil of her whales and with all her lesser fry. More wise than the hero of the twelve labours, he knows no Omphale that is able to seduce, no Dejanira, whose poisoned gifts can balk his searching glance. In this respect he is rather a Ulysses, who has his Penelope, counts upon her faith, and remains steadfastly true to her. He does not even need to stop his ears, when he passes near the Sirens, for in him the tenderest passions are deadened by religious austerity and devotion to his business. Like Ulysses in another point, he has a bag full of shifts; overtaken at night by a storm in the woods, in a half hour, with no other resource than his knife, he will have made a shelter for himself and his horse. In winter, caught in one of those snow-storms, which are unknown among us, he will construct a sled in the twinkling of an eye, and keep on his way, like an Indian, by watching the bark of the trees. Thus to the genius of business, by means of which he turns to profit whatever the earth yields him, he joins the genius of industry, which makes her prolific, and that of mechanical skill, which fashions her produce to his wants. He is incomparable as a pioneer, unequalled as a settler of the wilderness.

The Yankee has set his mark on the United States during the last half century. He has been eclipsed byVirginia in the counsels of the nation;[X]but he has in turn had the upper hand throughout the country, and eclipsed her on her own soil; for in order to arouse the Virginian from his southern indolence, it has been necessary that the Yankee should come to set him an example of activity and enterprise at his own door. But for the Yankee, the vast cotton plantations of the South would still be an uncultivated waste. It was a Yankee, Ely Whitney, who, toward the end of the last century, invented the cotton-gin, which has made the fortune of the South. To give a speculation success in the South, some Yankee must have come a thousand miles to suggest the idea to the natives, and carry off the profit before their eyes. New England has given only two Presidents to the Union, both popular on the eve of their election, both unpopular on the morrow, both rejected at the end of their first term, while all the others have been natives of Virginia or South Carolina, and have been rechosen for a second term. But then what a revenge has she taken in business matters, at the North and the South, in the East as well as the West! Here the Yankee is a true Marquis of Carabas. At Baltimore as well as at Boston, in New Orleans as well as at Salem, in New York as well as at Portland, if a merchant is mentioned who has made and kept a large fortune by sagacity and forecast, you will find that he is a Yankee. If you pass a plantation in the South in better order than the others, with finer avenues, with the negroes' cabins better arranged and more comfortable, you will be told, "Oh! that is a Yankee's; he is asmart man!" In a village in Missouri, by the side of ahouse with broken windows, dirty in its outward appearance, around the door of which a parcel of ragged children are quarrelling and fighting, you may see another, freshly painted, surrounded by a simple, but neat and nicely white-washed fence, with a dozen of carefully trimmed trees about it, and through the windows in a small room shining with cleanliness, you may espy some nicely combed little boys, and some young girls dressed in almost the last Paris fashion. Both houses belong to farmers, but one of them is from North Carolina, and the other from New England. On the western rivers, you will hear a boat mentioned which never meets with an accident, and in which all travellers and merchants are eager to take their passage; the master is a Yankee. Along side of thelevéeat New Orleans, you may be struck with the fine appearance of a ship, which all the passers-by stop to admire; the master is also a Yankee.

The preëminence of the Yankee in the colonisation of the country, has made him the arbiter of manners and customs. It is from him that the country has taken a general hue of austere severity, that is religious and even bigoted; it is through him that all sorts of amusements, which among us are considered as innocent relaxations, are here proscribed as immoral pleasures. It is he that has introduced the Prison Reform, multiplied schools, founded Temperance Societies (SeeNote13). It is through his agency, with his money, that the Missionaries are endeavouring silently to found colonies in the South Seas, for the benefit of the Union. If we wished to form a single type, representing the American character of the present moment as a single whole, it would be necessary to take at least three-fourths of the Yankee race, and to mix with it hardly one fourth of the Virginian. The physical labour of colonisation is now nearly brought to an end; the physical basis of society is laid. On this base it becomesnecessary to raise a social structure of yet unknown form, but which, I am fully convinced, will be on a new plan, for all the materials are new; and besides, neither humanity nor Providence ever repeats itself. Which of the two races is best suited to execute this new task? I cannot tell; but it seems to me that the Virginian is now about to take his turn, and that in the phase which the United States are now on the point of entering, the social qualities of the Virginian will obtain the superiority, that naturally belonged to the laborious Yankee in the period of settling the forest. In a word, I believe, that, if the Union lasts, and the West continues to form a united mass from the falls of Niagara to New Orleans, this third type of the west, which is now forming and already aspires to rule over the others, will take a great deal from the Virginian and very little from the Yankee.

It is no small advantage to a people to combine within itself two types with different characteristics, when they unite harmoniously in composing a common national character. A people of which all the individual members are referrible to a single type, is among nations what an unmarried man is among individuals; it is a sort of hermit, its life is monotonous; the strongest and sweetest feelings of human nature are dormant in it; it continues stationary; there is nothing to spur it forward. Such was ancient Egypt. A people consisting of two types, on the contrary, when neither has an oppressive superiority over the other, enjoys a complete existence; its life is a perpetual interchange of ideas and sensations, like that of a married pair. It has the power of reproducing and regenerating itself. Each of the two natures alternately acts and reposes itself, without ever being inactive. By turns each gains the superiority and yields to the other; and thus according to circumstances, different qualities come into play. The two natures mutually support and relieveeach other, they stimulate each other, and through this wholesome rivalry, the nation that combines them in itself, reaches high destinies.

History shows that the progress of humanity has been constantly promoted by the reciprocal action and reaction of two natures, or two races, sometimes friends, oftener enemies or rivals. The most general fact in the history of our civilisation is the struggle between the East and the West, from the expedition of the Argonauts and the war of Troy, to the battle of Lepanto and the siege of Vienna by the Turks. In this great drama, it was not merely to shed rivers of blood, that Providence has dashed against each other Europeans and Asiatics, Greeks and Persians, Romans, Carthaginians, and Parthians, Saracens and Franks, Venitians, Turks, and Poles; blows have not been the only thing exchanged between Europe and the Orient. If you wish to know what the West has gained from contact with the East, even when they met sword in hand, look around you; most of the fruit trees that enrich your fields, the vine which gladdens the heart, the silk and cotton that adorn your houses and your persons, these are the spoils of your Eastern wars; sugar and coffee, the cultivation of which has changed the political balance of the world, were brought into Europe from the East, the one by yourselves, the other by the Arabs, when they made themselves masters of Spain. The mariner's compass, which has given a new continent to civilisation, and established the dominion of man over the before unconquered deep, was the gift of the East. Your arts and your sciences are of Oriental origin; the secrets of Algebra were stolen from the Moors of Spain by a monk; your system of numeration, the basis of all your financial improvements, bears the name of the Arabs; your chivalry was brought from Asia by the Crusaders. Christianity, the mother of modern Europe, would not have existed inthe West, had not the Roman legions conquered Judea which contained its germ, had not the Roman empire contained the school of Alexandria in which that germ could put forth, and had not the Rome of the Cæsars been raised as a pedestal for the successors of St. Peter, from which they might rule over the East and the West.

Behold the Roman people; its noble career was a continual succession of wars, followed by as many incorporations of the conquered, alliances, real marriages, which; always give it a new vigour. It begins with the double figure of Romulus and Remus; then follow the Romans and Sabines, then Rome and Alba, next Rome and the Latins, and next Rome and Carthage. It might be called a young sultan, who carries off a captive at the point of the sword, and makes her his favourite until he grows tired of her, or until he finds another more worthy of his love. It goes on in this way, changing, and daily rising in the successive subjects of its choice, until it meets with Greece, which becomes not an object of a passing caprice, but a favorite sultana. This Union of the Greek and Roman natures gave its splendour to imperial Rome, and rest to the world. Its destiny once entwined with that of Greece, the Roman people paused to enjoy; and with this purpose, substituted the rule of the Cæsars for the republican constitution, and Greek rhetoricians and players, and emperors, voluptuous like the disciples of Epicurus, or philosophers, like Pericles, for the stern and severe aristocracy of earlier days. What is the history of Greece, but a continual oscillation between the austere Lacedæmon and the brilliant Athens, between the country of Lycurgus and Leonidas, and that of Solon, Aspasia, and Alcibiades. United, they acquired an indomitable energy, and supported the shock of all Asia. Unfortunately they had too little feeling of a common nationality, and too much of local jealousy; almost perpetually divided, theynever completely extended their sway over Greece itself, and when the Greek race was about to reach its zenith, neither was destined to lead it thither, but Providence raised up a man in the North, before whomthe earth was silent.

Whilst a nation comprises an indefinite number of types mixed together without order and without rank, it resembles a body not yet in a state of consistency; it has no definable character, no fixed destination; it is incapable of achieving any thing great. Thus from the time of the war of the old German electors against the Holy Empire, and of the treaty of Westphalia, which sanctioned their independence and broke in pieces the former unity of the nation, Germany continued under an eclipse, until the period of the rise of the house of Brandenburg from the midst of the anarchy of the little German States, when a rival was given to the house of Austria and a strong dualism established. Dualism is not, however, the only mode in which a society can be constituted, at once solid and elastic. When a third type, whose superiority is admitted by the others, or which partakes sufficiently of the nature of each to serve as a bond and a mediator between them, exists, the social organisation is then in a high degree vigourous; for then, the harmony between the two primitive types has ceased to be an abstraction, it has become a substance. In some cases this third personage of the drama becomes so indispensable to the action, that it must be supplied at any rate, and its great prerogatives devolve on a transient actor; thus in Greece, Thebes played this part during a short period. Sometimes it has been filled by an aristocracy, which has served as a check to both parties in turn; an aristocracy worthy of the name is eminently qualified for this task, because it combines the two natures in itself, feels the reaction of their passions influencing itself, and has the energy necessary either tocurb or spur them on, as the exigency of the case requires. There is no country in which dualism is more admirably developed than in the United States; each of the two natures has an open field, each a distinct career of industry; each possesses in the highest degree the qualities necessary for its peculiar position. Considered in respect to a triple type, the United States are not less favorably situated; the young giant that is growing up in the West, seems destined to fulfil the prophecythe last shall be first, and bind together the North and the South in his vigourous gripe.

In France we have two distinct types, that of the North and that of the South; but instead of employing the principle of centralisation as a means of developing the nature of both, and giving them a free and harmonious action, we have endeavoured to confound them in a narrow and sterile unity. We have especially thwarted the most reasonable and legitimate wishes of the South, which has been overborne and crushed by the North. It takes its revenge, indeed, in furnishing us with most of our statesmen, very much as Ireland has the privilege of givingpremiersto England; but like Irish ministers in England, our Southern statesmen, ungrateful sons of a neglected mother, govern wholly in the interest of the North, as if France contained towns only, and had no rural population, as if we were chiefly a manufacturing, and but partially an agricultural people, and, what is worse, as if we were a school of philosophers, and not a nation longing for religious faith and political love.

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