The observer who examines the present condition of the
United States upon this principle, will readily discover, that although the
citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they nevertheless
constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led to think that the state
of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a state of society than that of
certain nations of Europe which live under the same legislation and the same
prince.
Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious
sects, they all regard religion in the same manner. They are not always agreed
upon the measures which are most conducive to good government, and they vary
upon some of the forms of government which it is expedient to adopt; but they
are unanimous upon the general principles which ought to rule human society.
From Maine to the Floridas, and from the Missouri to the Atlantic Ocean, the
people is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The same notions are
entertained respecting liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the
right of association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of
Government.
If we turn from their political and religious opinions to
the moral and philosophical principles which regulate the daily actions of life
and govern their conduct, we shall still find the same uniformity. The
Anglo-Americans *d acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the reason of
the community, as they acknowledge the political authority of the mass of
citizens; and they hold that public opinion is the surest arbiter of what is
lawful or forbidden, true or false. The majority of them believe that a man
will be led to do what is just and good by following his own interest rightly
understood. They hold that every man is born in possession of the right of
self-government, and that no one has the right of constraining his
fellow-creatures to be happy. They have all a lively faith in the
perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that the effects of the diffusion of
knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance
fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity
as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they
admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be superseded by
something better-to-morrow. I do not give all these opinions as true, but I
quote them as characteristic of the Americans.
d [ It is scarcely necessary for
me to observe that by the expression Anglo-Americans, I only mean to designate
the great majority of the nation; for a certain number of isolated individuals
are of course to be met with holding very different opinions.]
The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by these
common opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a common
feeling of pride. For the last fifty years no pains have been spared to
convince the inhabitants of the United States that they constitute the only
religious, enlightened, and free people. They perceive that, for the present,
their own democratic institutions succeed, whilst those of other countries
fail; hence they conceive an overweening opinion of their superiority, and they
are not very remote from believing themselves to belong to a distinct race of
mankind.
The dangers which threaten the American Union do not
originate in the diversity of interests or of opinions, but in the various
characters and passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit the vast
territory of the United States are almost all the issue of a common stock; but
the effects of the climate, and more especially of slavery, have gradually
introduced very striking differences between the British settler of the
Southern States and the British settler of the North. In Europe it is generally
believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one part of the Union
contrary to those of another part; but I by no means remarked this to be the
case: slavery has not created interests in the South contrary to those of the
North, but it has modified the character and changed the habits of the natives
of the South.
I have already explained the influence which slavery has
exercised upon the commercial ability of the Americans in the South; and this
same influence equally extends to their manners. The slave is a servant who
never remonstrates, and who submits to everything without complaint. He may
sometimes assassinate, but he never withstands, his master. In the South there
are no families so poor as not to have slaves. The citizen of the Southern
States of the Union is invested with a sort of domestic dictatorship, from his
earliest years; the first notion he acquires in life is that he is born to
command, and the first habit which he contracts is that of being obeyed without
resistance. His education tends, then, to give him the character of a
supercilious and a hasty man; irascible, violent, and ardent in his desires,
impatient of obstacles, but easily discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his
first attempt.
The American of the Northern States is surrounded by no
slaves in his childhood; he is even unattended by free servants, and is usually
obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner does he enter the world than
the idea of necessity assails him on every side: he soon learns to know exactly
the natural limit of his authority; he never expects to subdue those who
withstand him, by force; and he knows that the surest means of obtaining the
support of his fellow-creatures, is to win their favor. He therefore becomes
patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow to act, and persevering in his designs.
In the Southern States the more immediate wants of life
are always supplied; the inhabitants of those parts are not busied in the
material cares of life, which are always provided for by others; and their
imagination is diverted to more captivating and less definite objects. The
American of the South is fond of grandeur, luxury, and renown, of gayety, of
pleasure, and above all of idleness; nothing obliges him to exert himself in
order to subsist; and as he has no necessary occupations, he gives way to
indolence, and does not even attempt what would be useful.
But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery
in the North, plunge the inhabitants in those same cares of daily life which
are disdained by the white population of the South. They are taught from
infancy to combat want, and to place comfort above all the pleasures of the
intellect or the heart. The imagination is extinguished by the trivial details
of life, and the ideas become less numerous and less general, but far more
practical and more precise. As prosperity is the sole aim of exertion, it is
excellently well attained; nature and mankind are turned to the best pecuniary
advantage, and society is dexterously made to contribute to the welfare of each
of its members, whilst individual egotism is the source of general happiness.
The citizen of the North has not only experience, but
knowledge: nevertheless he sets but little value upon the pleasures of
knowledge; he esteems it as the means of attaining a certain end, and he is
only anxious to seize its more lucrative applications. The citizen of the South
is more given to act upon impulse; he is more clever, more frank, more
generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The former, with a greater
degree of activity, of common-sense, of information, and of general aptitude,
has the characteristic good and evil qualities of the middle classes. The
latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and the magnanimity of
all aristocracies. If two men are united in society, who have the same
interests, and to a certain extent the same opinions, but different characters,
different acquirements, and a different style of civilization, it is probable
that these men will not agree. The same remark is applicable to a society of
nations. Slavery, then, does not attack the American Union directly in its
interests, but indirectly in its manners.
e [ Census of 1790, 3,929,328;
1830, 12,856,165; 1860, 31,443,321; 1870, 38,555,983; 1890, 62,831,900.]
The States which gave their assent to the federal
contract in 1790 were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of thirty-four
members. The population, which amounted to nearly 4,000,000 in 1790, had more
than tripled in the space of forty years; and in 1830 it amounted to nearly
13,000,000. *e Changes of such magnitude cannot take place without some danger.
A society of nations, as well as a society of
individuals, derives its principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its
members, their individual weakness, and their limited number. The Americans who
quit the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean to plunge into the western wilderness,
are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men
expelled from the States in which they were born. When they arrive in the
deserts they are unknown to each other, and they have neither traditions,
family feeling, nor the force of example to check their excesses. The empire of
the laws is feeble amongst them; that of morality is still more powerless. The
settlers who are constantly peopling the valley of the Mississippi are, then,
in every respect very inferior to the Americans who inhabit the older parts of
the Union. Nevertheless, they already exercise a great influence in its
councils; and they arrive at the government of the commonwealth before they
have learnt to govern themselves. *f
f [ This indeed is only a
temporary danger. I have no doubt that in time society will assume as much
stability and regularity in the West as it has already done upon the coast of
the Atlantic Ocean.]
The greater the individual weakness of each of the
contracting parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the
contract; for their safety is then dependent upon their union. When, in 1790,
the most populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000
inhabitants, *g each of them felt its own insignificance as an independent
people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the federal authority more
easy. But when one of the confederate States reckons, like the State of New
York, 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and covers an extent of territory equal in
surface to a quarter of France, *h it feels its own strength; and although it
may continue to support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no
longer regards that body as necessary to its existence, and as it continues to
belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in the federal
assemblies. The probable unanimity of the States is diminished as their number
increases. At present the interests of the different parts of the Union are not
at variance; but who is able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future,
in a country in which towns are founded from day to day, and States almost from
year to year?
g [ Pennsylvania contained
431,373 inhabitants in 1790 [and 5,258,014 in 1890.]]
h [ The area of the State of New
York is 49,170 square miles. [See U. S. census report of 1890.]]
Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the
number of inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no
causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the
Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before that space of
time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and dependencies of the United
States will be covered by more than 100,000,000 of inhabitants, and divided
into forty States. *i I admit that these 100,000,000 of men have no hostile
interests. I suppose, on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in
the maintenance of the Union; but I am still of opinion that where there are
100,000,000 of men, and forty distinct nations, unequally strong, the
continuance of the Federal Government can only be a fortunate accident.
i [ If the population continues
to double every twenty-two years, as it has done for the last two hundred
years, the number of inhabitants in the United States in 1852 will be twenty
millions; in 1874, forty-eight millions; and in 1896, ninety-six millions. This
may still be the case even if the lands on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains should be found to be unfit for cultivation. The territory which is
already occupied can easily contain this number of inhabitants. One hundred
millions of men disseminated over the surface of the twenty-four States, and
the three dependencies, which constitute the Union, would only give 762
inhabitants to the square league; this would be far below the mean population
of France, which is 1,063 to the square league; or of England, which is 1,457;
and it would even be below the population of Switzerland, for that country,
notwithstanding its lakes and mountains, contains 783 inhabitants to the square
league. See "Malte Brun," vol. vi. p. 92.
[The actual result has fallen somewhat short of these
calculations, in spite of the vast territorial acquisitions of the United
States: but in 1899 the population is probably about eighty-seven millions,
including the population of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto Rico.]]
Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man, until
human nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to believe
in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together forty
different peoples, disseminated over a territory equal to one-half of Europe in
extent; to avoid all rivalry, ambition, and struggles between them, and to
direct their independent activity to the accomplishment of the same designs.
But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by
its increase arises from the continual changes which take place in the position
of its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico
extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a distance of more than
1,200 miles as the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds along the
whole of this immense line, sometimes falling within its limits, but more
frequently extending far beyond it, into the waste. It has been calculated that
the whites advance every year a mean distance of seventeen miles along the
whole of his vast boundary. *j Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a
lake or an Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The
advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities fall back upon
themselves, and as soon as they are reunited they proceed onwards. This gradual
and continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has
the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising
unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of God.
j [ See Legislative Documents,
20th Congress, No. 117, p. 105.]
Within this first line of
conquering settlers towns are built, and vast States founded. In 1790 there
were only a few thousand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the
Mississippi; and at the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants
as were to be found in the whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to
nearly 4,000,000. *k The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very
centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken place, that it
now stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates of the most remote
Western States are already obliged to perform a journey as long as that from
Vienna to Paris. *l
k [ 3,672,317—Census of 1830.]
l [ The distance from Jefferson,
the capital of the State of Missouri, to Washington is 1,019 miles.
("American Almanac," 1831, p. 48.)]
All the States are borne onwards at the same time in the
path of fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the same
proportion. To the North of the Union the detached branches of the Alleghany
chain, which extend as far as the Atlantic Ocean, form spacious roads and
ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels of the greatest burden. But
from the Potomac to the mouth of the Mississippi the coast is sandy and flat.
In this part of the Union the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed;
and the few harbors which exist amongst these lagoons afford much shallower
water to vessels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of the North.
This first natural cause of inferiority is united to
another cause proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that slavery,
which is abolished in the North, still exists in the South; and I have pointed
out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the planter himself.
The North is therefore superior to the South both in
commerce *m and manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more rapid
increase of population and of wealth within its borders. The States situate
upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean are already half-peopled. Most of the
land is held by an owner; and these districts cannot therefore receive so many
emigrants as the Western States, where a boundless field is still open to their
exertions. The valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile than the coast of
the Atlantic Ocean. This reason, added to all the others, contributes to drive
the Europeans westward—a fact which may be rigorously demonstrated by figures.
It is found that the sum total of the population of all the United States has
about tripled in the course of forty years. But in the recent States adjacent
to the Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one-fold, within the
same space of time. *n
m [ The following statements
will suffice to show the difference which exists between the commerce of the
South and that of the North:—
In 1829 the tonnage of all the merchant vessels belonging
to Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four great Southern States),
amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the tonnage of the vessels of the
State of Massachusetts alone amounted to 17,322 tons. (See Legislative
Documents, 21st Congress, 2d session, No. 140, p. 244.) Thus the State of
Massachusetts had three times as much shipping as the four above-mentioned
States. Nevertheless the area of the State of Massachusetts is only 7,335
square miles, and its population amounts to 610,014 inhabitants [2,238,943 in
1890]; whilst the area of the four other States I have quoted is 210,000 square
miles, and their population 3,047,767. Thus the area of the State of
Massachusetts forms only one-thirtieth part of the area of the four States; and
its population is five times smaller than theirs. (See "Darby's View of
the United States.") Slavery is prejudicial to the commercial prosperity
of the South in several different ways; by diminishing the spirit of enterprise
amongst the whites, and by preventing them from meeting with as numerous a
class of sailors as they require. Sailors are usually taken from the lowest
ranks of the population. But in the Southern States these lowest ranks are
composed of slaves, and it is very difficult to employ them at sea. They are
unable to serve as well as a white crew, and apprehensions would always be
entertained of their mutinying in the middle of the ocean, or of their escaping
in the foreign countries at which they might touch.]
n [ "Darby's View of the
United States," p. 444.]
The relative position of the
central federal power is continually displaced. Forty years ago the majority of
the citizens of the Union was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in
the environs of the spot upon which Washington now stands; but the great body
of the people is now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty years
the majority will unquestionably be on the western side of the Alleghanies. If
the Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the Mississippi is evidently marked
out, by its fertility and its extent, as the future centre of the Federal Government.
In thirty or forty years, that tract of country will have assumed the rank
which naturally belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its population,
compared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be, in round numbers, as 40
to 11. In a few years the States which founded the Union will lose the
direction of its policy, and the population of the valley of the Mississippi
will preponderate in the federal assemblies.
This constant gravitation of the federal power and
influence towards the northwest is shown every ten years, when a general census
of the population is made, and the number of delegates which each State sends
to Congress is settled afresh. *o In 1790 Virginia had nineteen representatives
in Congress. This number continued to increase until the year 1813, when it
reached to twenty-three; from that time it began to decrease, and in 1833
Virginia elected only twenty-one representatives. *p During the same period the
State of New York progressed in the contrary direction: in 1790 it had ten
representatives in Congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and
in 1833, forty. The State of Ohio had only one representative in 1803, and in
1833 it had already nineteen.
o [ It may be seen that in the
course of the last ten years (1820-1830) the population of one district, as,
for instance, the State of Delaware, has increased in the proportion of five
per cent.; whilst that of another, as the territory of Michigan, has increased
250 per cent. Thus the population of Virginia had augmented thirteen per cent.,
and that of the border State of Ohio sixty-one per cent., in the same space of
time. The general table of these changes, which is given in the "National
Calendar," displays a striking picture of the unequal fortunes of the
different States.]
p [ It has just been said that
in the course of the last term the population of Virginia has increased
thirteen per cent.; and it is necessary to explain how the number of
representatives for a State may decrease, when the population of that State,
far from diminishing, is actually upon the increase. I take the State of
Virginia, to which I have already alluded, as my term of comparison. The number
of representatives of Virginia in 1823 was proportionate to the total number of
the representatives of the Union, and to the relation which the population bore
to that of the whole Union: in 1833 the number of representatives of Virginia
was likewise proportionate to the total number of the representatives of the
Union, and to the relation which its population, augmented in the course of ten
years, bore to the augmented population of the Union in the same space of time.
The new number of Virginian representatives will then be to the old numver, on
the one hand, as the new numver of all the representatives is to the old
number; and, on the other hand, as the augmentation of the population of
Virginia is to that of the whole population of the country. Thus, if the
increase of the population of the lesser country be to that of the greater in
an exact inverse ratio of the proportion between the new and the old numbers of
all the representatives, the number of the representatives of Virginia will
remain stationary; and if the increase of the Virginian population be to that
of the whole Union in a feeblerratio than the new number of the representatives
of the Union to the old number, the number of the representatives of Virginia
must decrease. [Thus, to the 56th Congress in 1899, Virginia and West Virginia
send only fourteen representatives.]]
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