j [ Materials are, generally
speaking, less expensive in America than in Europe, but the price of labor is
much higher.]
The following comparison will illustrate my meaning.
During the campaigns of the Revolution the French introduced a new system of
tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the oldest generals, and very
nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe. They undertook (what
had never before been attempted) to make shift without a number of things which
had always been held to be indispensable in warfare; they required novel
exertions on the part of their troops which no civilized nations had ever
thought of; they achieved great actions in an incredibly short space of time;
and they risked human life without hesitation to obtain the object in view. The
French had less money and fewer men than their enemies; their resources were
infinitely inferior; nevertheless they were constantly victorious, until their
adversaries chose to imitate their example.
The Americans have introduced a similar system into their
commercial speculations; and they do for cheapness what the French did for
conquest. The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets sail when
the weather is favorable; if an unforseen accident befalls him, he puts into
port; at night he furls a portion of his canvas; and when the whitening billows
intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way, and takes an observation of
the sun. But the American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He
weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads
his sheets to the wind; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel
may have sustained from the storm; and when he at last approaches the term of
his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port. The
Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly. And
as they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can perform it at a
cheaper rate.
The European touches several times at different ports in
the course of a long voyage; he loses a good deal of precious time in making
the harbor, or in waiting for a favorable wind to leave it; and he pays daily
dues to be allowed to remain there. The American starts from Boston to go to
purchase tea in China; he arrives at Canton, stays there a few days, and then
returns. In less than two years he has sailed as far as the entire
circumference of the globe, and he has seen land but once. It is true that
during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk brackish water and lived
upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with the sea, with
disease, and with a tedious existence; but upon his return he can sell a pound
of his tea for a half-penny less than the English merchant, and his purpose is
accomplished.
I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that
the Americans affect a sort of heroism in their manner of trading. But the
European merchant will always find it very difficult to imitate his American
competitor, who, in adopting the system which I have just described, follows
not only a calculation of his gain, but an impulse of his nature.
The inhabitants of the United States are subject to all
the wants and all the desires which result from an advanced stage of
civilization; but as they are not surrounded by a community admirably adapted,
like that of Europe, to satisfy their wants, they are often obliged to procure
for themselves the various articles which education and habit have rendered
necessaries. In America it sometimes happens that the same individual tills his
field, builds his dwelling, contrives his tools, makes his shoes, and weaves
the coarse stuff of which his dress is composed. This circumstance is
prejudicial to the excellence of the work; but it powerfully contributes to
awaken the intelligence of the workman. Nothing tends to materialize man, and
to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind, more than extreme division
of labor. In a country like America, where men devoted to special occupations
are rare, a long apprenticeship cannot be required from anyone who embraces a
profession. The Americans, therefore, change their means of gaining a
livelihood very readily; and they suit their occupations to the exigencies of
the moment, in the manner most profitable to themselves. Men are to be met with
who have successively been barristers, farmers, merchants, ministers of the
gospel, and physicians. If the American be less perfect in each craft than the
European, at least there is scarcely any trade with which he is utterly
unacquainted. His capacity is more general, and the circle of his intelligence
is enlarged.
The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered
by the axioms of their profession; they escape from all the prejudices of their
present station; they are not more attached to one line of operation than to
another; they are not more prone to employ an old method than a new one; they
have no rooted habits, and they easily shake off the influence which the habits
of other nations might exercise upon their minds from a conviction that their
country is unlike any other, and that its situation is without a precedent in
the world. America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant
motion, and every movement seems an improvement. The idea of novelty is there
indissolubly connected with the idea of amelioration. No natural boundary seems
to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has
not yet attempted to do.
This perpetual change which goes on in the United States,
these frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen
fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to keep the minds of the
citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation, which admirably
invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excitement above the
ordinary level of mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like a game
of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. As the same causes are
continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately impart an
irresistible impulse to the national character. The American, taken as a chance
specimen of his countrymen, must then be a man of singular warmth in his
desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and, above all, of innovation. The
same bent is manifest in all that he does; he introduces it into his political
laws, his religious doctrines, his theories of social economy, and his domestic
occupations; he bears it with him in the depths of the backwoods, as well as in
the business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime
commerce, which makes him the cheapest and the quickest trader in the world.
As long as the sailors of the United States retain these
inspiriting advantages, and the practical superiority which they derive from
them, they will not only continue to supply the wants of the producers and
consumers of their own country, but they will tend more and more to become,
like the English, the factors of all other peoples. *k This prediction has
already begun to be realized; we perceive that the American traders are
introducing themselves as intermediate agents in the commerce of several
European nations; *l and America will offer a still wider field to their
enterprise.
k [ It must not be supposed that
English vessels are exclusively employed in transporting foreign produce into
England, or British produce to foreign countries; at the present day the
merchant shipping of England may be regarded in the light of a vast system of
public conveyances, ready to serve all the producers of the world, and to open
communications between all peoples. The maritime genius of the Americans
prompts them to enter into competition with the English.]
l [ Part of the commerce of the
Mediterranean is already carried on by American vessels.]
The great colonies which were founded in South America by
the Spaniards and the Portuguese have since become empires. Civil war and
oppression now lay waste those extensive regions. Population does not increase,
and the thinly scattered inhabitants are too much absorbed in the cares of
self-defense even to attempt any amelioration of their condition. Such,
however, will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by her own efforts
in piercing the gloom of the Middle Ages; South America has the same Christian
laws and Christian manners as we have; she contains all the germs of
civilization which have grown amidst the nations of Europe or their offsets,
added to the advantages to be derived from our example: why then should she
always remain uncivilized? It is clear that the question is simply one of time;
at some future period, which may be more or less remote, the inhabitants of
South America will constitute flourishing and enlightened nations.
But when the Spaniards and Portuguese of South America
begin to feel the wants common to all civilized nations, they will still be
unable to satisfy those wants for themselves; as the youngest children of
civilization, they must perforce admit the superiority of their elder brethren.
They will be agriculturists long before they succeed in manufactures or
commerce, and they will require the mediation of strangers to exchange their
produce beyond seas for those articles for which a demand will begin to be
felt.
It is unquestionable that the Americans of the North will
one day supply the wants of the Americans of the South. Nature has placed them
in contiguity, and has furnished the former with every means of knowing and
appreciating those demands, of establishing a permanent connection with those
States, and of gradually filling their markets. The merchants of the United
States could only forfeit these natural advantages if he were very inferior to
the merchant of Europe; to whom he is, on the contrary, superior in several
respects. The Americans of the United States already exercise a very
considerable moral influence upon all the peoples of the New World. They are
the source of intelligence, and all the nations which inhabit the same
continent are already accustomed to consider them as the most enlightened, the
most powerful, and the most wealthy members of the great American family. All
eyes are therefore turned towards the Union; and the States of which that body
is composed are the models which the other communities try to imitate to the
best of their power; it is from the United States that they borrow their
political principles and their laws.
The Americans of the United States stand in precisely the
same position with regard to the peoples of South America as their fathers, the
English, occupy with regard to the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and
all those nations of Europe which receive their articles of daily consumption
from England, because they are less advanced in civilization and trade. England
is at this time the natural emporium of almost all the nations which are within
its reach; the American Union will perform the same part in the other
hemisphere; and every community which is founded, or which prospers in the New
World, is founded and prospers to the advantage of the Anglo-Americans.
If the Union were to be dissolved, the commerce of the
States which now compose it would undoubtedly be checked for a time; but this
consequence would be less perceptible than is generally supposed. It is evident
that, whatever may happen, the commercial States will remain united. They are
all contiguous to each other; they have identically the same opinions,
interests, and manners; and they are alone competent to form a very great
maritime power. Even if the South of the Union were to become independent of
the North, it would still require the services of those States. I have already
observed that the South is not a commercial country, and nothing intimates that
it is likely to become so. The Americans of the South of the United States will
therefore be obliged, for a long time to come, to have recourse to strangers to
export their produce, and to supply them with the commodities which are
requisite to satisfy their wants. But the Northern States are undoubtedly able
to act as their intermediate agents cheaper than any other merchants. They will
therefore retain that employment, for cheapness is the sovereign law of
commerce. National claims and national prejudices cannot resist the influence
of cheapness. Nothing can be more virulent than the hatred which exists between
the Americans of the United States and the English. But notwithstanding these
inimical feelings, the Americans derive the greater part of their manufactured
commodities from England, because England supplies them at a cheaper rate than
any other nation. Thus the increasing prosperity of America turns,
notwithstanding the grudges of the Americans, to the advantage of British
manufactures.
Reason shows and experience proves that no commercial
prosperity can be durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, to naval
force. This truth is as well understood in the United States as it can be
anywhere else: the Americans are already able to make their flag respected; in
a few years they will be able to make it feared. I am convinced that the
dismemberment of the Union would not have the effect of diminishing the naval
power of the Americans, but that it would powerfully contribute to increase it.
At the present time the commercial States are connected with others which have
not the same interests, and which frequently yield an unwilling consent to the
increase of a maritime power by which they are only indirectly benefited. If,
on the contrary, the commercial States of the Union formed one independent
nation, commerce would become the foremost of their national interests; they
would consequently be willing to make very great sacrifices to protect their
shipping, and nothing would prevent them from pursuing their designs upon this
point.
Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent
features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate
the ardor with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute commercial enterprise, the
advantages which befriend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot
refrain from believing that they will one day become the first maritime power
of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the
world.
I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry;
hitherto, in speaking of the future destiny of the United States, I have
endeavored to divide my subject into distinct portions, in order to study each
of them with more attention. My present object is to embrace the whole from one
single point; the remarks I shall make will be less detailed, but they will be
more sure. I shall perceive each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the
principal facts with more certainty. A traveller who has just left the walls of
an immense city, climbs the neighboring hill; as he goes father off he loses sight
of the men whom he has so recently quitted; their dwellings are confused in a
dense mass; he can no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can
scarcely trace out the great thoroughfares; but his eye has less difficulty in
following the boundaries of the city, and for the first time he sees the shape
of the vast whole. Such is the future destiny of the British race in North
America to my eye; the details of the stupendous picture are overhung with
shade, but I conceive a clear idea of the entire subject.
The territory now occupied or possessed by the United
States of America forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable earth. But
extensive as these confines are, it must not be supposed that the
Anglo-American race will always remain within them; indeed, it has already far
overstepped them.
There was once a time at which we also might have created
a great French nation in the American wilds, to counterbalance the influence of
the English upon the destinies of the New World. France formerly possessed a
territory in North America, scarcely less extensive than the whole of Europe.
The three greatest rivers of that continent then flowed within her dominions.
The Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the
delta of the Mississippi were unaccustomed to any other tongue but ours; and
all the European settlements scattered over that immense region recalled the
traditions of our country. Louisbourg, Montmorency, Duquesne, St. Louis,
Vincennes, New Orleans (for such were the names they bore) are words dear to
France and familiar to our ears.
But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be
tedious to enumerate, *m have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance.
Wherever the French settlers were numerically weak and partially established,
they have disappeared: those who remain are collected on a small extent of
country, and are now subject to other laws. The 400,000 French inhabitants of
Lower Canada constitute, at the present time, the remnant of an old nation lost
in the midst of a new people. A foreign population is increasing around them
unceasingly and on all sides, which already penetrates amongst the ancient
masters of the country, predominates in their cities and corrupts their
language. This population is identical with that of the United States; it is
therefore with truth that I asserted that the British race is not confined
within the frontiers of the Union, since it already extends to the northeast.
m [ The foremost of these circumstances is, that nations
which are accustomed to free institutions and municipal government are better
able than any others to found prosperous colonies. The habit of thinking and
governing for oneself is indispensable in a new country, where success
necessarily depends, in a great measure, upon the individual exertions of the
settlers.]
To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few
insignificant Russian settlements; but to the southwest, Mexico presents a
barrier to the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards and the Anglo-Americans
are, properly speaking, the only two races which divide the possession of the
New World. The limits of separation between them have been settled by a treaty;
but although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly favorable to the
Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will shortly infringe this
arrangement. Vast provinces, extending beyond the frontiers of the Union
towards Mexico, are still destitute of inhabitants. The natives of the United
States will forestall the rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They
will take possession of the soil, and establish social institutions, so that
when the legal owner arrives at length, he will find the wilderness under
cultivation, and strangers quietly settled in the midst of his inheritance. *n
n [ [This was speedily
accomplished, and ere long both Texas and California formed part of the United
States. The Russian settlements were acquired by purchase.]]
The lands of the New World belong to the first occupant,
and they are the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the countries
which are already peopled will have some difficulty in securing themselves from
this invasion. I have already alluded to what is taking place in the province
of Texas. The inhabitants of the United States are perpetually migrating to
Texas, where they purchase land; and although they conform to the laws of the
country, they are gradually founding the empire of their own language and their
own manners. The province of Texas is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it
will soon contain no Mexicans; the same thing has occurred whenever the
Anglo-Americans have come into contact with populations of a different origin.
It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an
amazing preponderance over all the other European races in the New World; and
that it is very superior to them in civilization, in industry, and in power. As
long as it is only surrounded by desert or thinly peopled countries, as long as
it encounters no dense populations upon its route, through which it cannot work
its way, it will assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked out by treaties
will not stop it; but it will everywhere transgress these imaginary barriers.
The geographical position of the British race in the New
World is peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its northern
frontiers the icy regions of the Pole extend; and a few degrees below its
southern confines lies the burning climate of the Equator. The Anglo-Americans
are, therefore, placed in the most temperate and habitable zone of the
continent.
It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of
population in the United States is posterior to their Declaration of
Independence. But this is an error: the population increased as rapidly under
the colonial system as it does at the present day; that is to say, it doubled
in about twenty-two years. But this proportion which is now applied to
millions, was then applied to thousands of inhabitants; and the same fact which
was scarcely noticeable a century ago, is now evident to every observer.
The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a
king, augment and spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of the
United States, who live under a republican government. During the war of
independence, which lasted eight years, the population continued to increase
without intermission in the same ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied
with the English existed at that time upon the western frontiers, the
emigration westward was never checked. Whilst the enemy laid waste the shores
of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western parts of Pennsylvania, and the States of
Vermont and of Maine were filling with inhabitants. Nor did the unsettled state
of the Constitution, which succeeded the war, prevent the increase of the population,
or stop its progress across the wilds. Thus, the difference of laws, the
various conditions of peace and war, of order and of anarchy, have exercised no
perceptible influence upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This
may be readily understood; for the fact is, that no causes are sufficiently
general to exercise a simultaneous influence over the whole of so extensive a
territory. One portion of the country always offers a sure retreat from the
calamities which afflict another part; and however great may be the evil, the
remedy which is at hand is greater still.
It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the
British race in the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment of the Union,
and the hostilities which might ensure, the abolition of republican
institutions, and the tyrannical government which might succeed it, may retard
this impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the
destinies to which that race is reserved. No power upon earth can close upon the
emigrants that fertile wilderness which offers resources to all industry, and a
refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever nature they may be, will not
deprive the Americans of their climate or of their inland seas, of their great
rivers or of their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy
be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise
which seem to be the distinctive characteristics of their race, or to
extinguish that knowledge which guides them on their way.
Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at
least is sure. At a period which may be said to be near (for we are speaking of
the life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone cover the immense space
contained between the polar regions and the tropics, extending from the coasts
of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The territory which will
probably be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at some future time, may be
computed to equal three-quarters of Europe in extent. *o The climate of the
Union is upon the whole preferable to that of Europe, and its natural
advantages are not less great; it is therefore evident that its population will
at some future time be proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is
between so many different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars
and the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a
population of 410 inhabitants to the square league. *p What cause can prevent
the United States from having as numerous a population in time?
o [ The United States already
extend over a territory equal to one-half of Europe. The area of Europe is
500,000 square leagues, and its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants.
("Malte Brun," liv. 114. vol. vi. p. 4.)
[This computation is given in French leagues, which were
in use when the author wrote. Twenty years later, in 1850, the superficial area
of the United States had been extended to 3,306,865 square miles of territory,
which is about the area of Europe.]]
p [ See "Malte Brun,"
liv. 116, vol. vi. p. 92.]
Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the
British race in America cease to present the same homogeneous characteristics:
and the time cannot be foreseen at which a permanent inequality of conditions
will be established in the New World. Whatever differences may arise, from
peace or from war, from freedom or oppression, from prosperity or want, between
the destinies of the different descendants of the great Anglo-American family,
they will at least preserve an analogous social condition, and they will hold
in common the customs and the opinions to which that social condition has given
birth.
In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently
powerful to imbue all the different populations of Europe with the same
civilization. The British of the New World have a thousand other reciprocal
ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to equality is general amongst
mankind. The Middle Ages were a period when everything was broken up; when each
people, each province, each city, and each family, had a strong tendency to
maintain its distinct individuality. At the present time an opposite tendency
seems to prevail, and the nations seem to be advancing to unity. Our means of
intellectual intercourse unite the most remote parts of the earth; and it is
impossible for men to remain strangers to each other, or to be ignorant of the
events which are taking place in any corner of the globe. The consequence is
that there is less difference, at the present day, between the Europeans and
their descendants in the New World, than there was between certain towns in the
thirteenth century which were only separated by a river. If this tendency to
assimilation brings foreign nations closer to each other, it must a fortiori prevent
the descendants of the same people from becoming aliens to each other.
The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty
millions of men will be living in North America, *q equal in condition, the
progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and preserving the
same civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the
same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same
forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact new to the
world—a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to baffle the efforts
even of the imagination.
q [ This would be a population
proportionate to that of Europe, taken at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the
square league.]
There are, at the present time, two great nations in the
world which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from
different points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have
grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere,
they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations; and the
world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their
natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but
these are still in the act of growth; *r all the others are stopped, or
continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and
with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The
American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the
adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats the wilderness and
savage life; the latter, civilization with all its weapons and its arts: the
conquests of the one are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the
other by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to
accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and
common-sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the authority of society
in a single arm: the principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the
latter servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not
the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway
the destinies of half the globe.
r [ Russia is the country in the
Old World in which population increases most rapidly in proportion.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2), by Alexis de Toqueville
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