American Institutions and Their Influence Part 41

Some persons in Europe have formed an opinion of the possible influence of General Jackson upon the affairs of his country, which appears highly extravagant to those who have seen more of the subject. We have been told that General Jackson has won sundry battles, that he is an energetic man, p.r.o.ne by nature and by habit to the use of force, covetous of power, and a despot by taste. All this may perhaps be true; but the inferences which have been drawn from these truths are exceedingly erroneous. It has been imagined that General Jackson is bent on establishing a dictatorship in America, on introducing a military spirit, and on giving a degree of influence to the central authority which cannot but be dangerous to provincial liberties. But in America, the time for similar undertakings, and the age for men of this kind, is not yet come; if General Jackson had entertained a hope of exercising his authority in this manner, he would infallibly have forfeited his political station, and compromised his life; accordingly he has not been so imprudent as to make any such attempt.

Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the president belongs to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to the bare and precise letter of the const.i.tution, and which never puts a construction upon that act, favorable to the government of the Union; far from standing forth as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the agent of all the jealousies of the states; and he was placed in the lofty station he occupies, by the pa.s.sions of the people which are most opposed to the central government. It is by perpetually flattering these pa.s.sions, that he maintains his station and his popularity. General Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands; say rather, that he antic.i.p.ates and forestalls them.

Whenever the governments of the states come into collision with that of the Union, the president is generally the first to question his own rights: he almost always outstrips the legislature; and when the extent of the federal power is controverted he takes part, as it were, against himself; he conceals his official interests, and extinguishes his own natural inclinations. Not indeed that he is naturally weak or hostile to the Union; for when the majority decided against the claims of the partisans of nullification, he put himself at its head, a.s.serted the doctrines which the nation held, distinctly and energetically, and was the first to recommend forcible measures; but General Jackson appears to me, if I may use the American expressions, to be a federalist by taste, and a republican by calculation.

General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority but when he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the community approves, or of those which it does not look upon with a jealous eye. He is supported by a power with which his predecessors were unacquainted; and he tramples on his personal enemies wherever they cross his path, with a facility which no former president ever enjoyed; he takes upon himself the responsibility of measures which no one, before him, would have ventured to attempt; he even treats the national representatives with disdain approaching to insult; he puts his veto upon the laws of congress, and frequently neglects to reply to that powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes treats his master roughly. The power of General Jackson perpetually increases; but that of the President declines: in his hands the federal government is strong, but it will pa.s.s enfeebled into the hands of his successor.

I am strangely mistaken if the federal government of the United States be not constantly losing strength, retiring gradually from public affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more and more. It is naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions to strength.

On the other hand, I thought that I remarked a more lively sense of independence, and a more decided attachment to provincial government, in the states. The Union is to subsist, but to subsist as a shadow; it is to be strong in certain cases, and weak in all others; in time of warfare, it is to be able to concentrate all the forces of the nation and all the resources of the country in its hands; and in time of peace its existence is to be scarcely perceptible: as if this alternate debility and vigor were natural or possible.

I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able to check this general impulse of public opinion: the causes in which it originated do not cease to operate with the same effect. The change will therefore go on, and it may be predicted that, unless some extraordinary event occurs, the government of the Union will grow weaker and weaker every day.

I think, however, that the period is still remote, at which the federal power will be entirely extinguished by its inability to protect itself and to maintain peace in the country. The Union is sanctioned by the manners and desires of the people; its results are palpable, its benefits visible. When it is perceived that the weakness of the federal government compromises the existence of the Union, I do not doubt that a reaction will take place with a view to increase its strength.

The government of the United States is, of all the federal governments which have hitherto been established, the one which is most naturally destined to act. As long as it is only indirectly a.s.sailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as long as its substance is not seriously altered, a change of opinion, an internal crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigor which it requires. The point which I have been most anxious to put in a clear light is simply this; many people, especially in France, imagine that a change of opinion is going on in the United States, which is favorable to a centralization of power in the hands of the president and the congress. I hold that a contrary tendency may be distinctly observed. So far is the federal government from acquiring strength, and from threatening the sovereignty of the states, as it grows older, that I maintain it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that the sovereignty of the Union alone is in danger. Such are the facts which the present time discloses. The future conceals the final result of this tendency, and the events which may check, r.e.t.a.r.d, or accelerate, the changes I have described; but I do not affect to be able to remove the veil which hides them from our sight.

OF THE REPUBLICAN INSt.i.tUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND WHAT THEIR CHANCES OF DURATION ARE.

The Union is Accidental.--The Republican Inst.i.tutions have more prospect of Permanence.--A Republic for the Present the Natural State of the Anglo-Americans.--Reason of this.--In order to destroy it, all Laws must be changed at the same time, and a great alteration take place in Manners.--Difficulties experienced by the Americans in creating an Aristocracy.

The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of war into the heart of those states which are now confederate, with standing armies, a dictatorship, and a heavy taxation, might eventually compromise the fate of the republican inst.i.tutions. But we ought not to confound the future prospects of the republic with those of the Union. The Union is an accident, which will last only so long as circ.u.mstances are favorable to its existence; but a republican form of government seems to me to be the natural state of the Americans; which nothing but the continued action of hostile causes, always acting in the same direction, could change into a monarchy. The Union exists princ.i.p.ally in the law which formed it; one revolution, one change in public opinion, might destroy it for ever; but the republic has a much deeper foundation to rest upon.

What is understood by republican government in the United States, is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself. It is a regular state of things really founded upon the enlightened will of the people. It is a conciliatory government under which resolutions are allowed time to ripen, and in which they are deliberately discussed, and executed with mature judgment. The republicans in the United States set a high value upon morality, respect religious belief, and acknowledge the existence of rights. They profess to think that a people ought to be moral, religious, and temperate, in proportion as it is free. What is called the republic in the United States, is the tranquil rule of the majority, which, after having had time to examine itself, and to give proof of its existence, is the common source of all the powers of the state. But the power of the majority is not of itself unlimited. In the moral world humanity, justice, and reason, enjoy an undisputed supremacy; in the political world vested rights are treated with no less deference. The majority recognizes these two barriers; and if it now and then overstep them, it is because, like individuals, it has pa.s.sions, and like them, it is p.r.o.ne to do what is wrong, while it discerns what is right.

But the demagogues of Europe have made strange discoveries. A republic is not, according to them, the rule of the majority, as has. .h.i.therto been taught, but the rule of those who are strenuous partisans of the majority. It is not the people who preponderates in this kind of government, but those who best know what is for the good of the people.

A happy distinction, which allows men to act in the name of nations without consulting them, and to claim their grat.i.tude while their rights are spurned. A republican government, moreover, is the only one which claims the right of doing whatever it chooses, and despising what men have hitherto respected, from the highest moral obligations to the vulgar rules of common sense. It had been supposed, until our time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form it appeared. But it is a discovery of modern days that there are such things as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of the people.

The ideas which the Americans have adopted respecting the republican form of government, render it easy for them to live under it, and ensure its duration. If, in their country, this form be often practically bad, at least it is theoretically good; and, in the end, the people always acts in conformity with it.

It was impossible, at the foundation of the states, and it would still be difficult, to establish a central administration in America. The inhabitants are dispersed over too great a s.p.a.ce, and separated by too many natural obstacles, for one man to undertake to direct the details of their existence. America is therefore pre-eminently the country of provincial and munic.i.p.al government. To this cause, which was plainly felt by all the Europeans of the New World, the Anglo-Americans added several others peculiar to themselves.

At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies, munic.i.p.al liberty had already penetrated into the laws as well as the manners of the English, and the emigrants adopted it, not only as a necessary thing, but as a benefit which they knew how to appreciate. We have already seen the manner in which the colonies were founded: every province, and almost every district, was peopled separately by men who were strangers to each other, or who a.s.sociated with very different purposes. The English settlers in the United States, therefore, early perceived that they were divided into a great number of small and distinct communities which belonged to no common centre; and that it was needful for each of these little communities to take care of its own affairs, since there did not appear to be any central authority which was naturally bound and easily enabled to provide for them. Thus, the nature of the country, the manner in which the British colonies were founded, the habits of the first emigrants, in short everything, united to promote, in an extra-ordinary degree, munic.i.p.al and provincial liberties.

In the United States, therefore, the ma.s.s of the inst.i.tutions of the country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once. At the present day, it would be even more difficult for a party to succeed in founding a monarchy in the United States, than for a set of men to proclaim that France should henceforward be a republic. Royalty would not find a system of legislation prepared for it beforehand; and a monarchy would then exist, really surrounded by republican inst.i.tutions. The monarchical principle would likewise have great difficulty in penetrating into the manners of the Americans.

In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an isolated doctrine bearing no relation to the prevailing manners and ideas of the people: it may, on the contrary, be regarded as the last link of a chain of opinions which binds the whole Anglo-American world. That Providence has given to every human being the degree of reason necessary to direct himself in the affairs which interest him exclusively; such is the grand maxim upon which civil and political society rests in the United States.

The father of a family applies it to his children; the master to his servants; the township to its officers; the province to its townships; the state to the provinces; the Union to the states; and when extended to the nation, it becomes the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.

Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the republic is the same which governs the greater part of human actions; republican notions insinuate themselves into all the ideas, opinions, and habits of the Americans, while they are formally recognized by the legislation: and before this legislation can be altered, the whole community must undergo very serious changes. In the United States, even the religion of most of the citizens is republican, since it submits the truths of the other world to private judgment: as in politics the care of its temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense of the people. Thus every man is allowed freely to take that road which he thinks will lead him to heaven; just as the law permits every citizen to have the right of choosing his government.

It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all having the same tendency, can subst.i.tute for this combination of laws, opinions, and manners, a ma.s.s of opposite opinions, manners and laws.

If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only yield after a laborious social process, often interrupted, and as often resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will not become totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have succeeded to that which now exists. Now, it must be admitted that there is no symptom or presage of the approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that a people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within a short s.p.a.ce of time, a completely new form of government. Such apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability which affects political inst.i.tutions is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded: the first, which modifies secondary laws, is not incompatible with a very settled state of society; the other shakes the very foundations of the const.i.tution, and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation; this species of instability is always followed by troubles and revolutions, and the nation which suffers under it, is in a state of violent transition.

Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability have no necessary connexion; for they have been found united or separate, according to times and circ.u.mstances. The first is common in the United States, but not the second: the Americans often change their laws, but the foundation of the const.i.tution is respected.

In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The French of that period were not only friends of the monarchy, but they thought it impossible to put anything in its place; they received it as we receive the rays of the sun and the return of the seasons. Among them the royal power had neither advocates nor opponents. In like manner does the republican government exist in America, without contention or opposition; without proofs and arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort of _consensus universalis_. It is, however, my opinion, that, by changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the future stability of their government.

It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their designs by the mutability of legislation, will learn to look upon republican inst.i.tutions as an inconvenient form of society; the evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments, might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the fundamental principles of the const.i.tution, and indirectly bring about a revolution; but this epoch is still very remote.

[It has been objected by an American review, that our author is mistaken in charging our laws with instability, and in answer to the charge, the permanence of our fundamental political inst.i.tutions has been contrasted with the revolutions in France. But the objection proceeds upon a mistake of the author's meaning, which at this page is very clearly expressed. He refers to the instability which modifies _secondary laws_, and not to that which shakes the foundations of the const.i.tution. The distinction is equally sound and philosophic, and those in the least acquainted with the history of our legislation, must bear witness to the truth of the author's remarks. The frequent revisions of the statutes of the states rendered necessary by the mult.i.tude, variety, and often the contradiction of the enactments, furnish abundant evidence of this instability.--_American Editor_.]

It may, however, be foreseen, even now, that when the Americans lose their republican inst.i.tutions, they will speedily arrive at a despotic government, without a long interval of limited monarchy. Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more absolute than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers which had fearlessly been intrusted to an elected magistrate are then transferred to an hereditary sovereign. This is true in general, but it is more peculiarly applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, the magistrates are not elected by a particular cla.s.s of citizens, but by the majority of the nation; they are the immediate representatives of the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude; and as they are wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they excite neither hatred nor fear: hence, as I have already shown, very little care has been taken to limit their influence, and they are left in possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of things has engendered habits which would outlive itself; the American magistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to be responsible for the exercise of it; and it is impossible to say what bounds could then be set to tyranny.

Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise in America, and they already predict the exact period at which it will be able to a.s.sume the reins of government. I have previously observed, and I repeat my a.s.sertion, that the present tendency of American society appears to me to become more and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not a.s.sert that the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of political rights in their country, or confiscate those rights to the advantage of a single individual; but I cannot imagine that they will ever bestow the exclusive exercise of them upon a privileged cla.s.s of citizens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an aristocracy.

An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens, who, without being very far removed from the ma.s.s of the people, are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a body which it is easy to touch, and difficult to strike; with which the people are in daily contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature and to the secret propensities of the human heart, than a subjection of this kind; and men, who are left to follow their own bent, will always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to the regular administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic inst.i.tutions cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation, affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects that of society; but these things are so repugnant to natural equity that they can only be extorted from men by constraint.

I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society began to exist, which has, by its own free will and by its own exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the aristocracies of the middle ages were founded by military conquest: the conqueror was the n.o.ble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequality was then imposed by force; and after it had been introduced into the manners of the country, it maintained its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legislation.

Communities have existed which were aristocratic from their earliest origin, owing to circ.u.mstances anterior to that event, and which became more democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the Romans, and of the Barbarians after them. But a people, having taken its rise in civilisation and democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of conditions until it arrived at inviolable privileges and exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish so singular an example.

REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Americans destined by Nature to be a great maritime People.--Extent of their Coasts.--Depth of their Ports.--Size of their Rivers.--The commercial Superiority of the Anglo-Saxons less attributable, however, to physical Circ.u.mstances than to moral and intellectual Causes.--Reason of this Opinion.--Future Destiny of the Anglo-Americans as a commercial Nation.--The Dissolution of the Union would not check the maritime Vigor of the States.--Reason of this.--Anglo-Americans will naturally supply the Wants of the inhabitants of South America.--They will become, like the English, the Factors of a great portion of the World.

The coast of the United States, from the bay of Fundy to the Sabine river in the gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand miles in extent.

These sh.o.r.es form an unbroken line, and they are all subject to the same government. No nation in the world possesses vaster, deeper, or more secure ports for shipping than the Americans.

The inhabitants of the United States const.i.tute a great civilized people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated country, at a distance of three thousand miles from the central point of civilisation. America consequently stands in daily need of European trade. The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately succeed in producing or manufacturing at home most of the articles which they require; but the two continents can never be independent of each other, so numerous are the natural ties which exist between their wants, their ideas, their habits, and their manners.

The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now become necessary to us, but which cannot be cultivated, or can only be raised at an enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe. The Americans only consume a small portion of this produce, and they are willing to sell us the rest.

Europe is therefore the market of America, as America is the market of Europe; and maritime commerce is no less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the United States to transport their raw materials to the ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with our manufactured produce. The United States were therefore necessarily reduced to the alternative of increasing the business of other maritime nations to a great extent, if they had themselves declined to enter into commerce, as the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done; or, in the second place, of becoming one of the first trading powers of the globe.

The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided taste for the sea. The declaration of independence broke the commercial restrictions which united them to England, and gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. Ever since that time, the shipping of the Union has increased in almost the same rapid proportion as the number of its inhabitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their own sh.o.r.es nine-tenths of the European produce which they consume.[291] And they also bring three-quarters of the exports of the New World to the European consumer.[292] The ships of the United States fill the docks of Havre and of Liverpool; while the number of English and French vessels which are to be seen at New York is comparatively small.[293]

Thus, not only does the American merchant face compet.i.tion in his own country, but he even supports that of foreign nations in their own ports with success. This is readily explained by the fact that the vessels of the United States can cross the seas at a cheaper rate than any other vessels in the world. As long as the mercantile shipping of the United States preserves this superiority, it will not only retain what it has acquired, but it will constantly increase in prosperity.

It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can trade at a lower rate than other nations; and one is at first led to attribute this circ.u.mstance to the physical or natural advantages which are within their reach; but this supposition is erroneous. The American vessels cost almost as much to build as our own[294]; they are not better built, and they generally last for a shorter time. The pay of the American sailor is more considerable than the pay on board European ships; which is proved by the great number of Europeans who are to be met with in the merchant vessels of the United States. But I am of opinion that the true cause of their superiority must not be sought for in physical advantages, but that it is wholly attributable to their moral and intellectual qualities.

The following comparison will ill.u.s.trate 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 been before 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 s.p.a.ce 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 unforeseen accident befalls him, he puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canva.s.s; 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 sh.o.r.e 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 circ.u.mference 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 the tedium of monotony; but, upon his return, he can sell a pound of his tea for a halfpenny 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 compet.i.tor, 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 civilisation; 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 coa.r.s.e stuff of which his dress is composed.

This circ.u.mstance is prejudicial to the excellence of the work: but it powerfully contributes to awaken the intelligence of the workman.

Nothing tends to materialise 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 any one 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 p.r.o.ne 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 melioration. 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.