Читать книгу Society in America - Harriet Martineau - Страница 6

»For these are the men that, when they have played their parts, and had their exits, must step out, and give the moral of their scenes, and deliver unto posterity an inventory of their virtues and vices.«

Sir Thomas Browne.

THE first gentleman who greeted me on my arrival in the United States, a few minutes after I had landed, informed me without delay, that I had arrived at an unhappy crisis; that the institutions of the country would be in ruins before my return to England; that the levelling spirit was desolating society; and that the United States were on the verge of a military despotism. This was so very like what I had been accustomed to hear at home, from time to time, since my childhood, that I was not quite so much alarmed as I might have been without such prior experience. It was amusing too to find America so veritably the daughter of England.

I looked around me carefully, in all my travels, till I reached Washington, but could see no signs of despotism; even less of military. Except the officers and cadets at West Point, and some militia on a training day at Saugerties, higher up on the Hudson, I saw nothing that could he called military; and officers, cadets, and militia, appeared all perfectly innocent of any design to seize upon the government. At Washington, I ventured to ask an explanation from one of the most honoured statesmen now living; who told me, with a smile, that the country had been in »a crisis« for fifty years past; and would be for fifty years to come.

This information was my comfort, from day to day, till I became sufficiently acquainted with the country to need such support no longer. Mournful predictions, like that I have quoted, were made so often, that it was easy to learn how they originated.

In the United States, as elsewhere, there are, and have always been, two parties in politics, whom it is difficult to distinguish on paper, by a statement of their principles, but whose course of action may, in any given case, be pretty confidently anticipated. It is remarkable how nearly their positive statements of political doctrine agree, while they differ in almost every possible application of their common principles. Close and continued observation of their agreements and differences is necessary before the British traveller can fully comprehend their mutual relation. In England, the differences of parties are so broad, – between these who would have the people governed for the convenience of their rulers; those who would have the many governed, for their good, by the will of the few; and those who would have the people govern themselves; – that it is, for some time, difficult to comprehend how there should be party differences as wide in a country where the first principle of government is that the people are to govern themselves. The case, however, becomes clear in time: and, amidst a half century of »crises«, the same order and sequence become discernible which run through the whole course of human affairs.

As long as men continue as differently organized as they now are, there will be two parties under every government. Even if their outward fortunes could be absolutely equalised, there would be, from individual constitution alone, an aristocracy and a democracy in every land. The fearful by nature would compose an aristocracy, the hopeful by nature a democracy, were all other causes of divergence done away. When to these constitutional differences are added all those outward circumstances which go to increase the fear and the hope, the mutual misunderstandings of parties are no longer to be wondered at. Men who have gained wealth, whose hope is fulfilled, and woo fear loss by change, are naturally of the aristocratic class; So are men of learning, who, unconsciously identifying learning and wisdom, fear the elevation of the ignorant to a station like their own. So are men of talent, who, having gained the power which is the fit recompense of achievement, dread the having to yield it to numbers instead of desert. So are many more who feel the almost universal fear of having to part with educational prejudices, with doctrines with which honoured teachers nourished the pride of youth, and prepossessions inwoven with all that has been to them most pure, lofty, and graceful. Out of these a large aristocratic class must everywhere be formed.

Out of the hopeful, – the rising, not the risen, – the aspiring, not the satisfied, – must a still larger class be everywhere formed. It will include all who have most to gain and least to lose; and most of those who, in the present state of education, have gained their knowledge from actual life, rather than, or as well as, from books. It will include the adventurers of society, and also the philanthropists. It will include, moreover, – an accession small in number, but inestimable in power, – the men of genius. It is characteristic of genius to be hopeful and aspiring. It is characteristic of genius to break up the artificial arrangements of conventionalism, and to view mankind in true perspective, in their gradations of inherent rather than of adventitious worth. Genius is therefore essentially democratic, and has always been so, whatever titles its gifted ones may have worn, or on whatever subjects they may have exercised their gifts. To whatever extent men of genius have been aristocratic, they have been so in spite of their genius, not in consistency with it. The instances are so few, and their deviations from the democratic principle so small, that men of genius must be considered as included in the democratic class.

Genius being rare, and its claims but tardily allowed by those who have attained greatness by other means, it seems as if the weight of influence possessed by the aristocratic party, – by that party which, generally speaking, includes the wealth, learning, and talents of the country, – must overpower all opposition. If this is found not to be the case, if it be found that the democratic party has achieved everything that has been achieved since the United States' constitution began to work, it is no wonder that there is panic in many hearts, and that I heard from so many tongues of the desolations of the »levelling spirit«, and the approaching ruin of political institutions.

These classes may be distinguished in another way. The description which Jefferson gave of the federal and republican parties of 1799 applies to the federal and democratic parties of this day, and to the aristocratic and democratic parties of every time and country. »One«, says Jefferson, »fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them.«

There is much reason in both these fears. The unreasonableness of party lies in entertaining the one fear, and not the other. No argument is needed to prove that rulers are prone to selfishness and narrowness of views: and no one can have witnessed the injuries that the poor suffer in old countries, – the education of hardship and insult that furnishes them with their only knowledge of the highest classes, without being convinced that their ignorance is to he feared; – their ignorance, not so much of books as of liberty and law. In old countries, the question remains open whether the many should, on account of their ignorance, be kept still in a state of political servitude, as some declare; or whether they should be gradually prepared for political freedom, as others think, by an amelioration of their condition, and by being educated in schools; or whether, as yet others maintain, the exercise of political rights and duties be not the only possible political education. In the New World, no such question remains to be debated. It has no large, degraded, injured, dangerous (white) class who can afford the slightest pretence for a panic-cry about agrarianism. Throughout the prodigious expanse of that country, I saw no poor men, except a few intemperate ones. I saw some very poor women; but God and man know that the time has not come for women to make their injuries even heard of. I saw no beggars but two professional ones, who are making their fortunes in the streets of Washington. I saw no table spread, in the lowest order of houses, that had not meat and bread on it. Every factory child carries its umbrella; and pig-drivers wear spectacles. With the exception of the foreign paupers on the seaboard, and those who are steeped in sensual vice, neither of which classes can be politically dangerous, there are none who have not the same interest in the security of property as the richest merchant of Salem, or planter of Louisiana. Whether the less wealthy class will not be the first to draw out from reason and experience the true philosophy of property, is another question. All we have to do with now is their equal interest with their richer neighbours in the security of property, in the present state of society. Law and order are as important to the man who holds land for the subsistence of his family, or who earns wages that he may have land of his own to die upon, as to any member of the president's cabinet.

Nor is there much more to fear from the ignorance of the bulk of the people in the United States, than from their poverty. It is too true that there is much ignorance; so much as to be an ever-present peril. Though, as a whole, the nation is, probably, better informed than any other entire nation, it cannot be denied that their knowledge is far inferior to what their safety and their virtue require. But whose ignorance is it? And ignorance of what ? If the professors of colleges have book-knowledge, which the owner of a log-house has not; the owner of a log-house has very often, as I can testify, a knowledge of natural law, political rights, and economical fact, which the college-professor has not. I often longed to confront some of each class, to see whether there was any common ground on which they could meet. If not, the one might bring the charge of ignorance as justly as the other. If a common ground could be discovered, it, would have been in their equal relation to the government under which they live: in which case, the natural conclusion would be, that each understood his own interests best, and neither could assume superiority over the other. The particular ignorance, of the countryman may expose him to be flattered and cheated by an oratorical office-seeker, or a dishonest newspaper. But, on the other hand, the professor's want of knowledge of the actual affairs of the many, and his educational biases, are just as likely to cause him to vote contrary to the public interest. No one who has observed society in America will question the existence or the evil of ignorance there: but neither will he question that such real knowledge as they have is pretty fairly shared among them.

I travelled by wagon, with a party of friends, in the interior of Ohio. Our driver must be a man of great and various knowledge, if he questions all strangers as he did us, and obtains as copious answers. He told us where and how he lived, of his nine children, of his literary daughters, and the pains he was at to get books for them; and of his hopes from his girl of fourteen, who writes poetry, which he keeps a secret, lest she should be spoiled. He told us, that he seldom lets his fingers touch a novel, because the consequence always is that his business stands still till the novel is finished; »and that doesn't suit.« He recited to us, Pope's »Happy the man whose wish and care«, etc. saying that it suited his idea exactly. He asked both the ladies present whether they had written a book. Both had; and he carried away the titles, that he might buy the books for his daughters. This man is fully informed of the value of the Union, as we had reason to perceive; and it is difficult to see why he is not as fit as any other man to choose the representatives of his interests. Yet, here is a specimen of his conversation with one of the ladies of the party.

»Was the book that you wrote on natural philosophy, madam?«

»No; I know nothing about natural philosophy.«

»Hum! Because one lady has done that pretty well: – hit it! – Miss Porter, you know.«

»What Miss Porter?«

»She that wrote ›Thaddeus of Warsaw‹, you know. She did it pretty well there.«

As an antagonist case, take the wailings of a gentleman of very distinguished station in a highly aristocratic section of society; – wailings over the extent of the suffrage.

»What an enormity it is that such a man as Judge –, there, should stand on no higher level in politics than the man that grooms his horse!«

»Why should he? I suppose they have both got all they want, – full representation: and they thus bear precisely the same relation to the government.«

»No; the judge seldom votes, because of his office: while his groom can, perhaps, carry nineteen men to vote as he pleases. It is monstrous!«

»It seems monstrous that the judge should omit his political duty for the sake of his office; and also that nineteen men should be led by one. But limiting the suffrage would not mend the matter. Would it not do better to teach all the parties their duty?«

Let who will choose between the wagon-driver and the scholar. Each will vote according to his own views; and the event, – the ultimate majority, – will prove which is so far the wiser.

The vagueness of the antagonism between the two parties is for some time perplexing to the traveller in America; and he does not know whether to be most amazed or amused at the apparent triviality of the circumstances which arouse the strongest party emotions. After a while, a body comes out of the mystery, and he grasps a substantial cause of dissension. From the day when the first constitution was formed, there have been alarmists, who talk of a »crisis«: and from the day when the second began its operations, the alarm has, very naturally, taken its subject matter from the failure of the first. The first general government came to a stand through weakness. The entire nation kept itself in order till a new one was formed and set to work. As soon as the danger was over, and the nation proved, by the last possible test, duly convinced of the advantages of public order, the timid party took fright lest the general government should still not be strong enough: and this tendency, of course, set the hopeful party to watch lest it should be made too strong. The panic and antagonism were at their height in 1799.¹ A fearful collision of parties took place, which ended in the establishment of the hopeful policy, which has continued, with few interruptions, since. The executive patronage was retrenched, taxes were taken off, the people were re-assured, and all is, as yet, safe. While the leaders of the old federal party retired to their Essex junto, and elsewhere, to sigh for monarchy, and yearn towards England, the greater number threw off their fears, and joined the republican party. There are now very few left to profess the politics of the old federalists. I met with only two who openly avowed their desire for a monarchy; and not many more who prophesied one. But there still is a federal party, and there ever will be. It is as inevitable that there will be always some who will fear the too great strength of the state governments, as that there will be many who will have the same fear about the general government. Instead of seeing in this any cause for dismay, or even regret, the impartial observer will recognise in this mutual watchfulness the best security that the case admits of for the general and state governments preserving their due relation to one another. No government ever yet worked both well and indisputably. A pure despotism works (apparently) indisputably; but the bulk of its subjects will not allow that it works well, while it wrings their heads from their shoulders, or their earnings from their hands. The government of the United States is disputed at every step of its workings: but the bulk of the people declare that it works well, while every man is his own security for his life and property.

The extreme panic of the old federal party is accounted for, and almost justified, when we remember, not only that the commerce of England had penetrated every part of the country, and that great pecuniary interests were therefore everywhere supposed to be at stake; but that republicanism, like that which now exists in America, was a thing unheard of – an idea only half-developed in the minds of those who were to live under it. Wisdom may spring, full-formed and accomplished, from the head of a god, but not from the brains of men. The Americans of the Revolution looked round upon the republics of the world, tested them by the principles of human nature, found them republican in nothing but the name, and produced something, more democratic than any of them; but not democratic enough for the circumstances which were in the course of arising. They saw that in Holland the people had nothing to do with the erection of the supreme power; that in Poland (which was called a republic in their day) the people were oppressed by an incubus of monarchy and aristocracy, at once, in their most aggravated forms; and that in Venice a small body of hereditary nobles exercised a stern sway. They planned something far transcending in democracy any republic yet heard of; and they are not to be wondered at, or blamed, if, when their work was done, they feared they had gone too far. They had done much in preparing the way for the second birth of their republic in 1789, and for a third in 1801, when the republicans came into power; and from which date, free government in the United States may be said to have started on its course.

A remarkable sign of those times remains on record, which shows how different the state of feeling and opinion was then from any that could now prevail among a large and honourable body in the republic. The society of the Cincinnati, an association of officers of the revolutionary army, and other honourable persons, ordered their proceedings in a manner totally inconsistent with the first principles of republicanism; having secret correspondences, decking themselves with an order, which was to be hereditary, drawing a line of distinction between military and other citizens, and uniting in a secret bond the chiefs of the first families of the respective States. Such an association, formed on the model of some which might be more or less necessary or convenient in the monarchies of the old world, could not be allowed to exist in its feudal form in the young republic; and, accordingly, the hereditary principle, and the power of adopting honorary members, were relinquished; and the society is heard of no more. It has had its use in showing how the minds of the earlier republicans were imbued with monarchical prepossessions, and how large is the reasonable allowance which must be made for the apprehensions of men, who, having gone further in democracy than any who had preceded them, were destined to see others outstrip themselves. Adams, Hamilton, Washington! what names are these! Yet Adams in those days believed the English constitution would be perfect, if some defects and abuses were remedied. Hamilton believed it would be impracticable, if such alterations were made; and that, in its then existing state, it was the very best government that had ever been devised. Washington was absolutely republican in his principles, hut did not enjoy the strong faith, the entire trust in the people, which is the attendant privilege of those principles. Such men, pressed out from among the multitude by the strong force of emergency, proved themselves worthy of their mission of national redemption; but, though we may now be unable to single out any who, in these comparatively quiet times, can be measured against them, we are not thence to conclude that society, as a whole, has not advanced; and that a policy which would have appeared dangerous to them, may not be, at present, safe and reasonable.

Advantageous, therefore, as it may be, that the present federal party should be perpetually on the watch against the encroachments of the state governments, – useful as their incessant recurrence to the first practices, as well as principles, of the constitution may be, – it would be for their comfort to remember, that the elasticity of their institutions is a perpetual safeguard; and, also, that the silent influence of the federal head of their republics has a sedative effect which its framers themselves did not anticipate. If they compare the fickleness and turbulence of very small republics, – Rhode Island, for instance, – with the tranquillity of the largest, or of the confederated number, it is obvious that the existence of a federal head keeps down more quarrels than ever appear.

When the views of the present apprehensive federal party are closely looked into, they appear to be inconsistent with one or more of the primary principles of the constitution which we have stated. »The majority are right.« Any fears of the majority are inconsistent with this maxim, and were always felt by me to be so, from the time I entered the country till I left it.

One sunny October morning I was taking a drive, with my party, along the shores of the pretty Owasco Lake, in New York state, and conversing on the condition of the country with a gentleman who thought the political prospect less bright than the landscape. I had been less than three weeks in the country, and was in a state of something like awe at the prevalence of, not only external competence, but intellectual ability. The striking effect upon a stranger of witnessing, for the first time, the absence of poverty, of gross ignorance, of all servility, of all insolence of manner, cannot be exaggerated in description. I had seen every man in the towns an independent citizen; every man in the country a land-owner. I had seen that the Tillages had their newspapers, the factory girls their libraries. I had witnessed the controversies between candidates for office on some difficult subjects, of which the people were to be the judges. With all these things in my mind, and with every evidence of prosperity about me in the comfortable homesteads which every turn in the road, and every reach of the lake, brought into view, I was thrown into a painful amazement by being told that the grand question of the time was »whether the people should be encouraged to govern themselves, or whether the wise should save them from themselves.« The confusion of inconsistencies was here so great as to defy argument: the patronage among equals that was implied; the assumption as to who were the wise; and the conclusion that all the rest must be foolish. This one sentence seemed to be the most extraordinary combination that could proceed from the lips of a republican.

The expressions of fear vary according to the pursuits, or habits of mind of those who entertain them: but all are inconsistent with the theory that the majority are right. One fears the influence in the national councils of the »Tartar population« of the west, observing that men retrograde in civilisation when thinly settled in a fruitful country. But the representatives from these regions will be few while they are thinly settled, and will be in the minority when in the wrong. When these representatives become numerous, from the thick settlement of those regions, their character will have ceased to become Tartar-like and formidable: even supposing that a Tartar-like character could co-exist with the commerce of the Mississippi. Another tells me that the State has been, again and again, »on a lee shore, and a flaw has blown it off, and postponed the danger; but this cannot go on for ever.« The fact here is true; and it would seem to lead to a directly contrary inference. »The flaw« is the will of the majority, which might be better indicated by a figure of something more stable. »The majority is right.« It has thus far preserved the safety of the state; and this is the best ground for supposing that it will continue to be a safeguard.

One of the most painful apprehensions seems to be that the poorer will heavily tax the richer members of society; the rich being always a small class. If it be true, as all parties appear to suppose, that rulers in general are prone to use their power for selfish purposes, there remains the alternative, whether the poor shall over-tax the rich, or whether the rich shall over-tax the poor: and, if one of these evils were necessary, few would doubt which would be the least. But the danger appears much diminished on the consideration that, in the country under our notice, there are not, nor are likely to be, the wide differences in property which exist in old countries. There is no class of hereditary rich or poor. Few are very wealthy; few are poor; and every man has a fair chance of being rich. No such unequal taxation has yet been ordained by the sovereign people; nor does there appear to be any danger of if, while the total amount of taxation is so very small as in the United States, and the interest that every one has in the protection of property is so great. A friend in the South, while eulogizing to me the state of society there, spoke with compassion of his northern fellow citizens, who were exposed to the risks of »a perpetual struggle between pauperism and property.« To which a northern friend replied, that it is true that there is a perpetual struggle everywhere between pauperism and property. The question is, which succeeds. In the United States, the prospect is that each will succeed. Paupers may obtain what they want, and proprietors will keep that which they have. As a mere matter of convenience, it is shorter and easier to obtain property by enterprise and labour in the United States, than by pulling down the wealthy. Even the most desponding do not consider the case as very urgent, at present. I asked one of my wealthy friends, who was predicting that in thirty years his children would be living under a despotism, why he did not remove. »Where«, said he, with a countenance of perplexity, »could I be better off?« – which appeared to me a truly reasonable question.

In a country, the fundamental principle of whose politics is, that its »rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed«, it is clear that there can be no narrowing of the suffrage. However earnestly some may desire this, no one hopes it. But it does not follow that the apprehensive minority has nothing left but discontent. The enlightenment of society remains not only matter for hope, but for achievement. The prudent speak of the benefits of education as a matter of policy, while the philanthropic promote it as a matter of justice. Security of person and property follows naturally upon a knowledge of rights. However the aristocracy of wealth, learning, and talent may differ among themselves, as to what is the most valuable kind of knowledge, all will agree that every kind will strengthen the bonds of society. In this direction must the aristocracy work for their own security. If they sufficiently provide the means of knowledge to the community, they may dismiss their fears, and rest assured that the great theory of their government will bear any test; and that »the majority will be in the right.«

If the fears of the aristocracy are inconsistent with the theory of the government under which they live, so is much of the practice of the democracy. Their hopefulness is reasonable; their reliance on the majority is reasonable. But there are evils attendant on their practice of their true theories which may account for the propounding of worse theories by their opponents.

Learning by experience is slow work. However sure it may be, it is slow; and great is the faith and patience required by men who are in advance of a nation on a point which they feel that they could carry, if they had not to wait the pleasure of the majority. Though the majority be right in respect of the whole of politics, there is scarcely a sensible man who may not be more in the right than the majority with regard to some one point; and no allowance can be too great for the perpetual discouragement hence arising. The majority eventually wills the best; but, in the present imperfection of knowledge, the will is long in exhibiting itself; and the ultimate demonstration often crowns a series of mistakes and failures. From this fact arises the complaint of many federalists that the democratic party is apt to adopt their measures, after railing both at those measures, and at the men who framed them. This is often true: and it is true that, if the people had only had the requisite knowledge, they would have done wisely to have accepted good measures from the beginning, without any railing at all. But the knowledge was wanting. The next best thing that can happen is, that which does happen: that the people learn, and act upon their learning. If they are not wise enough to adopt a good measure at first, it would be no improvement of the case that they should be too obstinate to accept it at last. The case proves only that out of ignorance come knowledge, conviction, and action; and the majority is ultimately in the right. Whenever there is less of ignorance to begin with, there will be less of the railing, which is childish enough, whether as a mere imputation, or as a reality.

The great theory presumes that the majority not only will the best measures, but choose the best men. This is far from being true in practice. In no respect, perhaps, are the people more behind their theory than in this. The noble set of public servants with which the people were blessed in their revolutionary period seems to have inspired them at first with a somewhat romantic faith in men who profess strong attachment to whatever has been erected into a glory of the nation; and, from that time to this, the federal party has, from causes which will be hereafter explained, furnished a far superior set of men to the public service than the democratic party. I found this fact almost universally admitted by the wisest adherents of democracy; and out of it has arisen the mournful question, whether an honest man with false political principles be not more dangerous as a ruler than an unscrupulous man with true political principles. I have heard the case put thus: »There is not yet a sufficiency of real friends of the people willing to be their servants. They must take either a somewhat better set of men whose politics they disapprove, or a somewhat worse set of men to make tools of. They take the tools, use them, and throw them away.«

This is true; and a melancholy truth it is; since it is certain that whenever the people shall pertinaciously require honest servants, and take due pains to ascertain their honesty, true men will be forthcoming. Under God's providence, the work never waits for the workman.

This fact, however, has one side as bright as the other is dark. It is certain that many corrupt public servants are supported under the belief that they are good and great men. No one can have attended assiduously on the course of public affairs at Washington, and afterwards listened to conversation in the stages, without being convinced of this. As soon as the mistake is discovered, it is rectified. Retribution often comes sooner than it could have been looked for. Though it be long delayed, the remedy is ultimately secure. Every corrupt faction breaks up, sooner or later, and character is revealed: the people let down their favourite, to hide his head, or continue to show his face, as may best suit his convenience; and forthwith choose a better man; or one believed to be better. In such cases, the evil lies in ignorance – a temporary evil; while the principle of rectification may work, for aught we can see, eternally.

Two considerations, – one of fact, another of inference, – may reassure those who are discouraged by these discrepancies between the theories of the United States' government, and the practice of the democratic party, with regard to both measures and men. The Americans are practically acquainted with the old proverb, »What is every body's business is nobody's business.« No man stirs first against an abuse which is no more his than other people's. The abuse goes on till it begins to overbear law and liberty. Then the multitude arises, in the strength of the law, and crushes the abuse. Sufficient confirmation of this will occur to any one who has known the State histories of the Union for the last twenty years, and will not be wholly contradicted by the condition of certain affairs there which now present a bad aspect. Past experience sanctions the hope that when these bad affairs have grown a little worse, they will be suddenly and completely redressed. Illustrations in abundance are at hand.

Lotteries were formerly a great inducement to gaming in Massachusetts. Prudent fathers warned their sons against lotteries; employers warned their servants; clergymen warned their flocks. Tracts, denouncing lotteries, were circulated; much eloquence was expended, – not in vain, though all sober people were already convinced, and weak people were still unable to resist the seduction. At length, a young man drowned himself. A disappointment in a lottery was found to be the cause. A thrill of horror ran through the community. Every man helped to carry his horror of lotteries into the legislature; and their abolition followed in a trice.

Freemasonry was once popular in the United States; and no one seemed to think any harm of it, though, when examined, it clearly appears an institution incompatible with true republicanism. The account given of it by some friends of mine, formerly masons; is, that it is utterly puerile in itself; that it may be dignified, under a despotism, by an application to foreign objects, but that it is purely mischievous in a republic. Its object, of course, is power. It can have no other; and ought not to have this, where the making of the laws is the office of the people. Its interior obligations are also violations of the democratic principle. All this was as true of masonry twelve years ago as it is now; but masonry was allowed to spread far and wide. One Morgan, a freemason, living in the western part of the state of New York, did a remarkable deed, for which various motives are assigned. He wrote a book in exposure of masonry, its facts and tendencies. When the first part was printed and secured, some masons broke into the printing-office where it was deposited, and destroyed as much of the work as they could lay hold of. Being partly foiled, they bethought themselves of stopping the work by carrying off the author. He was arrested for a trifling debt, (probably fictitious,) conveyed hastily to a magistrate, some miles off, who committed him for want of bail. The ostensible creditor arrived at the jail, in the middle of the night, and let him out; four or five men put him into a carriage, which made for the Canada frontier. On landing him on British ground, the masons there refused to have any concern in a matter which had gone so far, and Morgan was shut up in the fort at Niagara village, where the Niagara river flows into Lake Ontario. There he was fed and guarded for two days. Thus far, the testimony is express; and concerning the succeeding circumstances there is no reasonable doubt. He was put into a boat, carried out into the middle of the river, and thrown in, with a stone tied to his neck. For four years, there were attempts to bring the conspirators to justice; but little was done. The lodges subscribed funds to carry the actual murderers out of the country. Sheriffs, jurymen, constables, all omitted their duty with regard to the rest. The people were roused to action by finding the law thus overawed. Anti-masonic societies were formed. Massachusetts and other States passed laws against extra-judicial oaths. In such States, the lodges can make no new members, and are becoming deserted by the old. The anti-masonic party flourishes, having a great principle as its basis. It has the control in a few States, and powerful influence in others. Morgan's disclosures have been carried on by other hands. A bad institution is overthrown. The people have learned an important lesson; and they have gone through an honourable piece of discipline in making a stand for the law, which is the life of their body politic.

Thus end, and thus, we may trust, will end the mistakes of the people, whose professed interest is in a wise self-government. Some worse institutions even than masonry remain to be cast out. The law has been again overawed; not once, but many times; and the eyes of the world are on the people of the United States, to see what they will do. The world is watching to discover whether they are still sensible of the sacred value of unviolated law; whether they are examining who it is that threatens and overbears the law, and why; and whether they are proceeding towards the re-establishment of the peace and security of their whole community, by resolutely rooting out from among their institutions every one which will not bear the test of the first principles of the whole.

The other ground of hope of which I spoke as being inferential, arises out of the imaginative political character of the Americans. They have not yet grown old in the ways of the world. Their immediate fathers have done such a deed as the world never saw; and the children have not yet passed out of the intoxication of success. With far less of vanity and presumption than might have been looked for from their youth among the nations, with an extraordinary amount of shrewdness and practical talent shared among individuals, the American people are as imaginative as any nation I happen to have heard or read of. They reminded me every day of the Irish. The frank, confiding character of their private intercourses, the generous nature of their mutual services, the quickness and dexterity of their doings, their fertility of resource, their proneness to be run away with by a notion, into any extreme of absurdity – in all this, and in everything but their deficiency of moral independence, (for which a difference of circumstances will fully account,) they resemble the Irish. I regard the American people as a great embryo poet: now moody, now wild, but bringing out results of absolute good sense: restless and wayward in action, but with deep peace at his heart: exulting that he has caught the true aspect of things past, and at the depth of futurity which lies before him, wherein to create something so magnificent as the world has scarcely begun to dream of. There is the strongest hope of a nation that is capable of being possessed with an idea; and this kind of possession has been the peculiarity of the Americans from their first day of national existence till now. Their first idea was loftier than some which have succeeded; but they have never lost sight of the first. It remains to be, at intervals, apprehended anew; and whenever the time shall arrive, which cannot but arrive, when the nation shall be so fully possessed of the complete idea as by a moral necessity to act it out, they will be as far superior to nations which act upon the experience and expediency of their time as the great poet is superior to common men.

This time is yet very far distant; and the American people have not only much to learn, and a painful discipline to endure, but some disgraceful faults to repent of and amend. They must give a perpetual and earnest heed to one point; to cherish, their high democratic hope, their faith in man. The older they grow, the more must they »reverence the dreams of their youth«. They must eschew the folly and profaneness so prevalent in the old world, of exalting man, abstractedly and individually, as a piece of God's creation, and despising men in the mass. The statesman in a London theatre feels his heart in a tumult, while a deep amen echoes through its chambers at Hamlet's adoration of humanity; but not the less, when he goes home, does he speak slightingly, compassionately, or protectingly of the masses, the population, the canaille. He is awestruck with the grandeur of an individual spirit; but feels nothing of the grandeur of a congregated million of like spirits, because they happen to be far off. This proves nothing but the short-sightedness of such a man. Such shortness of sight afflicts some of the wisest and best men in the new world. I know of one who regards with a humble and religious reverence the three or four spirits which have their habitation under his roof, and close at hand; who begins to doubt and question, in the face of far stronger outward evidence of good, persons who are a hundred miles off; and has scarcely any faith left for those who happen to be over the sea. The true democratic hope cannot coexist with such distrust. Its basis is the unmeasured scope of humanity; and its rationale the truth, applicable alike to individuals and nations, that men are what they are taken for granted to be. »Countrymen«, cries Brutus, dying,

»My heart doth joy that yet in all my life, I found no man but he was true to me.«

The philosophy of this fact is clear; it followed of course from Brutus always supposing that men were true. Whenever the Americans, or any other people, shall make integrity their rule, their criterion, their invariable supposition, the first principles of political philosophy will be fairly acted out, and the high democratic hope will be its own justification.

 1 Jefferson writes, September, 1798, »The most long-sighted politician could not, seven years ago, have imagined that the people of this wide extended country could have been enveloped in such delusion, and made so much afraid of themselves and their own power, as to surrender it spontaneously to those who are manoeuvring them into a form of government, the principal branches of which may be beyond their control.« Again, March. 1801: – »You have understood that the revolutionary movements in Europe had, by industry and artifice, been wrought into objects of terror in this country, and had really involved a great portion of our well-meaning citizens in a panic which was perfectly unaccountable, and during the prevalence of which they were led to support measures the most insane. They are now pretty thoroughly recovered from it, and sensible of the mischief which was done, and preparing to be done, had their minds continued a little longer under that derangement. The recovery bids fair to he complete, and to obliterate entirely the line of party division, which had been so strongly drawn.« – Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 401, 457.