Society, Manners and Politics in the United States being a series of letters on North America ... Translated from the third Paris edition

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SOCIETY, MANNERS AND POLITICS I.N THE UNITED STATES : BF.I*VO SERIES OF LETTERS ON NORTH AMERICA. BY MICHAEL CHEVALIER. TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD PARIS EDITION. BOSTON: WEEKS, JORDAN AND COMPANV 1839. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, By Weeks, Jordan & Co. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. tuttle, dennett and chisholm's power pbess, No 17 School Street, Boston. NOTICE M. Chevalier was sent to this country in 1834, under the patronage of Thiers, then Minister of the Interior, in France, to inspect our public works. But attracted by the novel spectacle presented by society in the United States, he extended the time of his stay and the sphere of his observations amongst us, and spent two years in visiting nearly all parts of the Union, and studying the workings of our social and political machinery.

His letters give the results of his observations, the impressions made on his mind, his speculations in regard to the future destiny of our in stitutions, rather than a detailed narrative of facts and events, which, however, is introduced when necessary for illustration or proof. The translator is not, of course, to be considered responsible for all the opinions and statements of the original ; but it will be found, in his judgment, that M. Chevalier has studied with diligence , and sagacity, drawn his conclusions with caution and discrimination, and stated his views in a clear, forcible, and interesting manner. He seems to be per fectly free from any narrowness or prejudice, ready to recognise whatever is good or of good tendency, wheth- NOTICE. er in character, manners, modes of life, political and social institutions, habits, or opinions, without regard to mere personal likes and dislikes ; and to be equally frank in condemning, whenever he perceives, in our practices, a violation of our own principles, or of those of an enlightened philosophy.

He tells many home truths to all parties and classes. Some passages of the letters and many of the notes, which have no particu lar interest in this country, have been omitted. M. Chevalier's work has been very favourably received in his own country, where it has passed through several editions. T. G. Bradford. Boston, October, 1839. CONTENTS. Pass. Introduction. Course of our Civilisation over the World.— Oriental Civilisation, European Civilisation —Their approaching Contact.— The Arabians stand between them.— Movement of European Civilisation towards Ihe East- Two Routes to the East— The Three European Types.— Latin Europe, Teutonic Europe, Sclavonic Europe. — Mixed Character of France and Austria.— The part to be played by France 9 LETTERS. I. The Railroad fbom London to Paris. Analogy between certain Political and Voltaic Phenomena — France and England.— In what we should imitate the English.— Railroads.— Objects us a Journey in England. — The Feudal Castle of Heidelberg and the London Brewery 19 II- Liverpool and Manchester Railroad.

Introduction

. 1. That form of civilization which has prevailed among the European nations, has moved, in its march over the globe, from east to west. From its cradles in the depths of old Asia and Upper Egypt, it advanced, by successive stages, to the shores of the Atlantic, along which it spread itself from the southern point of Spain to the northern extremity of the British Isles and the Scandinavian peninsula. It seemed to have here reached its goal when Christopher Columbus showed it the way to the New World. At each stage it has taken up a new faith, new manners, new laws, new customs, a different language, dress, and food, different modes of life, public and private. The great questions touching the relation of man to God, to his fellows, and to the universe, and domestic, social, and political order, which had all been solved at the beginning of the halt, were, after a while, brought again into discussion, and then civilization, starting again on her march, has moved onward toward the west, to give them a new solution.

This stream, setting from the east toward the west, is formed by the junction of two others flowing from the two great Bible races of Japhet and Shem ; which, coming from the north and the south, meet and mingle together, and are replenished from their respective sources, during

INTRODUCTION.

. each period of our civilization, through all the episodes, which obstruct and chequer this majestic pilgrimage. By turns, each of these forces, whose combined action con stitutes the motive power that carries mankind forward in its course, has been overborne by the other. Thence it is, that our civilization, instead of advancing in a straight line from east to west, has swerved in its march, either from the north toward the south, or from the south toward the north, taking a winding and devious course, and gathering up, by turns, purer drops from the blood of Shem or of Japhet. There has been, however, this difference between the North and the South; that the South has most often acted upon the North by sending to it the germs of civilization, without overrunning it with a new race ; while the North has awakened the slumbering civilization of the South by pouring over it swarms of hardy barbarians, audax Japeti genus.

Thus is fulfilled the great prophecy concerning Japhet, that "he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." 2. Independent of our civilization and distinct from it, there is another in the furthest East, whose centre is China, and whose outposts are Japan, and which embraces its hundreds of millions of men. It moves in a direction contrary to our own, from west to east, and its locomotive powers are slight ; we might compare the respective speed of these two civilizations to the two great revolutions of the globe, the annual revolution in its orbit, and that which gives rise to the precession of the equinoxes. This oriental civilization, like that of the west, has repeatedly regenerated itself by a new mixture of the man of the North with the man of the South. The race of Japhet, which gave us our Barbarians, and, before the Barbarians, had given us the Pelasgians, Scythians, Celts, and Thracians, and has since given us the Turks and Sclavonians, has also furnished the East with its

INTRODUCTION.

. 11 Mongols and Manchoos. The family of Gengis Khan, which conquered the East, also pushed its victorious hordes, at the same time, to the Rhine. The Eastern civilization, less active and less easily set in motion than the Western, probably because it has not enough of the blood of Shem, and has too much of that of the inferior races, has not risen to the same degree of improvement with its sister. But we must do it the justice to confess, that to it belongs the honor of several capital inventions and discoveries, such as the mariners' compass, printing, and gun-powder, on which we pride ourselves ; and we must moreover acknowledge that it has solved the problem, to keep under one law, for an indefinite number of ages, a population greater than that of all Europe. The Roman empire, whose population was less than that of China, stood whole only three hun dred years.

The spiritual authority of the Pope extended over less territory than that of the Roman empire, and was absolutely acknowledged only from Charlemagne to Luther. 3. The two civilizations, thus gathered together at the two extremities of the old continent, and turning their backs upon each other, were separated by an immense space before the western had fixed itself in America ; now, more than half the intervening distance is passed ; Mexico and South America are covered with offsets from the latter, on the side which looks toward Asia, as well as on that which fronts us : the United States cannot long delay to extend themselves from sea to sea ; the Islands of the South Sea are beginning to be peopled by Europeans. From this point of view, it is clear that America, placed between the two civilizations, is reserved for high destinies, and that the progress of population in the New World is a matter of the deepest interest to the whole human race.

INTRODUCTION.

. The connecting of the two civilizations is certainly the broadest subject that can occupy the human mind ; it is, in the eyes of the friend of man, an event of all others most big with hope. It embraces, politically, the association of all peoples, the balance of the world, of which the balance of Europe is only a part ; in religion, the whole law of the human family; the true Catholicism : morally, the most harmonious reciprocal action of the two opposite natures, which divide each race, each sex, each people, and each family, and which are typified in the Bible by Cain and Abel ; intellectually, the complete encyclopædia and the universal language ; industrially, a definite plan for developing the resources of the globe. In our time this question is no longer merely speculative ; it is now something more than merely food for the dreams of philosophers ; it should be the subject of the medita tions of statesmen.

Since the age of Louis XIV., the merchants, who are the pioneers of state policy, have striven with a con stantly increasing ardor, to open relations with China, because they have felt the importance of a' regular system of exchanges between Europe and a mass of two hundred million of producers and consumers. The emancipation of North America, and quite lately the abolition of the English East India Company's monopoly, have given to the efforts of commerce an irresistible force ; before this power, the laws which close up the celestial empire are nothing. China is encircled, on the south, by the English and their tributaries ; on the north, by the Cossacks, the van-guard of Russia ; British and American fleets prowl along her coasts ; the sleepy Spaniards of Mexico and the Philippines think of the days of the galleons, and keep their half-opened eyes fixed upon her. The human race has just come into possession of new means of communication, which shorten distance in an unexpected

INTRODUCTION.

. 13 degree. The two civilizations will soon reach each other and mingle together ; it will be the greatest event in the history of man. 4. Before the art of navigation was brought to per fection, before Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama, Europe had had communications with China through the medium of the Arabs, independently of the cavarans which traversed Central Asia. The Arabs, conquerors and missionaries placed between the two civiliza tions, had spread themselves by turns toward the East and the West. That people, so active by starts, has been to the East the messenger of the West, and to the West, the courier and factor of the East. Unhap pily since the Western civilization has shone with the greatest brilliancy in Europe, Arabia has flung out but feeble gleams of light ; since Providence has filled us with a devouring activity, the Arabians are fallen into a deep lethargy ; on that side, therefore, the intercourse, which was never complete nor speedy, has almost ceased.

But if, as some suppose, the Arab race is about to rouse itself from its long stupor, at the voice and by the aid of Europe, the latter will then have a powerful ally in its efforts to seize and hold Asia, or to transmit to her the means of working out. her own restoration, and this illustrious race will thus contribute essentially to the mar riage of the two civilizations. 5. Our civilization, in its march westward, has some times turned back towards the East ; thus it has had its Argonauts, its Agamemnons, and its Alexanders, and more lately its heroes of the crusades and its Portuguese cap tains. These partial movements were but temporary inter ruptions of its solemn march toward the West ; they were merely countercurrents, resembling the eddies which always exist in the currents of rivers. Until our own time, Europe has founded no durable and important

INTRODUCTION.

. establishment in Asia; in proportion as our civilization advanced westwards, the countries which it left behind escaped from its influence, and the distance between it and the oriental civilization, became greater. Alexander is the only person of whom China could feel any fear, and he passed away like the lightning flash. The Par tisans, the Saracens, or the Turks, were the impregnable bulwarks of eastern Asia. The mission of Europe was, above all things, to reach and settle a new hemisphere. At present, the incontestible superiority of the western nations in wealth, in mechanical skill, in means of trans portation, in government, in the art of war, enables them to make their way across the Old World toward the re motest recesses of Asia. The nations whom we are accustomed to call oriental, but who are only inhabitants of the Lesser East, have ceased to be formidable adver saries to Europe ; they delivered up their swords, at Heliopolis, Navarino, and Adrianople.

The colonization of America is now at length completed from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, but Europe can and ought to move towards the East as well as towards the West ; the isthmus of Suez has as good a chance as the isthmus of Panama, to become the route of western civilization to the Greater East. 6. Our European civilization has a twofold source, the Romans and the Teutonic nations. Setting aside for the present Russia, who is a new coiner, and who already, however, equals the most powerful of the elder states, it is subdivided into two families, each of which is marked by its strong likeness to one of the mother nations, which have contributed to give birth to both. Thus there is the Latin Europe, and the Teutonic Europe ; the former comprises the south, the latter the people of the north ; the former is Roman Catholic, the latter Protestant ; the one speaks Teutonic languages, and the other, idioms,

INTRODUCTION.

. 15 in Avhich Latin is predominant. These two branches, Latin and German, re-appear in the New World ; South Ameri ca, like southern Europe, is Roman Catholic and Latin ; North America belongs to the Protestant Anglo-Saxon population. In the great enterprise of bringing together European and Asiatic civilization, the Teutonic and Latin nations may both find a field of action ; both occupy in Europe and America, by land and sea, admirable outposts and ex cellent positions round that imperturbable Asia, into which it is their object to force their way. But, during the last age, the superiority which formerly belonged to the Latin family, has passed into the hands of the Teutonic race, owing partly to the energy of England in the Old World, and that of her sons in the New, and partly to the loosen ing of the old religious and moral ties among the Latin nations.

The Sclavonic race, which has lately shown itself, and which now forms a third group of nations in Europe, seems ready to contest with the Latin race even the possession of the second rank ; it is only the Russians and Anglo-Saxons that interest themselves about Further Asia, and press upon its frontiers by land and by sea. The people of the Latin stock must not, however, stand idle in the coming struggle, or the case will go against them by default ; an excellent opportunity is now offered to regain their lost rank. 7. In our three-headed Europe, Teutonic, Latin, and Sclavonic, two nations, France and Austria, present them selves under less distinct features, and with less exclusive characters than the others. France shares in the Teutonic and Latin natures ; in religion, she is Catholic in feeling, but Protestant out of caprice ; she unites the nervous un derstanding of the Germans with the elegant taste of the southern nations. Austria, by the education and origin of the people of her different states, is half Sclavonic, half

INTRODUCTION.

. Teutonic, and she is connected with the Latin family by her religion. France and Austria are, then, the natural mediums of communication, the one between the Germans and Latins, and the other between the Germans and Sclavonians; Austria is chiefly Teutonic, as France is essentially Latin. From this mixed character of France and Austria, we may conclude, that whenever the balance of Europe, or the harmonious combination of all European nations in one common object, shall become subjects of discussion, both will exercise a decisive influence, and their hearty co-operation in a common cause will make them irresistible. Austria has a more central position than France ; she has a greater number of points of contact with the different types of western civilization ; but France combines the invaluable advantages of a more homogeneous constitution, and a more flexible tempera ment ; she has a physiognomy more strongly marked, a mission more clearly defined, and above all, she has more of the social spirit.

She is at the head of the Latin group ; she is its protectress. 8. In the events which seem about to dawn upon us, France may, then, take a most important share ; she is the depositary of the destinies of all the Latin nations of both continents. She alone can save the whole family from being swallowed up by a double flood of Sclavonians and Germans. To her it belongs to rouse them from the lethargy into which they are plunged in both hemispheres, to raise them to the level of other nations, and to enable them again to take a stand in the world ; she also is called upon, perhaps more than any other power, to encourage the new spirit, which seems to be re-animating the Arabians, and through them to shake the East. Thus the political the atre, seen from a French point of view, shows, in a distant back-ground, the meeting of the Oriental and the Western civilizations, in which we are called upon to act as medi-

INTRODUCTION.

. 17 ators, and in the fore-ground, the education, by France, of all the Latin nations, and of many of the Arab tribes living around the Mediterranean. There may be a difference of opinion as to the time when these revolutions, which are to agitate the depths of Asia, will take place ; I am one of those who think it not far off. I can easily conceive, also, that some persons should wish to lessen the circle of French influence, and confine it to the southern countries of Europe ; although to me France seems called upon to exercise a benevolent and wholesome care over the people of South America, who are not yet fit to take care of themselves, and although the old traditions of the crusades, the conquest of Algiers, and the recollection of the expedition into Egypt, seem to promise us one of the first parts in the drama which will be acted on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.

As for the European nations of the Latin family, no one, I suppose, can have any' doubts concerning our supremacy over them, or concerning our duties, both to them and to ourselves, in relation to them. We have been notoriously the head of the family since the time of Louis XIV., and we can neither shrink from the burdens, nor from the privileges of our situation. Our superiority is acknowledged by all its members, our protection has been accepted by all, whenever it has been offered without selfish views. Happy would it have been for France, if, content with this high prerogative, her princes, and above all he who has added new lustre to the name of Emperor, had not been obstinately bent on the unnatural purpose of extending their authority over the members of the Teu tonic family ! 9. Since the weight has been thrown into the Saxon scale, since the English race has overborne France and Spain in Asia, in America, and in Europe, new institutions, naw rules of government, new ideas, new modes of action,

INTRODUCTION.

. in social, political, and individual life, have sprung up among the English, and more especially among their suc cessors in the New World ; everything connected with labor and the condition of the greater number of working men, has been carried to a degree of perfection before un heard of. It seems as if, by the aid of these improve ments, the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons over the Latin family, must go on constantly increasing. The French, of all the Latin nations, are most favorably placed, and the only one well placed, to avail themselves of these improve ments by adapting them to their own exigencies. We are full of energy ; never has our mind been more fairly thrown open ; never were our hearts more ready to throb for noble enterprises. But we must set ourselves at work without delay ; we must do this, setting aside all considerations of general policy, and of the contact, whether more or less remote, of the two civilizations.

It is a matter of the last necessity in regard to ourselves, even supposing that we have not to transmit to the southern nations of Europe, of whom we are the eldest, and to the inhabitants of the Levant, those improvements which their situation demands, and which they are ready to receive at our hands ; our own welfare, our own existence is at stake. How, and under what form shall we be able to make the innovations of the English race our own? This difficult and complicated question has been the chief object of my attention during my residence in the New World ; I do not claim the honor of having even partially solved it. But I shall feel satisfied, if the thoughts suggested to me by the sight of an order of things so unlike our own, falling under the eyes of one more far-sighted than myself, shall put him in the way of its solution.

Letter I. Railroad From London To Paris

London, Nov. 1, 1833. While railroads -arc talked of at Paris, they are made here. That from London to Birmingham is already be gun ; it will be 112 miles in length, and all the stock, to the amount of 12,000,000 dollars, has been taken up by subscription ; this road will be continued by another of nearly the same length, from Birmingham to Liverpool, and in five years Liverpool and London will be only eight hours apart. Whilst the English capitalists are executing these great undertakings, the Parisian capitalists look on, but do not stir ; they do not even form projects. Not one of them seems to have seriously considered, that even in the present state of things, there is more than twice the number of travellers between Paris and Versailles, than between Liverpool and Manchester, although the railroad between the last named places has been opened three years.

In London, therefore, they count little upon the aid of French capitalists in the construction of a railroad from that city to Paris ; they desire it, they would be glad to be able to go from one capital to the other in fifteen hours, and at trifling expense ; all classes are delighted with the idea of such a thing. But they feel that such a work is neither expedient nor feasible, without the joint action of both nations ; and as they dare not hope for the co-operation of France, little is said about it as a serious affair. Among all the acquisitions, which, since the end of the last century, have enriched the domain of science, none has opened a wider field than Volta's discoveries relative to the motion of electricity, and its development by contact. The phenomena resulting from the two poles of the Voltaic battery offer an inexhaustible mine to the physical philosopher ; there is no fact in science more general in its nature, for if any two bodies whatsoever touch each other, they form at once, by their mutual action and reaction, a Voltaic pile of greater or less energy.

This physical fact has its counterpart in the moral order of things ; if you bring together two men who have hitherto been separated from each other, in however slight a degree they may have any striking quality, their friction will certainly pro duce a spark. If instead of two men, the two poles of your battery are two nations, the result is greater in the proportion of a nation to an individual. If these two nations are England and France, that is to say, the two most enlightened and most powerful people in the world, this sort of Voltaic phenomenon then acquires a prodigious in tensity ; it involves nothing less than the safety of an old or the creation of a new civilization. The predominant qualities, good or bad, of France and England, may be arranged in a series of parallels, the cor responding terms in each of which will be complements of each other.

England is pre-eminent in affairs, and the qualities which belong to them, coolness, economy, precision, method, perseverance ; taste and genius for the fine arts, with the enthusiasm, the recklessness, the caprice, the irregular habits, the wastefulness, at least in time and words, which characterise the artist, have fallen to the lot of France. On one side, is reason, cautious and sober, but sure-footed, good sense, creeping along the ground ; on the other, imagination Avith her brilliant audacity, but also with her ignorance of things and method, her starts and trips. Here, an admirable energy in struggling against nature and metamorphosing the physical features of the globe ; there, an unequalled intellectual activity, and the gift of wanning the heart of mankind with its fires. Li England, treasures of industry and heaps of gold ; in France, treasures of thought, wells of science, torrents of inspiration.

In proud Albion, staid, but cheerless manners, reserve pushed to a chilling excess ; in our fair France, easiness of manners canied to licentiousness, the old Gaul ish gaiety, often savoring somewhat of the camp, a some thing of the free and easy bordering on the promiscuous (un sans-fafon expansif qui frise la promiscuite). On both sides a large dose of pride ; among our neighbors, a calculating, ambitious pride ; the pride of the statesman and the merchant, which feeds only on power and wealth ; which for the country desires conquests, vast colonies, all the Gibraltars and St Helenas, eagle's nests by which all seas and all shores are commanded ; and which for one self pants for riches, an aristocratic park, a seat in the House of Lords, a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Amongst us, a vain-glorious pride, which longs for the unreal, for ideal pleasures ; a thirst after applause for self, after glory for our country ; a pride, which, for France, would be satisfied with the admiration of the world, for self, with cas tles in the air, a ribband, an epaulet, a line of Beranger as a funeral oration ; the pride of the actor on the stage , of the knight in the lists.

On the north of the Channel, prevail rehgion and positive faith ; on the south, scepticism, mingled with enthusiasm. There a deep sentiment of order and respect for rank, combined with a haughty feel ing of the dignity of man ; here, a people eager for equal ity, excitable, restless, turbulent, yet docile, often even to weakness, confiding, even to credulity, easily cajoled by its flatterers, submitting to be trampled under foot like a carcase, during the period of its lethargy, and at times given over to the most courtier-like obsequiousness. Among the English the reverence for tradition, among the French the passion for novelty, predominates ; among the former respect for the law. and obedience to man, on condition that his supreme rule shall be the law ; among the latter, the worship of great men, and submission to the laws if they are defended by the sword of Cæsar.

On one side the ruler of the seas, on the other the arbiter of the continent, rousing the world at their pleasure, the one by its lever of gold, the other by the sound of its voice alone. Surely from the reciprocal influences of two nations thus constituted and thus situated on the globe, the most important effects should result, not only on the general cause of civilization, but on their own mutual im provement. The industrial development is not, indeed, the develop ment of the whole man, but since the beginning of the nineteenth century, no people can be allowed to reckon itself in the first rank of nations, if it is not advanced in the industrial career, if it cannot labor and produce. No peo ple will be powerful that is not rich, and there is now no other way of growing rich but by work.

In regard to production and labor, we have much to learn from Eng land, and it is a lesson which is to be learned by the eyes rather than by the ears, by observation better than by reading. If, then, there were a railroad between London and Paris, the French, who have now little knowledge of business, would go to London, where the instinct of method is in the blood, to learn. Our speculators would go to see how simply, promptly, and plainly great enter prises are carried on ; our shop-keepers and buyers have to learn from England that to overcharge and to haggle have no connexion with buying and selling advantageously ; our capitalists and merchants, that there can be no durable commercial prosperity nor security for capital, where there is no system of credit ; they would see the operations of the Bank of England with its branches and the private banks, and perhaps they might be incited to bring home, with the needful modification, institutions and practices so profitable at once to the share holders and to the public.