The United States of North America

Contents

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE . . . Page xi.

DEDICATORY PREFACE ... xvii.

Letter First. General View Of The Union

Introduction ; erroneous nbtiofts of travellers; New England States,—Massachusets, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Ver¬ mont, Maine, Rhode Inland; Central States,—New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland; Southern States,—Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky; Western States, —old and new countries, their comparative advantages for settlers; concluding remarks. . . . Page 1 to 23.

Letter Second. Origin And History Of Parties

Fundamental principles of the government; federalists and democrats; form of the government; first congress; senate and hodse of representatives, the president, their respective powers; presidents,—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madi¬ son, their characters; election for president, characters of the candidates, Adams, Jackson, Crawford, and Clay.

Letter Third. Description Of The New Settlements

What is meant by a territory; Indian traders, (white men); Indians; Squatters, their habits and characters; nature of the country; formation of the territorial government; sales

CONTENTS.

of public lands, preparatory proceedings, general bustle, the auction-day, a day of great interest, results of the sale; new residents; a post-office established ; increased facilities and comforts; new plantation; first court of justice, singular arrangements ; office of delegate, a country election, mode of conducting it, its humours and oddities; situation of the new planter; supplies from the north; lawyers, pettifoggers, jobbers, their manoeuvres; celebration of holidays, a bar¬ becue, a ball, the band; session of the legislature; the territory becomes u Slate; concluding remarks. . 45 to 79.

Letter Fourth. On Slavery

Erroneous notions on the subject; the question argued on the principle of natural right; purchasers at Guinea; necessity of having slaves in new countries; political advantages; advantages to the slave; character and treatment of the negroes; description of a plantation; treatment different in different places; laws concerning slavery; free negroes; difficulty of the question respecting them; societies in favor of emancipation, &c.; the colonization society; conclusion.

Letter Fifth. On Religion

Tranquillity of America contrasted with the general agitation in Europe; variety and number of religious sects in America; their harmony; rigid practices of the first settlers In New England ; unlimited toleration first established by Penn; ar¬ rangements respecting church and chapel property, and the payment of ministers; episcopalians; presbyterians; tenets of the methodists and baptists; description of a methodist camp meeting; equivocal tendency of these meetings; unitarianism extending in the United States; Dr. Channing; presbyterians, their character, tenets, zeal, and activity; educa¬ tion for the pulpit, mode of providing for numerous preachers; foreign missions; itineracy within the union; effects pro¬ duced by the preachers in the first instance, and subsequent reaction; societies, a female one to provide wives for the missionaries; names of others; great expense of the Ame¬ rican clergy, voluntary on the part of the people; splendour of their buildings for religious societies; religion, though

CONTENTS.

diffused, on the decline in the United States; unitarianism on the increase; Mr. It. Owen, the Harmonists, Miss Wright, their exertions and opinions; Mr. Owen’s incom¬ plete success in America; his public discussion with Mr. Campbell; his visit constitutes an epoch; silent spread of scepticism.Ill to 144.

Letter Sixth. On The Administration Of Justice

The author’s entrance into the profession of the law, its agree¬ ableness; general view of American law, its origin; the sovereignty of the people ; constitution of the United States,— of the separate States; treaties with foreign powers ; statute law; common law; different sorts of tribunals; the supreme court of the United States; inferior courts; jurisdictions of the several courts; different modes of proceeding; chancery and admiralty jurisdictions; district courts; circuit courts ; writs,—habeas corpus, mandamus, ciuo warranto; officers of the courts; the judge, the clerk, the sheriff; grand jury; petty jury; witnesses; proceedings in court in criminal cases; in civil cases; in equity cases; conclusion. .

Letter Seventh. Of The Laws

The common law preferable to codes, its greater susceptibility of improvement; oath-taking, present state of American law on the subject; alterations in the common law since the Norman conquest, consequent on the changes in property; uncertainty in the law more apparent than real, and not an evil if real; facilities in the United States of putting sup¬ posed improvements to the test; state of the criminal law; origin and explanation of the term “benefit of clergy;” punishment of death, the desirableness of its total abolition considered, transportation the best substitute; punishment of misdemeanors; libel law; libels against the government disregarded; private defamation; laws relative to real and personal property; divorce; recovery of debts; state of crimes; cheapness of justice; fondness for litigation; arbi¬ tration; respectability and talents of the American bar.

CONTENTS.

Tiii.

LETTER EIGHTH. OP THE ARMY, THE NAVi, AN© THE INDIANS

Visit of Lafayette, and enthusiasm of all classes on that occa¬ sion; formidable appearance of the militia; the regular army, its composition and government, how augmented in case of war and reduced in time of peace; military schools ; recruiting; repugnance of the people to the service; tyranny of the officers; General Bernard’s system- The militia; its composition; comparison between the militia of the towns and that of the west and south; description of a mounted rifleman; the author’s campaign with a small army of them against the Indians; volunteer companies; several descriptions of them, and of their modes of proceeding. The navy; ship-building; facility of producing a great number of ships; probable difficulty of finding sailors; no impressment; officers; privateers; merchant service; allusion to the wars in which America has been engaged; wars with the Indians; probability of the eventual extinction of the Indian race ; observations on the distinctions of race among mankind; inferiority of all to the European whites; speculations on the effects on colour and faculties produced by crossing the races; in what way the Indian race will at length disappear; lands allotted to the Indians called “ reserves;” complicated questions between the Creeks and the Cherokee Indians and the State of Georgia; the United States a party to it; inter¬ ference of the missionaries; Mr. Munroe’s plan to obviate the difficulty—colonization of the rocky mountains; serious objections to the plan; speculations on the future proceed¬ ings of the Indians, and of the government of Mexico; the bushmen and the Emperor Francis of Austria. 252 to 301.

Letter Ninth. Of The Finances

Comparative “cheapness” of the American and European governments; economy defined; sources of revenue in the United States,—the post-office, sale of public lands, fines and confiscations, dividends on shares in banks and public companies; United States bank; principles which ought to regulate different nations in their commercial policy, foreign and domestic; impolicy of the American system with regard to the tariff; revenue and expenses of the different States ; Philadelphia, extraordinary legacy left to it by Mr. Girard,

CONTENTS.

ix.

probable consequences on the prosperity of the city; expen¬ diture of the United States, payment of the national debt and interest thereon; different projects for the disposal of the surplus revenue consequent on the speedy extinction of the debt, difficulties attending all of them; want of capital in America; universal adoption of the credit system, every body speculates; supposed case of a New England carpenter; fluctuations of fortune common >n America; extension of the banking system, paper currency in circulation generally; protecting influence of the United States bank over the other banks; insurance companies; companies for other purposes; complaint of the unfair dealing of the Americans not warranted. 302 to 340.

Letter Tenth. Of Manners, Fine Arts, And Literature

Competition the main principle of American society; glance at the St. Simonian system, that of the Americans a contrast to it; periodical press, its general diffusion and inferiority; independent character of all classes in the United States; different circles of society; society at New York, at Phila¬ delphia, at Charleston, at Richmond, at New Orleans, at Washington; equality of condition in America, marriages, non-interference of the parents ; matchmaking at Washing¬ ton ; changes in the habits of life after marriage; Saratoga; courtesies to strangers; freedom of American society from the affectation of high acquaintance so general in England ; general rate of expenses of those who live in the best society; fine arts and literature, deficiency of encourage¬ ment, particularly of the former; elementary systems of education; architecture flourishes and is encouraged; music retarded by the straitness of manners; the corps de ballet at New York; consternation produced in the audience; pru¬ dery with regard to painting the human figure; unavoidable backwardness of the fine arts in the present state of manners; description of a public holiday; the Americans secure hap¬ piness in preference to pleasure ; the right medium not yet attained..341 to 372.

ERRATA.

Page 12, line 9, fir the ttate, reorf, an individual 13, —— 16, omit the word own

73,-13, for government, read government*

78, — 17, far factorle*, read forget, (utinet)

83, ——10, for every body, read some perron*, and fir term*, read term

85,- 3, fir right, read right*

94, — 3, for old age, read on the brink of 99, lut line, for let, read take 113, line 25, for were, read waa

138,-23, for cannot, read could not

158,-16, 17, for court, wig*, read court-wig*.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

In submitting the following Work to the British public, the Translator deems it unne¬ cessary to detain the reader by many prefatory remarks. The subject is one of acknowledged interest just now; and, therefore, information respecting it, which comes recommended by long experience, amidst diversified opportu¬ nities of observation, can hardly fail to be acceptable, particularly when, as in the pre¬ sent instance, those qualifications are further enhanced by considerable talent in the com¬ munication, and as much impartiality as is consistent with a just appreciation of what is excellent.

Our Reform Bill has opened the door to improvements in our social condition, but it comes to us so late that, in relation to its im¬ mediate consequences on the fortunes of many, lit must be considered as the seed rather than the crop; the means to an end, not the end itself; and that end even yet so distant that xil.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

they cannot wait for it. Accordingly, there is a restlessness among the middle portions of the community; and many eyes, familiar with dis¬ appointment here, are turned to distant regions, in search of an eligible spot to which they may transport themselves and families. To such, the United States, from affinity of institutions, manners, and early associations, have necessa¬ rily considerable attractions.

But there is another respect in which the United States is still more interesting to us as a people; and that is in the working of the machinery of their government. We are now looking at our institutions with a view to their amendment, and we are sensible of the advantages of comparison in the formation of a sound judgment. People do not trouble themselves, as they used to do, about the abstract preferableness of this or that form of government, but they inquire by what means the greatest happiness can be diffused among the greatest number of people at the least cost Few of them are any longer the dupes of that vaunted prosperity in which a nation may be called rich and flourishing, while the majority of individuals who compose it, with difficulty find the means of subsistence. Diffusion, not

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

xlli.

accumulation! is now regarded as the true test of prosperity! and a flushed head with paralytic extremities is, whether in the body politic or the individual! held to be symptomatic of dis¬ ease and dissolution, to what extent the in¬ stitutions of the tJnited States are deserving of imitation is an inquiry too extensive to be at present entered into; but as the country is now feeling the evil consequences of long-continued profusion in expenditure, we are not likely to increase our troubles by keeping their example before us, when our civil and pension lists come under discussion.

The author's opinions on some of the subjects discussed will not meet with universal assent, but he is entitled to hold and utter them, and truth cannot lose by investigation; moreover, the age is favourable to it. Let us glance at an instance or two.

The subject of Slavery is discussed in a Note at the end of the volume, and an op¬ posite view presented to that of the author, whose reasoning thereon, however ingenious, will be generally thought, in this country, to give a dangerous prominence to that law of the strongest which casuists have agreed to con¬ sider untenable, because destitute of support

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

xiv.

from moral considerations. Can that reasoning be sound to which the weak and defenceless cannot assent but to their injury ?

Religion, according to our author, is abun¬ dant in the United States, but not without a plentiful infusion of secular feelings. It is dif¬ ficult to say how much of the latter ought to be tolerated in our present state of existence; but, certainly, the American mode is of all modes the least exposed to censure,.since the expenses of any religion are wholly and volun¬ tarily paid by its members. Let us hope, too, that there is more sincerity of devotion than he supposes, and that an unattractive and distaste¬ ful form of speech is not necessarily indicative of hypocrisy.

The author describes Mr. Owen’s system as undisguised atheism. This assertion must surely have been hazarded on purely negative grounds. Mr. Owen, in his lectures, does indeed gene¬ rally confine himself to the concerns of this world, considering them to come most properly within his sphere of usefulness; but it seems not a necessary inference that he does not therefore believe in another. There are nume¬ rous examples everywhere of one world being on the lips, and the other in the thought.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

XT.

Law proceedings in the United States re¬ semble our own, and with little abatement of their cumbrousness and uncertainty; this, con¬ nected with the comparative cheapness of law there, tands to feed a spirit of litigation, which the author acknowledges and good-naturedly endeavours to extenuate.

After so much has been said, by Mrs. Trollope and others, in disparagement of the manners of the Americans, there is something humili¬ ating in'the acknowledgment, which never¬ theless must be made, that the Americans, as a people, are free from those meanest of* all idolatries, so continually obtruded upon us in England, the worship of wealth and title, apart from all worthier distinctions. There is a spot or two of the sort in America, but the general texture of society is free from it.

It is unnecessary to extend remark farther; the reader is referred to the author’s Dedication, a part of the work which ought not to be passed over, as it illustrates his general views, and the grounds upon which he entertains them.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

Since the publication of the first edition of the present work, the attention of the world has been re-directed to the United States by the ferment which the operation of the tariff occasioned there; and some politicians foreboded there¬ from a dissolution of the Union. We did not anticipate that result; but, even if it had taken place, the propriety of the original federation would have remained unimpugned, and equally so those social institutions upon which the prosperity of the Union has hitherto rested. Nothing, in short, would have been proved, but that an erroneous system of policy must always produce, eventually, discontent somewhere; and that no frame of government can secure per¬ manent tranquillity but by the avoidance of measures of a partial effect, and the observance of those strict principles of justice on which the happiness of States is no less dependent than that of individuals.

September, 1833.

DEDICATORY PREFACE

TO

COUNT THIBEAUDAU.

My dear friend,

It was at your suggestion that 1 began, about six years ago, to write the following Letters upon the United States, and it was to you that the first four were addressed: it is therefore with peculiar pro¬ priety that 1 dedicate the whole to the friend but for whom my work would never have seen the light. I trust you will receive the last six letters with the same indulgence as you did their precursors. An interval of nearly six years has elapsed between their composition; notwithstanding which, the in¬ tention of the work remains equally seasonable, that of making known in Europe, and particularly in France, the institutions of the United States, and the manners of the inhabitants.

Indeed, this task becomes every day more im¬ portant, for a form of government more or less similar to theirs is the point towards which Europe is gravitating, not only since our time, but since b

Kill. DEDICATORY PREFACE,

the revival of letters, and the first moment in which Greek and Roman civilization began to penetrate the dark clouds of barbarism. The white race, to which you and 1 belong, is eminently perfectible; that even is its distinction among other sorts of men. This race had attained, without foreign as¬ sistance, to a very high degree of civilization (from which, even in some respects, we are still very distant), when the barbarians of the North, who fell upon it, came to slacken its progress, and throw it back in its intellectual career. As a frozen liquid added to a quantity already in a state of ebullition stops that effect immediately, and is warmed itself in the same proportion as the boiling liquor with which it is mixed is cooled; in like manner the barbarians, at the very time they were apparently destroying Roman civilization, were profiting by it, and were themselves gaining in light what they made the-conquered people lose. The march of the human mind, therefore, did not stop; neither did it retrograde, but all its vital forces were employed in counteracting the effects of the invasion of the barbarians, and in harmonizing and combining the new materials, which had thrown the established economy into disorder.

Centuries were necessary to this labour, but it was at last accomplished. The sciences were im¬ mediately carried back, by the study of their books, to the point at which the ancients had left them; and the improvements we have made upon them are too evident; to need more than an allusion.

DEDICATORY PREFACE. xlx.

It was not, however, the same with political institutions. They had been completely under¬ mined long since, and the very traditions of liberty were lost under the feudal slavery. The interest of two powerful classes, the nobility and the clergy, resisted every attempt at amelioration. Barbarism was obliged, however, in the end, to yield to the progressive march of light, aad to the ardent desire for intellectual emancipation which it created: it was then that governmental matter became divided. The devil’s plan was adopted. Mixed systems were introduced. The payment of kings was continued, but on condition that they should do nothing. The barons were even willing to listen to the humble representations of the Commons. The latter, how¬ ever, became from day to day more powerful, and we are now arrived at the time in which they are every thing, and the barons nothing but fossil re¬ mains of past ages, still considered as necessary parts of those worn-out and antiquated pieces of mechanism, called ‘constitutional monarchies’ by the liberals, and * state governments’ by the kings of the Holy Alliance when they promised them to their subjects.

All these old mechanisms have been acknowledged defective, and an excellent workman is at this moment occupied in patching up the oldest, and that which has served as a model for all the others. They are only good at most as governments of transition, to prepare a future generation for thfe enjoyment of a system unknown to its ancestors.

XX. DEDICATORY PREFACE.

But you well know that the best machines are always the most simple, and of the latest inven¬ tion. It is to suppress the useless wheel-work that the greatest improvements in mechanism are limited. The same thing must take place in the moral order. But the cogs of the wheels must be altered, those which are superfluous quietly removed, and above all, the whole well greased, to prevent it from creaking, and that it may not break all at once. This reparation when completed may be an improvement; it is, however, better to build after a plan than to replaster an old tenement; and the general destruction effected in the last forty years has certainly made us leap far above those periods of transition which might have absorbed perhaps many generations.

People desired, and now desire, a rational govern¬ ment. The questions to be asked are, Has it been obtained ? Have they not got into the old track ? Have they not destroyed one species of tyranny only to establish another? Has liberty gained by the change? The happiness of the people as a body (for that is really the vital question) has it been increased? These questions do not apply to the revolution of 1830; for the answer would be too easy, it would be forcing an open door; but they regard the first great leap of 89, «and all the governments which have ruled us since thht time. I am far from denying that a gr^at progress has been made; but have not the people a right, considering the price that has been

DEDICATORY PREFACE. »i.

paid for it, to ask whether it ought not to have been greater? People have lost themselves in search of a theoretical liberty, while they have altogether ne¬ glected that practical liberty which is of main im¬ portance. The United States alone have obtained the latter.

You will immediately ask me if 1 think the con¬ stitution of the United States the best possible, and if I think it applicable to France, or any part of Europe ? This question has been asked me a thousand times: I do not answer it, at least at present, for it is not that which is of immediate concern. It is not so much the constitution and laws of the United States that 1 admire and love, as the reason why the United States have this con¬ stitution, and these laws. It is the principle of the government. You ask me if it is the republic ? Not so; the republic is but a consequence more or less necessary of the principle in question.

This principle, from which so much good has emanated, and which is destined to govern the world, is what is called in America “ Self-government,”— Government by the people themselves. Pro¬ vided the people govern, I am satisfied. Of little consequence is the form of the machine and who turn the wheels, provided it be so constructed as to receive and obey the least breath of public opinion, that it be then strong and irresistible, but, powerless to disobey or resist it.

That is, in my opinion, the great problem which has been resolved in so satisfactory a manner nil. DEDICATORY PREFACE,

in America. Do people concern themselves much about it in Europe ? Public opinion, it is true, was once consulted, and consented to give itself a master. A second time it pronounced in favour of the same man; in a non-official manner, truly, but not on that account the less energetically. But, with this exception, when has the nation manifested a will ? There have been twenty changes of govern¬ ment during the last forty years, but (without speaking of those which have been imposed by the foreigner) they have always been effected by a mi¬ nority. For even supposing Paris unanimous, the provinces have never been consulted.

I think l know my own affairs best; and more¬ over that, even if I deceive myself, it is my own affair, and nobody has a right to thwart me. I think I have a right to prevent any one from coming to teach me magisterially what is my best interest, and force me despotically to submit my judgment to that of another. I think, also, that the general interest is the result of all the par¬ ticular interests, and that the government should, in like manner, be the result of all the individual wills.

But in Europe it is not so. There is too much desire to govern. Every thing becomes matter of government, as well as matter of taxation. What does it signify whether it be the republic or the Bourbons, who cause me to be watched by the high police, who open my letters, exercise a censor¬ ship over my newspapers, and require me to pro¬ cure a passport when I desire to avail myself of

DEDICATORY PREFACE. xxtii.

my natural right of locomotion ? What have I gained by the republic, if it is as tyrannical, as dear, as suspicious, as the monarchy ? What im¬ ports it whether the nobility be old or new, as long as there is a nobility ? What interest have 1 in personal changes of the government, when my voice will have as little influence with the new comers as with the previous depositories of power; when I shall remain either deprived of my vote, or have it neutralized by other votes bought or inti¬ midated ? It was against all these things I wished to see a revolution made. It will be time enough afterwards to trouble one's self about and discuss calmly the form of the government. That is only of secondary importance.

There was a time, immediately after the revo¬ lution of July, that I thought the thing was done. Lafayette understands republican institutions, as I do, in the American manner. He had proclaimed their existence; he had announced the commence¬ ment of the best of republics. I thought that all political police was goiug to be destroyed; that all constraint on the liberty of locomotion was going to be suppressed; that the election of their repre¬ sentatives was henceforth to be given to the people themselves, and not to electors comprising the aristocracy of citizens; that an elective senate was about to replace a chamber of peers; that the initiative of the chambers was to become in future the ordinary mode of presenting laws; that the right of petition would cease to be a word without xxir.

DEDICATORY PREFACE.

meaning; that ministerial responsibility was to be at last established, as well as that of all inferior persons in office; that all accumulation of places would be strictly interdicted; that trade would be rendered free by the abolition of monopolies and restrictions, which arrest it at every step in passing from one commune to another; that a system of duties would be adopted, which should protect industry without forcing it into unnatural channels; that a budget would be presented defining all the expenditure in a specific manner; that sinecures would be abolished, and useless expenses suppressed; that the discussions of political matters in the tri¬ bunals would cease to be subjected to influence; that grand juries (jurys d'accusation) would be established; that every accused person would be admitted to bail, except in capital cases; that means analogous to writs of habeas corpus , man - damuSy and quo warranto , would be invented to protect the liberty of the subject, to insure the execution of the laws, and to prevent the encroach¬ ments of power; that the communes, the towns, and even the departments, would be free from la centralization , would cease to be in tutelage to the capital; that they would have the election of their magistrates, the disposal of their revenue, and the right of assessing themselves, provided that pri¬ vilege did not cramp the internal trade; that the will of the people governed would at last be esta¬ blished every where, instead of the good pleasure of the governors. I thought sincerely that in foreign

XXV.

DEDICATORY PREFACE, affairs a system worthy of France would be adopted; that it would not be mixed up in any confederacy of kings; that it would not tie its hands by any abstract doctrine of intervention or non-intervention, but that in that respect it would follow its interest and its glory.. 1 was deceived, .all Europe was so too, for it flew to arms.

Full of these soft illusions, burning to see the place of my birth, to embrace old friends and a beloved family, whom I had (in my delirium) invited to meet me in Paris, I leave my plantation and my studies, and set off, believing that the cause of liberty was sure to be attacked, and sure also that a defender more would not be refused, that it would not be against me that the ranks of the French army would be closed. I hasten, but it takes me near three months to come from my home to Europe.My God! what is my dis¬

appointment ! . . . . And is it to arrive at such fine results as these, that the whole world has been shaken to its foundations ? We have certainly ad¬ vanced some steps in the career of liberty, but alas, how few! .... It would certainly be‘better to postpone these alterations to the day in which the accounts will be definitively arranged between liberty and despotism, and which cannot be long deferred, than to sacrifice the lives of so many brave patriots for nothing, or next to nothing. . . . In short, the entrance into France continued to be interdicted to me as under the government by divine right. In the meantime war was going to xxrl. DEDICATORY PREFACE,

commence. The French army was in motion, but its ranks were closed to me. What waB to be done ? A neighbouring nation had conquered its liberty even more completely than France had known how to conquer hers. It was to support its liberty that France was advancing. On the other hand, the Dutch seemed to rely upon the assistance of Prussia. Even the position which the French army took showed that its leader ex¬ pected a general war, for he manoeuvred so as to take the line of the Meuse against the Prussians, leaving the Belgians and the Dutch to manage between them. A general war, a real duel, hand to hand, between revolution and counter-revo¬ lution, was about to ensue, and I should have taken no part in it! If the French army was closed against me, that of its allies was not. I arrived among them, asked and obtained service. A prince, not one of those who are afraid of their shadow; a prince who understands liberty better than any of the journals of the movement ;it Paris, or the Tory journals of London who rail against it every day, held out his hand to the exile, and received him in such a manner as to command his gratitude. It is secured to him. The storm passed off, however, in frowns. I, therefore, gave up the command I had received, ready to take it again on the first report of war (for I did not reckon upon serving during peace), but not without having been harassed by the representatives of the despotic powers. This is all right: I do not complain of it;