Diary in America, Series Two

Volume Two—Chapter Ten

The Americans, and with justice, hold up Washington as one of the first of men; if so, why will they not pay attention to his opinions? because the first of men must not interfere with their prejudices, or, if he does, he immediately in their eyes becomes the last. Nevertheless, Washington proved his ability when he made the following observation, in his letter to Chief Justice Jay, dated 10th of March, 1787; even at that early period he perceived that the institutions of America, although at the time much less democratical than at present, would not stand. Hear the words of Washington, for they were a prophecy:—

“Among men of reflection, few will be found, I believe, who are not beginning to think that our system is better in theory than in practice and that, notwithstanding the boasted virtue of America, it is more than probable that we shall exhibit the last melancholy proof, that mankind are incompetent to their own government without the means of coercion in the sovereign.”

Now, if you were to put this extract into the hands of an American, his admiration of Washington would immediately fall down below zero, and in all probability he would say, as they do of poor Captain Lawrence—“Why, sir, Washington was a great man, but great men have their failings. I guess he wrote that letter after dinner.”

But Washington has been supported in this opinion by a modern American patriot, Dr Charming, who, asserting that, “Our institutions have disappointed us all,” has pointed out the real effects of democracy upon the morals of the nation; and there are many other good and honest men in America who will occasionally tell the truth, although they seldom venture to put their names to what they write. In a manifesto, published when I was in the States, the following bitter pills for the democrats were inserted. Speaking of dependence on the virtue and intelligence of the people, the manifesto says:—

“A form of government which has no better corrective of public disorders than this, is a burlesque on the reason and intelligence of men; it is as incompatible with wisdom as it is with public prosperity and happiness.

“The people are, by principle and the Constitution, guarded against the tyranny of kings, but not against their own passions, and ignorance, and delusions.”

The necessity of relying on some other power than the people is therefore enforced:

“Such facts have induced nations to abandon the practice of electing their chief magistrate; preferring to receive that officer by hereditary succession. Men have found that the chances of having a good chief magistrate by birth, are about equal to the chances of obtaining one by popular election. And, boast as we will, that the superior intelligence of our citizens may render this government an exception, time will show that this is a mistake. No nation can be an exception, till the Almighty shall change the whole character of man.

“It is a solemn truth, that when executive officers are dependent for their offices on annual or frequent elections, there will be no impartial or efficient administration of the laws.

“It is in vain that men attempt to disguise the truth; the fact, beyond all debate, is that the disorders in our political affairs are the genuine and natural consequences of defects in the Constitution, and of the false and visionary opinions which Mr Jefferson and his disciples have been proclaiming for forty years.

“The mass of the people seem not to consider that the affairs of a great commercial nation require for their correct management talents of the first order.

“Of all this, the mass of our population appear to know little or nothing.

“The mass of the people, seduced and disciplined by their leaders, are still farther deceived, by being taught that our public disorders are to be ascribed to other causes than the ignorance and perversity of their party.

“And yet our citizens are constantly boasting of the intelligence of the people! Intelligence! The history of nations cannot present an example of such total want of intelligence as our country now exhibit: and what is more, a want of integrity is equally surprising.”

This is strong language to use in a republic, but let us examine a little.

The great desideratum to be attended to in the formation of a government is to guard against man preying upon his fellow-creature. Call a government by any name you will, prescribe what forms you may, the one great point to be adhered to, is such a code of laws as will put it out of the power of any one individual, or any one party, from oppressing another. The despot may trifle with the lives of his people; an aristocracy may crush the poorer classes into a state of bondage, and the poorer classes being invariably the most numerous, may resort to their physical force to control those who are wealthy, and despoil them of their possessions. Correctly speaking, the struggle is between the plebeian and the patrician, the poor and the rich, and it is therefore that a third power has, by long experience, been considered as necessary (an apex, or head to the pyramid of society), to prevent and check the disorders which may arise from struggles of ambition among the upper classes.

Wherever this apex has been wanting, there has been a continual attempt to possess it; whenever it has been elective, troubles have invariably ensued; experience has, therefore, shewn that, for the benefit of all classes, and the maintenance of order, the wisest plan was to make it hereditary. It is not to be denied that despotism, when it falls into good hands, has rendered a nation flourishing and happy, that an oligarchy has occasionally, but more rarely, governed with mildness and a regard to justice; but there never yet was a case of a people having seized upon the power, but the result has been one of rapacity and violence, until a master-spirit has sprung up and controlled them by despotic rule. But, although one despot, or one oligarchy may govern well, they are exceptions to the general rule; and, therefore, in framing a government, the rule by which you must be guided, is on the supposition that each class will encroach, and the laws must be so constituted as to guard against the vices and passions of mankind.

To suppose that a people can govern themselves, that is to say directly, is absurd. History has disproved it. They may govern themselves indirectly, by selecting from the mass the more enlightened and intelligent, binding themselves to adhere to their decisions, and, at the same time, putting that due and necessary check to the power invested in their delegates, which shall prevent their making an improper use of it. The great point to arrive at, is the exact measure and weight of their controlling influences, so as to arrive at the just equipoise; nor can these proportions be always the same, but must be continually added to or reduced, according to the invariable progressions or recessions which must ever take place in this world, where nothing stands still.

The history of nations will shew, that although the just balance has often been lost, that if either the aristocracy or the ruling power gained any advantage, the evil, if too oppressive, was capable of being corrected; but any advance gained by the democratic party, has never been retraced, and that it has been by the preponderance of power being thrown into its hands that nations have fallen. Of all the attempts at republics, that of the Spartan, perhaps, is the most worthy of examination, as Lycurgus went to work radically, and his laws were such as to obtain that equality so much extolled. How far the term republic was applicable to the Spartan form of government I will not pretend to say, but when Lycurgus was called upon to re-construct its legislation, his first act was to make the necessary third power, and he appointed a senate.

But Lycurgus was wise enough to perceive that he must amend the morals of his countrymen, and that to preserve an equality of condition he must take away all incentives to ambition, or to the acquisition of wealth. He first divided the lands into equal portions, compelled all classes, from the kings downwards, to eat at the same table, brought up all the children in the same hardy manner, and obliged every citizen after a certain age to carry arms. But more sacrifices were necessary; Lycurgus well knew:

To guard against the contagion of corruption, he prohibited navigation and commerce; he permitted no intercourse with foreigners; he abolished the gold and silver coin as current money, that every stimulus to any one individual to exalt himself above his neighbour should be removed. If ever there was a system calculated to produce equality, it was that planned by the wisdom of Lycurgus; but I doubt if the Americans would like to follow in his footsteps.

What occasioned the breaking up and the downfall of this republic? An increase of power given to the democratic party, by the creation out of their ranks of the magistrates, termed Ephori, which threw an undue weight and preponderance into the hands of the people. By this breach in the constitution, faction and corruption were let in and fomented. Plutarch, indeed, denies this, but both Polybius and Aristotle are of a different opinion; the latter says, that the power of the Ephori was so great as to amount to a perfect tyranny; the kings themselves were necessitated to court their favour by such methods as greatly to hurt the constitution, which from an aristocracy degenerated into an absolute democracy. Solon was called in to re-model the constitution of the Athenian republic. He had a more difficult task than Lycurgus, and did not so well succeed. He left too much power in the hands of the democracy, the decisions of the superior courts being liable to appeal, and to be rescinded by the mass of the people. Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, when he heard some points first debated in the Senate, and afterwards debated in the Assembly of the people, very properly observed, that at Athens “Wise men debated, but fools decided.” The whole history of the Athenian republic is, therefore, one of outrageous bribery and corruption among the higher class; tyranny, despotism, and injustice on the part of the lower, or majority.

The downfall of the Roman empire may equally be traced to the undue weight obtained by the people by the appointment of the tribunes, and so it will be proved in almost every instance: the reason why the excess of power is more destructive when in the hands of the people is, that either they, by retaining the power in their own hands, exercise a demoralising despotism, or if they have become sufficient venal, they sell themselves to be tyrannised over in their turn.

I have made these remarks, because I wish to corroborate my opinion, that, “power once gained by the people is never to be recovered, except by bribery and corruption,” and that until then, every grant is only the forerunner of an extension; and that although the undue balance of power of the higher classes occasionally may be, that in the hands of the people is invariably attended by the downfall of the institution.

At the same time, I do not intend to deny the right of the people to claim an extension of their privileges, in proportion as they rise by education to the right of governing themselves; unfortunately these privileges have been given, or taken, previous to their being qualified. A republic is certainly, in theory, the most just form of government, but, up to the present day, history has proved that no people have yet been prepared to receive it.

That there is something very imposing in the present rapid advance of the United States, I grant, but this grandeur is not ascribed by the Americans to its true source: it is the magnificent and extended country, not their government and institutions, which has been the cause of their prosperity. The Americans think otherwise, and, as I have before observed, they are happy in their own delusions—they do not make a distinction between what they have gained by their country, and what they have gained by their institutions. Everything is on a vast and magnificent scale, which at first startles you; but if you examine closely and reflect, you are convinced that there is at present more show than substance, and that the Americans are actually existing (and until they have sufficient labourers to sow and reap, and gather up the riches of their land, must continue to exist) upon the credit and capital of England.

The American republic was commenced very differently from any other, and with what were real advantages, if she had not been too ambitious and too precipitate in seizing upon them. A republic has generally been considered the most primitive form of rule; it is, on the contrary, the very last pitch of refinement in government, and the cause of its failure up to the present has been, that no people have as yet been sufficiently enlightened to govern themselves. Republics, generally speaking, have at their commencement been confined to small portions of territory having been formed by the extension of townships after the inhabitants had become wealthy and ambitious. In America, on the contrary, the republic commenced with unbounded territory—a vast field for ambition and enterprise, that has acted as a safety-valve to carry off the excess of disappointed ambition, which, like steam, is continually generating under such a form of government. And, certainly, if ever a people were in a situation, as far as education, knowledge, precepts and lessons for guidance and purity of manners could enable them, to govern themselves, those were so who first established the American independence.

Fifty years have passed away, and the present state of America I have already shown. From purity of manners, her moral code has sunk below that of most other nations. She has attempted to govern herself—she is dictated to by the worst of tyrannies. She has planted the tree of liberty; instead of its flourishing, she has neither freedom of speech nor of action. She has railed against the vices of monarchical forms of government, and every vice against which she has raised up her voice, is still more prevalent under her own. She has cried out against corruption—she is still more corrupt: against bribery—her people are to be bought and sold: against tyranny—she is in fetters. She has proved to the world that, with every advantage on her side, the attempt at a republic has been a miserable failure, and that the time is not yet come when mankind can govern themselves. Will it ever come? In my opinion, never!

Although the horizon may be clear at present, yet I consider that the prospect of the United States is anything but cheering. It is true that for a time the States may hold together, that they may each year rapidly increase in prosperity and power, but each year will also add to their demoralisation and to their danger. It is impossible to say from what quarter of the compass the clouds may first rise, or which of the several dangers that threaten them they will have first to meet and to oppose by their energies. At present, the people, or majority, have an undue power, which will yearly increase, and their despotism will be more severe in proportion. If they sell their birthright (which they will not do until the population is much increased, and the higher classes are sufficiently wealthy to purchase, although their freedom will be lost) they will have a better chance of happiness and social order. But a protracted war would be the most fatal to their institutions, as it would, in all probability, end in the dismemberment of the Union, and the wresting of their power from the people by the bayonets of a dictator.

The removal of the power and population to the West, the rapid increase of the coloured population, are other causes of alarm and dread; but, allowing that all these dangers are steered clear of, there is one (a more remote one indeed, but more certain), from which it has no escape—that is, the period when, from the increase of population, the division shall take place between the poor and the rich, which no law against entail will ever prevent, and which must be fatal to a democracy.

Mr Sanderson, in his “Sketches of Paris,” observes—“If we can retain our democracy when our back woodlands are filled up; when New York and Philadelphia have become a London and Paris; when the land shall be covered with its multitudes, struggling for a scanty living, or with passions excited by luxurious habits and appetites. If we can then maintain our universal suffrage and our liberty, it will be fair and reasonable enough in us to set ourselves up for the imitation of others. Liberty, as far as we yet know her, is not fitted to the condition of these populous and luxurious countries. Her household gods are of clay, and her dwelling where the icy gales of Alleghany sing through the crevices of her hut.”

I have observed, in my introduction to the first three volumes of this work, that our virtues and our vices are mainly to be traced to the form of government, climate, and circumstances, and I think I can show that the vices of the Americans are chiefly to be attributed to their present form of government.

The example of the Executive is most injurious. It is insatiable in its ambition, regardless of its faith, corrupt in the highest degree; never legislating for morality, but always for expediency. This is the first cause of the low standard of morals; the second is the want of an aristocracy, to set an example and give the tone to society. These are followed by the errors incident to the voluntary system of religion, and a democratical education. To these must be superadded the want of moral courage, arising from the dread of public opinion, and the natural tendency of a democratic form of government to excite the spirit of gain, as the main-spring of action, and the summum bonum of existence.

Dr Channing observes—“Our present civilisation is characterised and tainted by a devouring greediness of wealth; and a cause which asserts right against wealth, must stir up bitter opposition, especially in cities where this divinity is most adored.” “The passion for gain is every where sapping pure and generous feeling, and every where raises up bitter foes against any reform which may threaten to turn aside a stream of wealth. I sometimes feel as if a great social revolution were necessary to break up our present mercenary civilisation, in order that Christianity, now repelled by the almost universal worldliness, may come into new contact with the soul, and may reconstruct society after its own pure and disinterested principles.” Channing’s Letter to Birney, 1837.

All the above evils may be traced to the nature of their institutions; and I hold it as an axiom, that the chief end of government is the happiness, social order, and morality of the people; that no government, however perfect in theory, can be good which in practice demoralises those who are subjected to it. Never was there a nation which commenced with brighter prospects; the experiment has been made and it has failed; this is not their fault. They still retain all the qualities to constitute a great nation, and a great nation, or assemblage of nations, they will eventually become. At present, all is hidden in a futurity much too deep for any human eye to penetrate; they progress fast in wealth and power, and as their weight increases, so will their speed be accelerated, until their own rapid motion will occasion them to split into fragments, each fragment sufficiently large to compose a nation of itself. What may be the eventual result of this convulsion, what may be the destruction, the loss of life, the chaotic scenes of strife and contention, before the portions may again be restored to order under new institutions, it is as impossible to foresee as it is to decide upon the period at which it may take place; but one thing is certain, that come it will, and that every hour of increase of greatness and prosperity only adds to the more rapid approach of the danger, and to the important lesson which the world will receive.

I have not written this book for the Americans; they have hardly entered my thoughts during the whole time that I have been employed upon it, and I am perfectly indifferent either to their censure or their praise. I went over to America well-inclined towards the people, and anxious to ascertain the truth among so many conflicting opinions. I did expect to find them a people more virtuous and moral than our own, but I confess on other points I had formed no opinions; the results of my observations I have now laid before the English public, for whom only they have been written down. Within these last few years, that is, since the passing of the Reform Bill, we have made rapid strides towards democracy, and the cry of the multitude is still for more power, which our present rulers appear but too willing to give them. I consider that the people of England have already as much power as is consistent with their happiness and with true liberty, and that any increase of privilege would be detrimental to both. My object in writing these pages is, to point out the effects of a democracy upon the morals, the happiness, and the due apportionment of liberty to all classes; to shew that if, in the balance of rights and privileges, the scale should turn on one side or the other, as it invariably must in this world, how much safer it is, how much more equitable I may add, it is that it should preponderate in favour of the intelligent and enlightened portion of the nation. I wish that the contents of these pages may render those who are led away by generous feelings and abstract ideas of right, to pause before they consent to grant to those below them what may appear to be a boon, but will in reality prove a source of misery and danger to all parties—that they may confirm the opinions of those who are wavering, and support those who have true ideas as to the nature of government. If I have succeeded in the most trifling degree in effecting these ends, which I consider vitally important to the future welfare of this country—if I have any way assisted the cause of Conservatism—I am content, and shall consider that my time and labour have not been thrown away.

Volume Two—Chapter Eleven

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

1. All legislative powers herein granted, shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

I. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three; Massachusetts eight; Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one; Connecticut five; New York six; New Jersey four; Pennsylvania eight; Delaware one; Maryland six; Virginia ten; North Carolina five; South Carolina five; and Georgia three.