festation of this puerile spirit, if sometimes, it al
ways, issues in results which are no trifle ; always,
because the spirit of jealousy is a deadly curse to
him who is possessed by it, whether it be founded
on fact, or no. It cannot co-exist with a generous
patriotism, one essential requisite of which is an
enlarged faith in fellow-citizens. All republicans
are patriotic, more or less frequently and loftily.
If every American will look into himself at the mo
ment he is glowing with patriotism, he will find his
sectional prejudices melted away and gone, for the
season. The Americans feel this in their travels
abroad, when their country is attacked. They yearn
towards the remotest dwellers in their country as if
they were the nearest and dearest. Would they
could always feel thus at home, and in the absence
of provocation !

The most mortifying instance that I witnessed of
this sectional prejudice was at Cincinnati. It was



SECTIONAI PREJUDICE. 139

the most mortifying, on two accounts ; because it
did not give way before intercourse ; and because its
conseauences are likely to be very serious to the city,
and, if it spreads, to the whole west. One may laugh
at the untravelled citizen of the south who declares
that he knows the New Englanders very well. " How
should you know the New Englanders ?" " O, they
drive about in our parts sometimes :" " they"
meaning the Yankee pedlars with wooden clocks for
sale. One may laugh at the simple youth on board a
steam-boat on Lake Erie, who warned me not to
believe anything the Huron people might tell me
against the Sandusky people, because he could tell
me beforehand that it was all false, and that the San-
dusky people are far better than the Huron people.
One may laugh at the contemptuous amazement of^
the Boston lady at my declaration that I liked Cin-
cinnati; that wild western place, where she believed
people did not sit down to dinner like Christians,
All mistakes of this kind, it is clear, might be rec
tified by a little travelling. But it is a serious
matter to see the travelled gentlemen, the profes
sional men of such a place as Cincinnati, setting up
their sectional prejudices in one another s way.

Cincinnati is a glorious place. Few things can
be conceived finer than the situation of this magni
ficent city, and the beauty by which she is sur
rounded. She is enthroned upon a high platform,
one of the rich bottoms occurring on the Ohio,
which expand the traveller s notions of what ferti
lity is. Behind her are hills, opening and closing,
receding and advancing ; here glowing with the
richest green pasturage, and there crested and rib
bed by beeches which seem transplanted from some
giant land. Wherever we went among these hills,
we found them rounding away from us in some new
form of beauty ; in steep grassy slopes, with a run
ning stream at the bottom ; in shadowy precipices,



140 SECTIONAL PREJUDICE.

bristling with trees ; in quiet recesses, pierced by
sunset lights, shining in among the beechen stems,
which spring, unencumbered by undergrowth, from
the rich elastic turf. These hill-sides reminded me
of the Castle of Indolence, of the quiet paths of
Eden, of the shades that Una trod, of Windsor
Forest, of all that my memory carried about un
dulating wood-lands : but nothing would do ; no
description that I am acquainted with is rich enough
to answer to what I saw on the Ohio, its slopes,
and clumps, and groves. At the foot of these hills
runs the river, broad and full, busy with the com
merce of the wide West. A dozen steam-boats lie
abreast at the wharf, and many more are constantly
passing ; some stealing along, unheard so far off,
under the opposite bank; others puffing and plough
ing along the middle of the stream. Fine, level
turnpike-roads branch off from the city among the
hills, which open so as to allow a free circulation of
air over the entire platform. Cincinnati is the most
healthy large city in the United States. The streets
are wide ; and the terraces afford fijie situations for
houses. The furnishing of the dwellings is as
magnificent as the owners may choose to make it ;
for commerce with the whole world is carried on
from their port. Their vineyards, their conserva
tories, their fruit and flower gardens delight the eye
in the gorgeous month of June. They have a na
tive artist of great genius who has adorned the
walls of their houses with, perhaps, the best pic
tures I saw in the country. I saw their streets
filled with their thousands of free-school children.
" These,"" said a lady to me, " are our populace.""
I thought it a populace worthy of such a city.
There is no need to speak of its long ranges of
furnaces, of its shipping, of its incredible commerce
in pork, of its wealth and prospects. Suffice it
that one of its most respected inhabitants tells that



SECTIONAL PREJUDICE. 141

when he landed in Ohio, less than fifty years ago,
it contained fewer than a hundred whites; and buf
falo lodged in a cane brake where the city now
stands ; while the State at present contains upwards
of a million of inhabitants, the city between thirty
and forty thousand ; and Cincinnati has four daily,
and five or six weekly, newspapers, besides a variety
of other periodicals.

The most remarkable circumstance, and the most
favourable, with regard to the peopling of Cincin
nati is, that its population contains contributions of
almost every element that goes to constitute so
ciety ; and each in its utmost vigour. There are
here few of the arbitrary associations which exist
among the members of other societies. Young
men come with their wives, in all directions, from
afar ; with no parents, cousins, sects, or parties
about them. Here is an assemblage from almost
every nation under heaven, a contribution from
the resources of almost every country ; and all un
burdened, and ready for natural association and
vigorous action. Like takes to like, and friend
ships are formed from congeniality, and not from
accident or worldly design. Yet is there a temper
ing of prejudices, a mutual enlightenment, from
previous differences of education and habits, dif
ference even of country and language. Great force
is thus given to any principle carried out into
action by the common convictions of differing per
sons ; and life is deep and rapid in its course. Such
is the theory of society in Cincinnati ; and such is,
in some degree, its practice. But here it is that
sectional prejudice interferes, to setup arbitrary asso
ciations where, of all places, they should be shunned.

The adventurers who barbarize society in new
places, have gone westward ; and, of the full popu
lation that remains, above one-fifth are Germans.
Their function seems to be, everywhere in the



14*2 SECTIONAL PREJUDICE*

United States, to develope the material resources
of the infant places in which they settle; and the
intellectual ones at a more advanced stage. They
are the farmers and market-gardeners here. There
are many English, especially among the artizans. I
saw two handsome white houses, on the side of a
hill above the river, with rich ground lots, and ex
tensive garden walls. These are the property of
two English artizans, brothers, who emigrated a
very few years ago. An Englishman, servant to a
physician in Cincinnati in 1818, turned pork-
butcher; was worth 10,000 dollars when I was there,
and is rapidly growing rich. There are many New
Englanders among the clergy, lawyers, and mer
chants; and this is the portion of society that will not
freely mix with the westerners. It is no wonder if the
earliest settlers of the place, westerners, are proud of
it, and are careful to cherish its primitive emblems
and customs. The New Englanders should not take
this as an affront to themselves.V^It is also natural
enough that the New Englanders should think and
speak alike, and be fond of acting together ; and
the westerners should not complain of their being
clannish.tr I was at a delightful party at the house
of one of the oldest inhabitants, where a sprig of
the distinctive buck-eye was hung up in the hall,
and a buck-eye bowl of lemonade stood on the table.
This was peevishly commented upon by some of
eastern derivation : but I thought it would have
been wiser to adopt the emblem than to find fault
with it. Cincinnati has not gone to the eastern
people : the eastern people have gone to her. If
they have adopted her for their city, they may as
well adopt her emblems too, and make themselves
westerners at heart, as well as in presence. These
discontents may appear trifling ; but they are not
so while they impede the furtherance of great ob
jects. I was told on the spot that they would be



SECTIONAL PREJUDICE. 143

very transient ; but I fear it is not so. And yet
they would be very transient if the spirited and
choice inhabitants of that magnificent city could see
their position as it is viewed by people at a dis
tance. When I was one day expressing my admi
ration, and saying that it was a place for people of
ambition, worldly or philanthropic, to live in, one
of its noblest citizens said, " Yes, we have a new
creation going on here ; won t you come and dabble
in the mud ?" If they will but remember that it is
a new creation that is going on, and not a fortuit
ous concourse of atoms ; that the human will is, or
may be, the presiding intelligence ; that centuries
hence, their posterity will either bless their me
mories with homage like that which is paid to the
Pilgrim Fathers, or suffer the retribution which fol
lows the indulgence of human passions, all petty
jealousies will surely subside, in the prospect which
lies before every good man. In a place like Cincin
nati, whore every man may gratify his virtuous will,
and do, with his own hands, the deeds of a genera
tion, feelings should be as grand as the occasion.
If the merchants of Genoa were princes, the citizens
of Cincinnati, as of every first city of a new region,
are princes and prophets at once. They can fore
see the future, if they please ; and shape it, if they
will : and petty personal regards are unworthy of
such a destiny. It is melancholy to see how the
crusading chiefs quarrelled for precedence on the
soil of the Holy Land : it would be more so to see
the leaders of this new enterprise desecrating their
higher mission by a like contention.



144 CITIZENSHIP OF

SECTION VI.

CITIZENSHIP OF PEOPLE OF COLOUR:

Before I entered New England, while I was as
cending the Mississippi, I was told by a Boston
/ gentleman that the people of colour in the New
England States were perfectly well-treated; that
the children were educated in schools provided for
them ; and that their fathers freely exercised the
franchise. This gentleman certainly believed he
was telling me the truth. That he, a busy citizen
of Boston, should know no better, is now as strik
ing an exemplification of the state of the case to
me as a correct representation of the facts would
have been, v There are two causes for his mistake.
He was not aware that the schools for the coloured
r children in New England are, unless they escape
\ by their insignificance, shut up, or pulled down, or
\ the school-house wheeled away upon rollers over
) the frontier of a pious State, which will not endure
< that its coloured citizens should be educated. He
) was not aware of a gentleman of colour, and his
j family, being locked out of their own hired pew in
i a church, because their white brethren will not
worship by their side. But I will not proceed with
an enumeration of injuries, too familiar to Ameri
cans to excite any feeling but that of weariness ;
and too disgusting to all others to be endured.
The other cause of this gentleman"^ mistake was,
that he did not, from long custom, feel some things
to be injuries, which he would call anything but
good treatment, if he had to bear them himself.
Would he think it good treatment to be forbidden
to eat with fellow -citizens ; to be assigned to a par
ticular gallery in his church ; to be excluded from



PEOPLE OF COLOUR. 145

college, from municipal office, from professions,
from scientific and literary associations? If he
felt himself excluded from every department of
society, but its humiliations and its drudgery, would
he declare himself to be " perfectly well-treated in
Boston?" Not a word more of statement is
needed.

I A Connecticut judge lately declared on the bench
/ that he believed people of colour were not consi-
1 dered citizens in the laws. He was proved to be
>~ wrong. He was actually ignorant of the wording
of the acts by which people of colour are termed
ritizcns. Of course, no judge could have forgotten
this who had seen them treated as citizens : nor
could one of the most eminent statesmen and
lawyers in the country have told me that it is still
a doubt, in the minds of some high authorities,
.vhether people of colour are citizens. He is as
mistaken as the judge. There has been no such
doubt since the Connecticut judge was corrected
and enlightened. The error of the statesman arose
from the same cause ; he had never seen the co
loured people treated as citizens, " In fact," said
he, " these people hold an anomalous situation.
They are protected as citizens when the public
service requires their security; but not otherwise
treated as such*" Any comment would weaken
this intrepid statement.

The common argument, ahout the inferiority of
the coloured race, bears no relation whatever to
this question, They are citizens. They stand, as
such, in the law, and in tha acknowledgment of
every one who knows the lawfThey are citizens, yet
their houses and schools are pulled down, and they
can obtain no remedy at law. They are thrust out
of offices, and excluded from the most honourable
employments, and stripped of all the best benefits
of society by fellow-citizens who, once a year, so-

VOL. I. H



146 CITIZENSHIP OF

lemnly lay their hands on their hearts, and declare
that all men are born free and equal, and that
rulers derive their just powers from the consent ot
the governed, j

This system of injury is not wearing out. La-
fayette,^on his last visit to the United States, ex
pressed his astonishment at the increase of the
prejudice against colour. He remembered, he
said, how the black soldiers used to mess with
the whites in the revolutionary war.) The leaders
of that war are gone where principles are all,
where prejudices are nothing. If their ghosts
could arise, in majestic array, before the American
nation, on their great anniversary, and hold up
before them the mirror of their constitution, in
the light of its first principles, where would the
people hide themselves from the blasting radiance ?
They would call upon their holy soil to swallow
them up, as unworthy to tread upon it. But not
all. It should ever be remembered that America
is the country of the best friends the coloured race
has ever had. The more truth there is in the as
sertions of the oppressors of the blacks, the more
heroism there is in their friends. The greater the
excuse for the pharisees of the community, the
more divine is the equity of the redeemers of the
coloured race. If it be granted that the coloured
race are naturally inferior, naturally depraved,
disgusting, cursed, it must be granted that it is a
heavenly charity which descends among them to
give such solace as it can to their incomprehensible
existence. As longas the excuses of the one party
go to enhance the merit of the other, the society is
not to be despaired of, even with this poisonous
anomaly at its heart.

Happily, however, the coloured race is not
cursed by God, as it is by some factions of his
children. The less clear-sighted of them are par-



PEOPLE OF COLOUR. 147

donable for so believing. Circumstances, for
which no living man is answerable, have generated
an erroneous conviction in the feeble mind of man,
which sees not beyond the actual and immediate.
No remedy could ever have been applied, unless
stronger minds than ordinary had been brought
into the case. But it so happens, wherever there
is an anomaly, giant minds rise up to overthrow it:
minds gigantic, not in understanding, but in faith.
Wherever they arise, they are the salt of their
earth, and its corruption is retrieved. So it is now
in America, While the mass of common men and
women are despising, and disliking, and fearing,
and keeping down the coloured race, blinking the
fact that they are citizens, the few of Nature s aris
tocracy are putting forth a strong hand to lift up
this degraded race out of oppression, and their
country from the reproach of it. If they were but
one or two, trembling and toiling in solitary energy,
the world afar would be confident of their success.
But they number hundreds and thousands ; and if
ever they feel a passing doubt of their progress, it
is only because they are pressed upon by the
meaner multitude. Over the sea, no one doubts of
their victory. It is as certain as that the risen sun
will reach the meridian. Already are there over
flowing colleges, where no distinction of colour is
allowed ; overflowing, because no distinction of
colour is allowed. Already have people of colour
crossed the thresholds of many whites, as guests,
not as drudges or beggars. Already are they ad
mitted to worship, and to exercise charity, among
the whites.

The world has heard and seen enough of the
reproach incurred by America, on account of her
coloured population. It is now time to look for
the fairer side The crescent streak is brightening
towards the full, to wane no more. Already is the

H 2



148 POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE

world beyond the sea beginning to think of Ame
rica, less as the country of the double-faced pre
tender to the name of Liberty, than as the home
of the single-hearted, clear-eyed Presence which,
under the name of Abolitionism, is majestically
passing through the land which is soon to be her
throne.



SECTION VII.

POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE OF WOMEN.

One of the fundamental principles announced in
the Declaration of Independence is, that govern
ments derive their just powers from the consent of
the governed. How can the political condition of
women be reconciled with this ?
If Governments in the United States have power
to tax women who hold property ; to divorce them
from their husbands ; to fine, imprison, and exe
cute them for certain offences. Whence do these
governments derive their powers? They are not
I / " just," as they are not derived from the consent of
^ the women thus governed.

Governments in the United States have power

to enslave certain women; and also to punish

, other women for inhuman treatment of such slaves.

\/ Neither of these powers are "just;" not being

derived from the consent of the governed.

Governments decree to women in some States
half their husbands property ; in others one-third.
In some, a woman, on her marriage, is made to
yield all her property to her husband ; in others,
to retain a portion, or the whole, in her own hands.
Whence do governments derive the unjust power



OF WOMEN. 149

of thus disposing of property without the consent
of the governed i

The democratic principle condemns all this as
wrong ; and requires the equal political represen
tation of all rational beings. Children, idiots, and
criminals, during the season of sequestration, are
the only fair exceptions.

The case is so plain that I might close it here ;
but it is interesting to inquire how so obvious a
decision has been so evaded as to leave to women
no political rights whatever. The question has
been asked, from time to time, in more countries
than one, how obedience to the laws can be re
quired of women, when no woman has, either ac
tually or virtually, given any assent to any law.
No plausible answer has, as far as I can discover,
been offered ; for the good reason, that no plausible
answer can be devised. The most principled de
mocratic writers on government have on this sub
ject sunk into fallacies, as disgraceful as any advo
cate of despotism has adduced. In fact, they have
thus sunk from being, for the moment, advocates of
despotism. Jefferson in America, and James Mill
at liome, subside, for the occasion, to the level of
the author of the Emperor of Russia s Catechism
for the young Poles.

Jefferson says,* " Were our State a pure de
mocracy, in which all the inhabitants should meet
together to transact all their business, there would
yet be excluded from their deliberations,

" 1. Infants, until arrived at years of discretion ;

" 2. Women, who, to prevent depravation of
morals, and ambiguity of issue, could not mix pro
miscuously in the public meetings of men ;

" 3. Slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of
things with us takes away the rights of will and of
property."

* Correspondence vol. ir. p. 295.



150 POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE

If the slave disqualification, here assigned, were
shifted up under the head of Women, their case
would be nearer the truth than as it now stands.
Woman s lack of will and of property, is more like
the true cause of her exclusion from the repre
sentation, than that which is actually set down
against her. As if there could be no means of
conducting public affairs but by promiscuous meet
ings ! As if there would be more danger in pro
miscuous meetings for political business than in
such meetings for worship, for oratory, for music,
for dramatic entertainments, for any of the thou
sand transactions of civilized life ! The plea is
not worth another word.

Mill says, with regard to representation, in his
Essay on Government, " One thing is pretty clear ;
that all those individuals, whose interests are in
volved in those of other individuals, may be struck
off without inconvenience. ... In this light,
women may be regarded, the interest of almost all
of whom is involved, either in that of their fathers
or in that of their husbands."

The true democratic principle is, that no per
son s interests can be, or can be ascertained to be,
identical with those of any other person. This
allows the exclusion of none but incapables.

The word " almost," in Mr. Mill s second sen
tence, rescues women from the exclusion he pro
poses. As long as there are women who have
neither husbands nor fathers, his proposition re
mains an absurdity.

The interests of women who have fathers and
husbands can never be identical with theirs, while
there is a necessity for laws to protect women
against their husbands and fathers. This state
ment is not worth another word.

Some who desire that there should be an equa-
lr"J of property between men and women, oppose



OF WOMEN. 151

representation, on the ground that political duties
would be incompatible with the other duties which
women have to discharge. The reply to this is,
that women are the best judges here. God has
given time and power for the discharge of all duties ;
and, if he had not, it would be for women to decide
which they would take, and which they would
leave. But their guardians follow the ancient
fashion of deciding what is best for their wards.
The Emperor of Russia discovers when a coat of
arms and title do not agree with a subject prince.
The King of France early perceives that the air
of Paris does not agree with a free-thinking fo
reigner. The English Tories feel the hardship
that it would be to impose the franchise on every
artizan, busy as he is in getting his bread. The
Georgian planter perceives the hardship that free
dom would be to his slaves. And the best friends
of half the human race peremptorily decide for
them as to their rights, their duties, their feelings,
their powers. In all these cases, the persons thus
eared for feel that the abstract decision rests with
themselves ; that, though they may be compelled
to submit, they need not acquiesce.

It is pleaded that half of the human race does
acquiesce in the decision of the other half, as to
their rights and duties. And some instances, not
only of submission, but of acquiescence, there are.
Forty years ago, the women of New Jersey went
to the poll, and voted, at state elections. The general
term, " inhabitants," stood unqualified ; as it will
igain, when the true democratic principle comes
to be fully understood. A motion was made to
correct the inadvertence; and it was done, as a
matter of course ; without any appeal, as far as I
could learn, from the persons about to be injured.
Such acquiescence proves nothing but the degra
dation of the injured party. It inspires the



152 POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE

emotions of pity as the supplication of the freed