therefore there must be punishments for those,
rulers or ruled, tfho would appropriate the gains of
others." Tho rationale of the new and " impossi
ble" government is " that all men are created equal ;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among them are life, li
berty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure
those rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed."* This last recognizes, over and above
what the former admits, the great principles of in
defeasible rights; human equality in relation to
these ; and the obligation of universal justice.
These, then, are the principles which the states
men in the State House at Philadelphia announced
as the soul of their embryo institutions; and the
rule through which they were to work was no less
tiian that golden one which seems to have been, by
some unhappy chance, omitted in the bibles of
other statesmen " Do unto others as ye would
* Declaration of Independence.
B 2
4 POLITICS.
that they should do unto you." Perhaps it may be
reserved for their country to prove yet one more
impossible thing that men can live by the rule
which their Maker has given them to live by.
Meanwhile, every true citizen of that country must
necessarily be content to have his self-government
tried by the test of these principles, to which, by
his citizenship, he has become a subscriber. He
will scorn all comparisons, instituted as a test of
merit, between his own government and those of
other countries, which -he must necessarily consider
as of narrower scope and lower aim. Whether such
comparisons be instituted abroad in a spirit of con
tempt, or at home in a spirit of complacency, he
will regard them equally as irrelevant, and proving
nothing to the best purposes of true citizens. He
will disdain every .test but that furnished by the
great principles propounded in the State House at
Philadelphia ; and he will quarrel with no results
fairly brought out by such a test, whether they in
spire him with shame, or with complacency. In
either case, he will be animated by them.
^If the politics of a country be really derived from
fundamental principles of human nature and morals,
the economy, manners, and religion of that country
must be designed to harmonise with these princi
ples.^ The same test must be applicable to all.
The inalienable right of all the human race to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, must control
the economical, as well as the political arrange
ments of a people ; and the law of universal justice
must regulate all social intercourse, and direct all
administration of religion,
- Politics are morals, all the world over ; that is,
politics universally implicate the duty and happi
ness of man. Every branch of morals is, and
ought to be considered, a universal concern. Under
despotic governments, there is a pretension, more
POLITICS. 5
or less sincere, on the part of the rulers, to moral
regards ; but from these the bulk of the people
are, by common consent, cut off. /^If the bulk of
the people saw the truth, that the principles of po
litic* affect them, are the message of their Maker
as principles are) to them, as well as to their
rulers, they would become moral agents in regard
to politics, and despotism would be at an end/7 As
it is, they pay their taxes, and go out to war when
they are bid, are thankful when they are left un
molested by their government, and sorry or angry
when they feel themselves oppressed ; and there
they end. It is owingtp their ignorant n f po1it^ g
being morals i. e. matters of equal concern to
in every colInTT^5ifMdpJ)^^
melit ciiriffr
TEeTsame is the case of the unrepresented under
governments which are not called despotic. Ac
cording to the principles professed by the United
States, there is there a rectification of this mighty
error a correction of this grand oversight. In
that self-governing nation, all are held to have an
equal interest in the principles of its institutions,
and to be bound in equal duty to watch their work
ings. Politics there are universal duty. \/None are
exempted from obligation but the unrepresented ;
and they, in theory, are none. However various
may be the tribes of inhabitants in those States,
whatever part of the world may have been their
birth-place, or that of their fathers, however broken
may be their language, however noble or servile
their employments, however exalted or despised
their state, <$ill are declared to be bound together
by equal political obligation, as firmly as under any
other law of personal or social duty.^> The pre
sident, the senator, the governor, may take upon
himself some additional responsibility, as the phy-
5 POLITICS.
sician and lawyer do in other departments of office ;
but they are under precisely the same political ob
ligation as the German settler, whose axe echoes
through the lonely forest ; and the Southern planter,
who is occupied with his hospitalities ; and the New
England merchant, whose thoughts are on the sea ;
and the Irishman, in his shanty on the canal-bank ;
and the negro, hoeing cotton in the hot field, or
basking away his sabbath on the shore of the Mis
sissippi. Genius, knowledge, wealth, may in other
affairs set a man above his fellows ; but not in this.
Weakness, ignorance, poverty may exempt a man
from other obligations; but not from this. The
theory of the government of the United States has
grasped and embodied the mighty principle, that
politics are morals ; that is, ajuajter of universal
anjTecuial concern. We shairhave to see whether
tliisprinciple^TsTully acted out. ^
r~ Implicated with this is the theory, that the ma-
/ jority will be in the right, both as to the choice of
principles which are to govern particular cases,
and the agents who are to work them. This theory,
obviously just as it appears, as long as it is applied
to matters of universal and equal concern, cannot
be set aside without overthrowing all with which it
is involved. We shall have to see, also, whether
this principle is effectually carried out.
| Implicated with this, again, is the principle that
a mutable, or rather elastic form, must be given to
every institution. " The majority are in the right."
$uch is the theory. Few individuals of this majo
rity can act for longer than two-score years and ten;
few for so long. No one can suppose that his suc
cessor will think or feel as he does, however strict
may be the regard of each to the fundamental prin
ciples which are to regulate his citizenship. It is
absolutely necessary, to secure permanence to the
recognition of those principles, that there should
POLITICS. 7
be liberty to change the form which contains them.
Else, in the endless variety of human views and in
terests, there is danger lest men, being prohibited
from producing a correspondence between the prin
ciples they recognise, and the forms they desire,
should, because interdicted from outward change,
gradually alter the spirit of their government. In
such a case, men would be some time in discovering
that the fair body of their constitution has become
possessed, while they had supposed her inspired :
and, to pass over the mischiefs which might happen
during the period of her possession, the work of ex
orcism would be difficult and perilous.
8 PARTIES.
V
CHAPTER L
PARTIES.
For these are the men that, when they have played their parts,
and had their exits, must step out, and give the moral of their
scenes, and deliver unto posterity an inventory of their virtues
and vices."
Sir Thomas Browne.
THE first gentleman who greeted me on my arrival
in the United States, a few minutes after I had
landed, informed me without delay, that I had
arrived at an unhappy crisis ; that the institutions
of the country would be in ruins before my return
to England; that the levelling spirit was desolat
ing society; and that the United States were
on the verge of a military despotism. This was
so very like what I had been accustomed to hear
at home, from time to time, since my childhood,
that I was not quite so much alarmed as I might
have been without such prior experience. It was
amusing too to find America so veritably the
daughter of England.
I looked around me carefully, in all my travels,
till I reached Washington, but could see no signs
of despotism ; even less of military. Except the
officers and cadets at West Point, and some militia
on a training day at Saugerties, higher up on the
Hudson, I saw nothing that could be called mill-
PARTIES. Q
tary ; and officers, cadets, and militia, appeared all
perfectly innocent of any design to seize upon the
government. At Washington, I ventured to ask
an explanation from one of the most honoured
statesmen now living ; who told me, with a smile,
that the country had been in " a crisis" for fifty
years past ; and would be for fifty years to come.
This information was my comfort, from day to
day, till I became sufficiently acquainted with the
country to need such support no longer. Mourn
ful predictions, like that I have quoted, were made
so often, that it was easy to learn how they origi
nated.
In the United States, as elsewhere, there are,
and IiaTe aWays been, two parties in politicSjwhoni
it is difficult to distinguish on paper, by a statement
of their principles, but whose course of action may,
in any given case, be pretty confidently anticipated.
It is remarkable how nearly, their positive state
ments of political doctrine agree, while they differ
in almost every possible application of their com
mon principles. Close and continued observation
of their agreements and differences is necessary
before the British traveller can fully comprehend
their mutual relation. In England, the differences
of parties are so broad, between these who would
have the people governed for the convenience of
their rulers ; those who would have the many go
verned, for their good, by the will of the few ; and
those who would have the people govern them
selves ; that it is, for some time, difficult to com
prehend how there should be party differences as
wide in a country where the first principle of go
vernment is that the people are to govern them
selves. The case, however, becomes clear in time:
and, amidst a half century of " crises," the same
order and sequence become discernible which run
through the whole course of human affairs.
B 5
<r<T> PARTIES.
As long as men continue as differently organized
as they now are, there will be two parties under
every government. Even if their outward fortunes
could be absolutely equalised, there would be, from
individual constitution alone, an aristocracy and a
. democracy in every land. The fearful by nature
would compose an aristocracy, the hopeful by na
ture a democracy, were all other causes of diverg
ence done away. When to these constitutional
differences are added all those outward circum
stances which go to increase the fear and the hope,
the mutual misunderstandings of parties are no
longer to be wondered at. Men who have gamed
,wealth, whose hope is fulfilled, and who fear loss
./ by change, are naturally of the aristocratic class.
/So are men of learning, who, unconsciously identi
fying learning and wisdom, fear the elevation of the
ignorant to a station like their own. So are men
of talent, who,, having gained the power which is
the fit recompense of achievement, dread the having
to yield it to numbers instead of desert. So are
many more who feel the almost universal fear of
having to part with educational prejudices, with
doctrines with which honoured teachers nourished
the pride of youth, and prepossessions inwoven
with all that has been to them most {jure, lofty,
and graceful. Out of these a large aristocratic
class must everywhere be formed.
/ Out of the hopeful, the rising, not the risen,
the aspiring, not the satisfied, must a still larger
class be everywhere formed. It will include all who
have most to gain arid least to lose ; and most of
{/those who, in the present state of education, have
gained their knowledge from actual life, rather
than, or as well as, from books. It will include
the adventurers of society, and also the philan
thropists. It will include, moreover, an acces
sion small in number, but inestimable in power,
PARTIES. 11
the men of genius. It is characteristic of genius
to be hopeful and aspiring. It is characteristic of
genius to break up the artificial arrangements of
conventionalism, and to view mankind in true per
spective, in their gradations of inherent rather
than of adventitious worth. Genius is therefore
essentially democratic, and has always been so,
whatever titles its gifted ones may have worn, or on
whatever subjects they may have exercised their
gifts. To whatever extent men of genius have
been aristocratic, they have been so in spite of
their genius, not in consistency with it. The in
stances are so few, and their deviations from the
democratic principle so small, that men of genius
must be considered as included in the democratic
class.
Genius being rare, and its claims but tardily al
lowed by those who have attained greatness by
other means, it seems as if the weight of influence
possessed by the aristocratic party, by that party
which, generally speaking, includes the wealth,
learning, and talents of the country, must over
power all opposition. If this is found not to be the
case, if it be found that the democratic party has
achieved everything that has been achieved since
the United States constitution began to work, it is
no wonder that there is panic in many hearty and
that I heard from so many tongues of the desola
tions of the " levelling spirit," and the approaching
ruin of political institutions.
These classes may be distinguished in another
way. The description which Jefferson gave of
the federal and republican parties of 1799 ap
plies to the federal and democratic parties of this
day, and to the aristocratic and democratic parties
of every time and country. "One," says Jefferson,
" fears most the ignorance of the people j tho
v PARTIES.
other, the selfishness of rulers independent of
them."
There is much reason in both these fears. The
unreasonableness of party lies in entertaining the
one fear, and not the other. No argument is
needed to prove that rulers are prone to selfish
ness and narrowness of views: and no one can
have witnessed the injuries that the poor suffer in
old countries, the education of hardship and in
sult that furnishes them with their only knowledge
of the highest classes, without being convinced
that their ignorance is to be feared ; their igno
rance, not so much of books as of liberty and law.
In old countries, the question remains open whe
ther the many should, on account of their igno
rance, be kept still in a state of political servitude,
as some declare ; or whether they should be gradu
ally prepared for political freedom, as others
think, by an amelioration of their condition, and by
being educated in schools; or whether, as yet
others maintain, the exercise of political rights
and duties be not the only possible political educa
tion. In the New World, no such question re
mains to be debated. It has no large, degraded,
injured, dangerous (white) class who can afford
the slightest pretence for a panic-cry about agra-
rianism. Throughout the prodigious expanse of
that country, I saw no poor men, except a few in
temperate ones. I saw some very poor women ;
but God and man know that the time has not come
fo women to make their injuries even heard of.
JL3^-. n ? Beggars but two professional ones, who
are making their fortunes in the streets of Wash
ington. I^sawno table spread, in the lowest order
of houses,^that had not meat and bread on, it.
Every factory "child carries its umbrella ; and pig-
drivers wear spectacles. With the exception of
PARTIES. l(
the foreign paupers on the seaboard, and those
who are steeped in sensual vice, neither of which
classes can be politically dangerous, there are none
who have not the same interest in the security of
property as the richest merchant of Salem, or
planter of Louisiana. Whether the less wealthy
class will not be the first to draw out from reason
and experience the true philosophy of property, is
another question. All we have to do with now is
their equal interest with their richer neighbours in
the security of property, in the present state of so
ciety. Law and order are as important to the man
who holds land for the subsistence of his family, or
who earns wages that he may have land of his own to
die upon, as to any member of the president s cabinet.
Nor is there much more to fear from the igno
rance of the bulk of the people in the United
States, than from their poverty. It is too true that
there is much ignorance ; so much as to be an ever-
present peril. Though, as a whole, the nation is,
probably, better informed than any other entire
nation, it cannot be denied that their knowledge is
far inferior to what their safety and their virtue re
quire. But whose ignorance is it ? And ignorance
of what ? If the professors of colleges have book-
knowledge, which the owner of a log-house has
not ; the owner of a log-house has very often, as 1
can testify, a knowledge of natural law, political
rights, and economical fact, which the college-pro
fessor has not. I often longed to confront some of
each class, to see whether there was any common
ground on which they could meet. If not, the one
might bring the charge of ignorance as justly as the
other. If a common ground could be discovered,
it would have been in their equal relation to the
.government under which they live: in which case,
the natural conclusion would be, that each under
stood his own interests best, and neither could
=Jt4 PARTIES.
assume superiority over the other. The particular
ignorance of the countryman may expose him to be
flattered and cheated by an oratorical office-seeker,
or a dishonest newspaper. But, on the other hand,
the professor s want of knowledge of the actual
affairs of the many, and his educational biases,
are just as likely to cause him to vote contrary to
..the public interest. No, one who has observed
society in America will question the existence or
the evil of ignorance there : but neither will he
question that such real knowledge as they have is
pretty fairly shared among them.
I travelled by wagon, with a party of friends, in
the interior of Ohio. Our driver must be a man of
great and various knowledge, if he questions all
strangers as he did us, and obtains as copious
answers. He told us where and how he lived, of
his nine children, of his literary daughters, and the
pains he was at to get books for them; and of his
hopes from his ghi of fourteen, who writes poetry,
which he keeps a secret, lest she should be spoiled.
He told us that he seldom lets his fingers touch a
novel, because the consequence always is that his
Business stands still till the novel is finished ; " and
that doesn t suit," He recited to us, Pope s
* Happy the man whose wish and care," &c. say
ing that it suited his idea exactly. He asked both
the ladies present whether they had written a book.
Both had ; and he carried away the titles, that he
might buy the books for his daughters. This man
is fully informed of the value of the Union, as we
had reason to perceive; and it is difficult to see
why he is not as fit as any other man to choose the
representatives of his interests. Yet, here is a spe
cimen of his conversation with one of the ladies of
the party.
" Was the book that you wrote on natural phi
losophy, madam ?"
PARTIES. 15
" No ; I know nothing about natural philosophy."
" Hum ! Because one lady has done that pretty
well : hit it ! Miss Porter, you know."
What Miss Porter ?"
"She that wrote Thaddeus of Warsaw, you
know. She did it pretty well there."
As an antagonist case, take the wailings of a
gentleman of very distinguished station in a highly
aristocratic section of society ; wailings over the
extent of the suffrage.
"W T hat an enormity it is that such a man as
Judge 9 there, should stand on no higher level
in politics than the man that grooms his horse !"
" \Vhy should he ? I suppose they have both
got all they want, fall representation: and they
thus bear precisely the same relation to the go
vernment/
" No ; the judge seldom votes, because of his
office : while his groom can, perhaps, carry nine
teen men to vote as he pleases. It is monstrous !"
" It seems monstrous that the judge should omit
his political duty for the sake of his office ; and
also that nineteen men should be led by one. But
limiting the suffrage would not mend the matter.
Would it not do better to teach all the parties their
duty?"
Let who will choose between the wagon-driver
and the scholar. Each will vote according to his
own views ; and the event, the ultimate majority,
will prove which is so far the wiser.
The vagueness of the antagonism between
the two parties is for some time perplexing to
the traveller in America; and he does not know
whether to be most amazed or amused at the ap
parent triviality of the circumstances which arouse
the strongest party emotions. After a while, a body
comes out of the mystery, and he grasps a substantial
cause of dissension. From the day when the first
16 PARTIES.
constitution was formed, there have been alarmists,
who talk of a " crisis :" and from the day when the
second began its operations, the alarm has, very
naturally, taken its subject matter from the failure
of the first. The first general government came
to a stand through weakness. The entire nation
kept itself in order till a new one was formed and
set to work. As soon as the danger was over, and
the nation proved, by the last possible test, duly
convinced of the advantages of public order, the
timid party took fright lest the general government
should still not be strong enough; and this ten
dency, of course, set the hopeful party to watch
lest it should be made too strong. The panic and
antagonism were at their height in 1799.* A fear
ful collision of parties took place, which ended in
the establishment of the hopeful policy, which has
continued, with few interruptions, since. The exe
cutive patronage was retrenched, taxes were taken
jpff, the people were re-assured, and all is, as yet,
/safe. While the leaders of the old federal party re
tired to their Essex junto, and elsewhere, to sigh for
monarchy, and yearn towards England, the greater
* Jefferson writes, September, 1798, " The most long-sighted
politician could not, seven years ago, have imagined that the
people of this wide extended country could have been enveloped
in such delusion, and made so much afraid of themselves and their
own power, as to surrender it spontaneously to those who are ma-
nosuvring them into a form of government, the principal branches
of which may be bevond their control."
Again, March, 1801 : " You have understood that the revo
lutionary movements in Europe had, by industry and artifice,
been wrought into objects of terror in this country, and had really
involved a great portion of our well-meaning citizens in a panic
which was perfectly unaccountable, and during the prevalence of
which they were led to support measures the most insane. They
are now pretty thoroughly recovered from it, and sensible of tho
mischief which was done, and preparing to be done, had their
minds continued a little longer under that derangement. The re
covery bids fair to be complete, and to obliterate entirely the line
of party division, which had been so strongly drawn." Jefferson t
Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 401, 457.
PARTIES. I?
number threw off their fears, and joined the repub
lican party. There are now very few left to pro
fess the politics of the old federalists. I met with
only two who openly avowed their desire for a mo
narchy ; and not many more who prophesied one.
But there still is a federal party, and there ever ,
will be. It is as inevitable that there will be
always some who will fear the too great strength of
the state governments, as that there will be many
who will have the same fear about the general go
vernment. Instead of seeing in this any cause for
dismay, or even regret, the impartial observer will
recognise in this mutual watchfulness the best
security that the case admits of for the general and
state governments preserving their due relation
to one another. No government ever yet worked