ON

AMERICAN,

MORALS AND MANNERS

BY REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D. D.

Reprinted from the Christian Examiner and ]KeIigious Miscellany.

BOSTON:
W I LLIAM CROSBY,
118 WASHmGTON Street.
1844.

fto 4 Devonshire SlreeL

ON

AMERICAN MORALS AND MANNERS.

We propose to offer some observations in this article on
American morals and manners. There is, at this moment, a
very extraordinary crisis of opinion in Europe with regard
to this country. Our national character is not only brought
into question, but it is brought into question as furnishing
grounds for a decision upon the form of our Government,
upon the great cause of Republican institutions.
For reasons then, deeper than those which concern our
national reputation, — and yet this is not indifferent, — this
subject deserves attention. We have no desire to over
rate the importance of this country ; but it is undoubtedly
the great embodiment of the leading principle on which the
history of the world is to turn for many years to come.
When at some future time a philosophical history of the
present age shall be written, this country will occupy a
place in it, the very converse of that which it now holds in
the thoughts of most men in the Old World. That future
time will far better understand the map of human affairs,
not to say our literal geography, than does the present. It
will be seen that the tree of freedom, planted on this
Western continent, has shot its roots and fibres through
the whole of Europe ; beneath the soil of all her ancient
and venerable institutions. Whether it shall stand and
flourish and lend strength to the world ; or whether, over
turned by whelming floo'ds, it shall draw thS world down
with it, or leave it rent and torn by the disruption of its
ties — this is the question. We are not to be told that we

4
are now speaking great words with little meting. Those
ties, we affirm, ejfist. The humbler classes in Europe may
know definitely but little about us. But from out of this
unknown world, from beyond the dim and spreading cur
tain of the sea, has come to them a story that they will
never forget. They have heard first of a people who can
eat the fruit of an unentailed soil, of their own soil ; and
we can testify from observation, that that word, ownership,
is like a word of magic to them. They have heard, next,
of a people who can read ; to whom is unrolled the myste
rious p£ige of knowledge, tiie lettered wisdom of all man
kind. Yes, and they are demanding and gaining that
boon, that American privilege, from their own Governments.
They have heard, once more, of a people, who are their
own governors, who make their own laws and execute
them, and whom no man with impunity can wrong or
oppress. Yes, in the lowliest cabins of Europe, they have
learned all this. Let all the crowned powers of the world
unteach it, if they can. This is no dream to them ; it is a
fact. There is ixample for it. And this one example is of
more weight than ail the Ixxtks of theory that have been
written from tlie time of Plato to this day.
The grijat ei)iitro\trsy of the age, wc have said in a
former arliile, is the controversy about freedom. To put it
in a more' e.vact and ]>ractical form, it is a question about
Government. How men shall guvern themselves, or
whether they can govern theinselvis at all, or, in other
words, by what forms tliey are best governed ; this is the
question. And it is a momentous question. A good-
natured easiness, or philosophic indifference upon this point ;
the sui,'e dictum — <>( Dr. Johnson or of anv body else —
that happiness is about the same under all tiovernments : we
cannot understand at all. We know that there are deeper
things than Government, aflecting men's weltiire : but we
say, this, nevertheless, atfccts it. Nay, and it has an influ
ence, in many ways, upon those deeper things — .senti
ments, morals, modes of thou'j;ht, views of life, the cheer
fulness and hopefulness of life. If " oppression makes a
wise man mad," it often makes a whole people worse
than mad — unprincipled, immoral, and -stupid or frivolous.
If a single bad man in high station may corrupt many, what
extended and blighting shadow over a country must be

cast by the enthroned image of wrong 1 It dishonors and
degrades, it vexes and demoralizes a people. Besides,
Government either helps or hinders individual development.
It expands or contracts the whole man ; for it touches his
freedom, education, religion. It concerns not only the
man's virtue, but the man's manhood. Unless we were
to say, as we might more justly, that virtue, rightly con
strued, is the manhood of man.
From these reasons, as well as from man's natural right
to be free, has arisen the conviction in all liberal and gen
erous minds, that the freest Government, compatible with
human safety, is to be preferred to all others.
Now of such a Government, the freest in the world at
least, America has given an example. The eyes of the
world were directed to it. Could it succeed ? If it could,
it was virtually an answer to every argument for political
wrong ; for absolute monarchy, for primogeniture, for legit
imacy in all its forms. Could it succeed? More than
sixty years of success it has counted ; no nation on earth
has been in a happier condition, none more flourishing in
affairs, more correct in morals, more submissive to law, or
more loyal to its government. Sixty, nay, nearly seventy
years have passed over a nation, experiencing, meanwhile,
all the vicissitudes of peace and war, and of commercial
prosperity and adversity, and still it has a being ; it has
has not faded away like a Utopian dream from these
blessed shores ; it is no mushroom empire ; it stands firm
and strong. And yet now, at this late hour, all at once,
this experiment is distrusted and discredited throughout
the whole of Europe.
It is certainly a very remarkable crisis in public opinion,
and, on every account, demands attention. If this present
distrust is a mere freak or whim of th© public mind, that
character should be fixed upon it. If it arises from misap^
prehension, the error should be promptly exposed. If
there are any just grounds for it, most especially does it
concern us in America to know it.
Let us then look carefully into the case of America, with
reference to this distrust. What are the grounds of it ?
And how far are they sustained, if they are sustajined at all,
by the facts ? What is there in this Americain nation —
a great nation ; consisting of many millions of people ; pros-
1*

perous, peaceful, happy ; free, powerful, and respectable, we
hope — what is there that justifies any alarmist, any croaker,
in saying that the great experiment of this people in gov
ernment is coming to nought, or that can warrant foreign
writers, who should feel that they have a reputation to pre
serve, in speaking of this country in terms of gross indig
nity and ribald scorn ?
The first charge that we shall examine, since at present
it stands foremost of all, is that of the repudiation of public
debts. It is not easy to understand the feeling of all Europe on
this point, without coming into actual contact with it. On
a late visit to the Old world, we were amazed to observe
the length to which this charge of repudiation is carried.
Perpetually, without one single exception amonir all the
persons who addressed us, we were approached with an air
and tone of sympathy for the sad case of America. The
conversation usually ran in this manner. '• A terrible
thing this, in America!" "What thing?" we said.
'• Why, this repudiation, you know." " But who has repu
diated ? " " Who ? Why ! the States, all the States, or the
most of them ; it is the doctrine now in America." •• Nay,
sir," was our reply, " let us understand this matter, if vou
please, before we proeeed any farther. We sav that the
States have not repudiated their debts. We say that there
is no such thing as repudiation in .\merica, except in regard
to limited portions of tlie debts of two of the States where
the just obligation to pay is denied. Michigan alleges,
that as certain monies which she proposed to borrow, ne\er
found their way into her treasury, sho it not obliged in good
faith to reimburse the lender. Mississippi contends, that she
is not not legally nor honestly bound to pay certain bonds.
because they were sold and were bought in known viola
tion of the very condition on which they were issued. Wo
do not say that these are sufficient grounds of defence.
We think that the acts of the authorized agents of a State.
should bind the .Stat(>. But still wc .say, that neither of
these is an act of open, unblushing repudiation. There
is no such thing in America. We believe, there novor can
be. It is a case, not of repudiation, but of simple bank-
rui>try. The States cannot pay at present; is that a
crime? " '• But they can pay," was the reply often made.

" They can lay' a direct tax, for the purpose of paying the
interest at least. Or, at any rate, they could come forward
and relieve the public mind by saying that they acknowl
edge their liability, and mean in due time to meet it.
They knew that suspicions were flung upon their good
faith, and they have done nothing to remove them."
"Consider," we said in reply, "how little the mass of the
people are apt to feel themselves implicated in the acts of
the Government. They hear that there is a deficit in the
treasury ; they suppose that it will be supplied in some
way, without ever suspecting that their honor is compro
mised or that their intervention is necessary. Nor does it
materially alter the case, that ours is a republican or repre
sentative government. It is a way of thinking that long
since came into the world, with regard to the action of all
Governments. The public conscience does not feel itself
responsible for the acts or neglects of Government. We
wish it did, among ourselves. We are wilhng to hear any
thing that tends to elevate the public conscience. And in
this view, we could wish that either of the two things before
suggested had been done ; that is to say, either that the
voice of the people had demanded a direct tax, or a most
open and formal profession of a purpose to pay. But the
question now is ; does the failure to do one or the other
of these things indicate a want of principle among the
people, a willingness that the debt should never be paid ?
Would any other people have aroused themselves — the
English or the French — to meet a case like this ? Would
they not have said, ' The government will provide ; the
thing will right itself in due time ? ' Would not the affair
have been a parcel of the national budget, rather than a
part of the national conscience ? "
We think indeed that the Governments of the definquent
States ought to have come forward in the late crisis, when
their bonds were dishonored in every market in the world,
and to have said, ' We hold the public faith and honor to
be sacred, and we firmly believe and fully intend that these
debts shall be paid.' This the suffering bond-holders had
a right to demand, at the least ; and they did demand it.
They said, and they still say, ' You cannot pay ; be it so ;
you say that you cannot lay a direct tax,,to pay the interest
on these bonds ; that it is a time of universal and unparal-

8
leled distress in your country ; that the people of the delin
quent States have land, have wheat, have everything, but
money ; be it so ; but yet say something to us ; say that you
mean to pay ; that will satisfy us for the present ; that will
relieve the panic which is sweeping down us and our fam
ilies by hundreds, to poverty and misery.' Why did not
the State authorities in question, meet this call ? Why do
they not meet it now ? We ask this question with un
speakable concern and pain. We can conceive of no
answer to it that ought to satisfy anybody. It must be
want of care, of couraije, or of principle. That it should
be want of principle ; that our public functionaries are
willing violaters of their plighted faith, sworn oath-breakers.
wc choose to consider and we do consider impossible. A
carelessness, wc conceive ; a feeling of not being rtspMjnsi-
ble, too apt to be the feeling of public men in distinction
from that of jirivate men, and increased here by constant
rotation in otiice ; the feeling, in short, which says, ' / did
not borrow this money, and I am no more rcs|)onsible in
regard to it than every man around me : ' all this may be
the explanation, in part, of this great neglect, as it seems
to us, of public duty. It is very well known that, in Eng
land, as well as in .Vnierica, successive administrations do
not feel responsible for the acts of the last, as if they were
their own. It is very easy to see that if our Slates had,
each of thetii, a permanent head, a })rince or king, the
sense of responsibility, in siicii a crisis, would be far more
binding. Siill we must confess that this reasoning, though it may
explain something, is, in such a case by no means satisfac
tory. But is this enough even to explain tlie case ? Must
there be sometliing more? Can it be tiiat our State autlior-
ities have distrusted the honesty of the people, have doubted
whether in the simple admission that the debt is binding.
they would be supported l>y public stiitiment, have leared,
that if they spoke the honest word, tluv should lose their
dishonest places? Then before Heaven do we say it, we
believe, that they do not know the people whom tliey
canvass! It is not true that the people of this country, if
the honest part were truly placed before them, would reject
it. It cannot, it sludl not, it must not, be true. In strict
faith and conscience, we believe it is not. If we thought

it were, if we ever were brought to that terrible conclusion,
if we believed this nation to be a false and dishonest nation,
we should fold our arms in despair ; we should lift our eyes
to heaven and say, ' God ! give us another country ! We
have no country ; give us some far land, some distant shore,
where faith is kept and truth abides ; for we have no more
a country ! ' We trust we shall be believed when we say,
that this is no language of rhetoric. It has been lately
said in a printed letter, that " Indiana will certainly repu
diate." We do not believe it. But if it were true, hope
lessly true, and if we were a citizen of Indiana, we would
leave that State without delay. We would not breathe its
air one moment beyond the time that we had power to
leave it.
We can believe that this is a subject on which the public
conscience is not yet sufficiently aroused, without losing
our confidence in the people. We can believe that the
public mind is, to some degree, sophisticated, on this sub
ject. There have been some novel speculations spread
among the people, designed to show that governments have
no right to contract debts ; that the present generation has
no right to bind the future ; and much has been made in
Europe of the circumstance, that one of the public func
tionaries of the State of New York has lent his counte
nance to such a doctrine ; a doctrine, which, whether true
or false, becomes, at any rate, dishonest, the moment it is
made to apply to debts already contracted. There is a
feeling, too, among the people that these debts have been
rashly contracted ; that the public works on which these
loans have been expended, are of little or no service to
them ; that millions have been thrown away upon useless
canals, and that it is hard they should now be heavily
taxed for these bootless enterprises. Add to this, the gen
eral feeling of irresponsibleness for what the Government
does ; and it is easy to see in what a different light this case
may present itself, from that of direct personal liability.
It is not strange, perhaps, that the creditor in Europe
does not, or will not, see this difference. He addresses the
State that is indebted to him — Pennsylvania, for instance
— just as if it were a private individual.* He says, ' You
* See the Letters of the Reverend Sydney Smith.

10
can pay ; you are rich at this moment ; yoa can pay ; you
will not pay ; you are revelling in " the luxury of dishon
esty ; " you never will pay.' He feels disposed, if he meets
a Pennsylvanian at dinner in London, to seize upon him,
strip him, and in a sort of symbolical retaliation to divide
his apparel among the guests ; his coat to one. his boots to
another, and his watch to a third. — If any body wants the
benefit of tliis lash, let them have it. If this irony can do
any good, let it, in Heaven's name! But still, we must
say, that it is more amusing than reasonable. Suppose the
Affghan people should retort in this way upon the Reverend
satirist — could they catch him — because his Government
had done them some harm. Suppose the Chinese >liould
smother him in a chest of opium, because his people per
sisted in smuggling the article into their country. Nay, and
we cannot quite admire the taste with which these Eni;lish
writers come fortli to teach and reprimand this country —
something as if they had birch in hand for this great republi
can boy on the other side of the water. But to be serious :
is all this wise or just ? Multitudes in Pennsylvania, and in
all the indebted Slates, are most anxious that this matter
should be fairly adjusted. But they find that this cannot
be done in a moment. A whole people must be aroused
to the payment of a government debt. Such a thing was
never done before in the world ; and we doubt whether it
can be done anywhere else. We doubt whether the
public debt of England would stand the tide of universal
suffrage a single day. Be that as it may ; here is a Penn
sylvanian — let us suppose — laboring and hopinu and be
lieving that all may be broiii,'lit right. In the meantime
would the Reverend accuser have him eaten up at a
dinner in London ? We cannot sympathize with his wit.
With us it a matter too great and grave to raise a lauffh
about. We are sorry for his anger too ; for it has cer
tainly cost him sixty per cent on his investment. He savs
he has sold his slock at forty per cent. He says it, as if
he had washed his hands of it. " Haste makes waste."
If he had waited a little, he might have had a hundred.
At the same time, we freely say that to any, not petulant
but calm and solemn remonstrniiee of this gentleman, who.<!e
talent wo odmire, whose writings wo deliLrht in, wo would
give all the aid in our humble power. We do not reirrot

11
that he should use his powerful pen to awaken the public con
science in this country. We would that many pens should
be employed in this cause. Yes, and with all our heart, let
them point to that magnificent State of Pennsylvania, —
key-state she is called ; key-state she is ; and never did
more depend on her than now ! There is a voice from
her western border which has thrilled through the hearts of
thousands — the noble manifesto of the Pittsburg "Frank
lin Association." Honor and success to it ! Let the cap
ital answer to that voice ! Let the river echo to the
mountains, that great motto — " Franklin and Honesty !"
We would indeed there were public meetings called in
all our cities to consider this solemn crisis in our national
morals, to pour out eloquent indignation upon the bare
thought of public delinquency ; to do all that is possible to
wipe off the dishonor that is cast upon us in the face of
all Europe !
There is, in fact, an effort to be made in this country, of
which we think our people are not yet fully aware. This
matter of our public indebtedness must not be left to take
care of itself. The country must be aroused. It must
come to be distinctly understood, that here is no ordinary
work to be done. A whole people must be brought to
feel the obligation of a public engagement. We have
assigned some reasons to show why this does not come
home to the private and individual conscience. But it
must be brought home there. Our only help lies in indi
vidual conviction. Every merchant, every mechanic, every
farmer must be made to feel that this obligation presses
like a private debt, upon his ware-house, his work
shop, his land. The truth is, a new kind of national
conscience is to be called into being here. The people of
these States, paying immense debts, which press upon them
in the form of government loans, paying them by a volun
tary effort, as they will do, will present a moral spectacle
never before seen in the world. The principle that will
do this, hes, we firmly believe, in the heart of these com
munities ; but it is to be quickened into life and roused
into action. And this must be done. We must not
admit nor consent that anything else is possible. Shall the
blight of bad faith be upon our fields and streams and
mountains, as an everlasting curse and shame ? Shall this

m
canker be suffered to remain in the very root of all our
prosperity and hope ? Shall this terrible precedent stand
in the national history of millions of free, prosperous and
intelligent people ? Shall this be the heritage of dishonor
that is to go down from us to our posterity ? And shall
the nations as they pass by our borders say, ' Aha ! these
are the people that talked of liberty and justice and human
rights ; but they never paid their debts ! ' Heaven forbid !
We neither admit nor consent, nor believe that this is pos
sible !
The serond charge brought against us, is that at an
excessive and demoralizing love and pursuit of gain.
To meet the full extent of the distrust that is felt of this
country and of its institutions on pecuniary grounds, it is
necessary to take a larger view, than that of temporary
repudiaiion. There are other accusations connected with
this larirer \ie\v. It is said that the entire national mind of
this country i.s ( orrupted by the pursuit of wealth ; that in
the absence of hereditary distinctions, tins is the main
title to consideration among us, and that to gain it, has
beeoiiii^ the oiu! passion of OUT people ; that from this cause
has come in a flood of bankmptcies, failures, frauds: that
we have become the most dishonest people in the world ;
and in tine, that our great political experiment is wrecked
upon a rock of gold ; — or rather, of what we thought was
gold, but which has turned out to be no better than worth
less slate.
Let us observe in passint:, that the failure of the United
States Hank, being, as it was striciiy alter the withdrawal of
the national charter, a private corporation, no more involves
the moral credit of our people, than the failure of a Ixink
at Leeds or .Manchester, does that of the F.iiglish people.
But let us proceed to the general allegation.
That, as a people at large, we are a money-seeking peo
ple beyond all others, we do not deny. That the pursuit
of proixrly carries us too far, and is the cause of many
mistakes and evils amon:; us, we do not deny. Ibit with
regard to the opprobrium attached to liiis national trait, wo
must ask for some candid relleotion.
It must be remembered then, that tlioi<> never was a
|)eo|)le lo whom the palhs of ncquisiiioii " eri> so widely
o]>ene(l as the people of this eountry. In Europe, entail

13
on the land and capital in the manufactories, hold the mass
of property from general possession. The laboring classes,
generally, are tenants at will, or toilers for a bare subsist
ence. To have a competence, an independence however
humble, is a thing entirely beyond their reach and thought.
In this country, this boon, or the hope of it at least, is
held out to all. Can it be expected that any people will
be indifferent to such a blessing ? We are not surprised
that the first developement of the unobstructed free prin
ciple, is the eager pursuit of property. Noble ones are
to follow, are following already ; but it was natural, it
was inevitable, that this should be the first. A man were
a fool, and not a rational being, if, when the chance is
offered him of providing for his own dechning days or
for the future wants of his family, he should fold his hands
in transcendental wisdom or plebeian stupidity, and say that
he did not care for property.
Nor do we admit all that is charged, of bad consequences
from the pursuit of worldly goods. We will come in a
moment to our late commercial disasters. But first we
deny in general, that the common possession of this great
heritage of opportunity, has had the effect alleged, to vul
garize, degrade and corrupt the public mind. This wide
diffusion of property tends to make a generous people.
We certainly are not a hoarding people. Our expenditures
are free enough in all conscience, we need not say ; but
we must say, since we are put upon this ungrateful argu
ment, that our charities too are free. And we wish that
our British accusers, in particular, would think now and
then, amidst their reproaches, of the thousands and ten
thousands of their own poor, whom we annually relieve.
They come in shoals every week, every day, to our shores ;
sometimes, we are told, actually shipped off from the alms
houses of England in utter helplessness by the public
authorities ; they crowd our own alms-houses ; they besiege
our doors in all the cities of our sea-board ; and we verily
believe that, in the long run, we are to give to the poor of
Great Britain more than the amount of all the debts we
owe her ! We can do it ; and a good many things more ;
and pay the debt besides ; and shall — such is our assured
faith. 2

u
But again, we doubt whether the eagerness for gain,
though circumstances have made it more general here, is,
by any means, so intense as it is in the hitrher circles of
Europe. There is nothing here to compare with the rigid
grasp of entail ; with the inhumanity, the unnatural cruelty
and injustice, that looks around upon a circle of children
alike loving and entitled to love, and says, ' penniless ^hall
ye all be, but this, my eldest ; dependent shall ye all
be upon him ; in order that our family may be great."
They say that we have no birth-distinctions here to honor.
But how long will the birth-distinction last without the
wealth-distinction ? The law of primogeniture answers.
No, no ; the great name must be graven on a plate of gold,
or it will wear out. The possessors of rank will nut be the
men to set a light value upon the wealth that sustains it.
This close alliance, too, must give wealth, with the nuns
of tlie people, increased influence and power. And we
verily believe, strange as the assertion may be thouirht. that
opulence is a surer title to respect in Europe than it i- in
America. Beside its association with rank, it is a rarer
tiling there, tiian it is here. And from both cauMs, it can
surround itself with homages there, wiiicli liere it would
seek for in vain. \Ve are certain, tiiat the poor man in
.Vmcrica stands a better chance of receiving the considera
tion and respect tliat are due to him, than in Euro[>e. The
Old world is full of arrangements that visibly as-iirii to him
an humbler place and accommodation. The forward deck
of steamboats is for him ; the second class of railroad cars :
the humble fiacre or citadine in the cities ; iia\ , the very
streets tell the same tale. Till recently, ia the citus of
Europe the streets had no side-walks. But fifteen years
ago, large quarters in Paris did not jiossess one side-walk.
And the language of all this was as |)lain. as if the words
had been formed in the very paving-stones ; • liuse sixi^cts
were built solely for the convenience of the rich who ride
in carriages, and not for tlie poor wlio walk.' Vcs. and
tiie rapid increase of side- walks in tlie cities as plainly pro
claims the onward march of more pisi and lil>eral princi-
pk's. The barricades in Paris did not tell a plainer tale.
But let us come to the season of our laie commercial
disasters. This, in the view of many foreign oiiscr\eis. lias
plunged tlie moral and political hope of the country into

15
utter ruin. Let us look at the case. In a thriving country,
of vast and unexplored resources, amidst an enterprising
population, to whose whole mass were opened the courses
of boundless competition, there grew up gradually, from
various causes, an honest conviction of the increased value
of all property. We were living in a new age, in a new
world, amidst new and untried fortunes ; prosperity, such
as the world perhaps had never known , was pouring its
treasures into the lap of peace ; human intelligence, as
piration, hope, were lifting their wings for an unbounded
flight ; mechanism, more than realizing the fabled stories
of giants and Titans, seemr;d about to break through the
iron barriers of necessity, and to open the regions of
some fairer and happier state of being. There were dis
tinct causes, no doubt, of the wild speculations of 1835
and 18.36, but we believe that the excited spirit of the age
leht them a powerful impulse. At any rate, the impulse
became general, became universal. We well remember
how sage and cautious men held out against it for a time.
We remember too, how one after another fell in with it ; till
at length all yielded to the tide of opinion, and were gazing
unconcerned, if not actually swimming upon this vast and
tremendous Mselstrom. Speculation became, in fact, a
part of the regular and accredited business of the country.
It was not like the mania about the South sea and Missis
sippi stocks ; it was not the scheme of a few ; it did not wear
an air of romance or phrenzy, which might well have put
the prudent upon their guard ; it was the trade and traffic
of the many. People honestly said, ' we had not appre
ciated the value of our property ; our houses, our lots and
lands are, and are to be, worth more than we had thought ;
how much we know not.' Suppose, then, multitudes to have
become honestly possessed with the conviction that they
could make immense fortunes in a few years ; and see the
unprecedented force of the temptation. The fact is, that
no community on earth was ever subjected to anything like
the same trial. Is it strange that many sunk under it ; that
the sound old maxims of prudence were considered as
superseded and to be laid aside ; that men took risks first,
then involved themselves in embarrassments ; and that
many, at last, fell into positive frauds ? There have been
sad failures on every side ; not received with dishonest non-

16
chalance, as our foreign traducers represent; they little
know the honorable minds to which they do this wrong.
And there have been gigantic frauds, which have struck
the heart of the whole community with salutary horror.
All this we admit. But when we hear it said, ' the great
repubhcan experiment has failed ; ' we answer, no ; some
banks, some houses, some individuals have failed, but tiie
country has not failed, the experiment has not failed ; the
heart of the people is sound. In fact, when we speak of
the whole community as engaged in the late hazardous
courses of business, we speak, after all, only of the trading
classes ; the people at large, knew nothing about it. The
body of farmers and mechanics was absolutely untouched
by il. And we aver and we know, concerning our
people at large, and that too from some minute knowl
edge and ( xtensive comparison, that there is not a more
lionest and \irtuous people on earth. We iiiii:iit say more;
for tliere is nothing anioni,' our |)eople, to compare with the
small, paltry, perpetual deception, knavery and lying that
one finds evtrywhere on the continent of Europe. We
migiit say more tlien ; but thus much at least, will wc sav :
for while on the one hand, we have no taste for flattery.
on the other, wo will not give up our pcojile to unjust
re[)roacli. Conceit may be bad, but di.-couniiremenl is
scarcely less so; to sulmilt pas.^ively to opprobrium is to go
half-way towards deserving it ; and at any ratit, what we
desire 111 the case, is absolute truth and justice — no more
and no less.
The third gra\e ciiari,'e against .Vmerican morals is
(ixeil upon the system of Slavery.
Let tilt? charge be [irecisely stated. It is not that we
now import sUivi s, or suffer them to be imported. We
have declared the trade to be pirai-y ; and wore tlie lirsi
nation in tiie world to do so. The cliarLre is, thai a body
of till? unfortunale .\frican race formerly introduced into
this country, and x\liicii has coine by inheritance into the
hands of the present geiioralii>n, is siill held in bondage.
It is un involuntary possession. It was not sought by those
in whom the title now vests ; it is not desired by the most
of them ; it was entailed upon them. .\nd the substantive
matter of the accusation is. tlial the; do not emancipate
this class immediately. Gradual emaiici|ialion has boon

17
going on in this country from the moment that it was freed
from its connection with Great Britain. Up to the time of
the Abolition excitement, the discussion of such relief was
freely entertained from one end of the country to the other.
Let the reader remember the debates in the Virginia Legis
lature after the Southampton massacre, tlie language of Jef
ferson himself on this subject, and the conversations he must
have held with the Southern planters, if he has taken any
pains to converse with them. The charge is not, that the
body of our citizens even in the slave States, approve of this
system in the abstract ; not that they would now establish it ;
but that they permit its existence at all, that they do not break
it up immediately ; or with regard to the Northern States, it
is that they are slumbering in criminal apathy over this tre
mendous evil and wrong. In one word, the charge is, that the
national conscience is far behind that of other civilized coun
tries. For it is not our present business to maintain that
we are better than other nations, but to show that no
grand demoralization has taken place under our Repub
lican forms. This is what is now alleged in Europe, and
this is what we deny.
We had prepared ourselves to make a somewhat full
statement of our views of the entire Slavery question ; but
we refrain from doing so at present, for two reasons. The
first is, that it would swell this article beyond due bounds.
And the second is, that we are unwilling on reflection to
discuss the subject at large from the particular point of
view at which we now stand. It places us in a false posi
tion with reference to our own sentiments. From some
experience we have found, that everything we say, with a
to view the defence of the national morality on this subject,
is seen in a false light. We are looked upon as apologists
for Slavery : a thing we can never permit.
We must content ourselves at present, therefore, with
some remarks on the state of feeling existing in this country,
and the judgment formed of it abroad. Are we then to say,
in the first place, that this feeling is altogether right, that the
public conscience is elevated or quickened to the desirable
point ? It would be idle and foolish and immoral to say it.
We suppose the people of this country, and especially the
parties ihterested, feel very much as the people of England
or France would, as all people will at first, in a case where
2*

18
immense interests are involved, where old habitudes and
prejudices are called in question, and where selfish passions
are aroused by earnest discussion. And here we must still
desire the reader to observe our point of view, and not to
misconstrue us. Absolutely speakinL^ we can have no wish
but to raise the public character and conscience among us. to
the highest elevation possible. In tiiis view, it is nolhintr to
us that otiier nations fail; we will spread no such ^llield
over our errors. But when it is said, that our free insti
tutions have depraved the national character, have made n-
a SI Ifish and recklos people, have made us worse than any
otiur |)eoi)le, il is to tlie purpose, and il is but justice to tiie
great lil)eral cause, lo deny tiie charge. We are wiUing
that other nations slioiild exact of us more than they
demand of tlieinscivis, if they please ; but when the i \ac-
liiin is brought into this kind of arguim ni. we think it is
unfair. We freely say, that we an not .>^atisfied with the
feeling that l•\i^N in iliis country with regard to the stu
pendous immoralily of the slave-syNii ni, imt we luust
equaily deny tiiat it indicales any extraordinary <li -en-
eracy. But, iti the next place, wiuii is tiie leclinu in lad ? The
.Northern .Stales have always Ixcii opjjosed to Sia\er\ ; they
have maiiuiaitteil all their slaves loU'..: airo : thev are over-
s|)ria(i with .VI>olition .Socuuts at tins moment ; and the
writings of Chaiining and olliir>, ha\e drawn uni\< r>al
attention and stirred tiie universal con-cience. \),k-~ all
this look hke apathy? But then it i> rviul. that many
people at the .North have been exasperated bv the Abolition
moveinent. But we ask, — could this be. !>< cause they are
opposed to abolition? Why, tiny have :ilM,li>|i,d slavery
themsehes! The truth is, tliey thou-lit this moxement
daiii;irous to tiie peace of the country, to the union of the
Stat( s. Ami then tiiey did not like the manner and tone
of the .\l)olitionists. They could not help their dislike
periiaps; but tiiey oii:,'lit, we think, to ha\e been more con
siderate than tliey were. They ought lo lia\e respectetl the
pure and gentle. ili<' coiirauious and -i If-sacrihcing spirit of«
a man like Follen.and of oilnis hke him: and we Mievo Uioy
did. But at any rate their dislike of the Abojitionist.^was not
a ho-iiliiy to aliohiion. The hop<<rul idea Ims alu-ays been
entertained in .Now llngland, tliat tin- cniiuicipalion of

19
which itself had set the example, would gradually spread
itself over the South, till not one human creature in these
States should be held in bondage. Then again, with
regard to the feeUng entertained at the South, we must
believe that much injustice has been done to it. There are
those, it is true, who defend the slave-system in its very
principle, and maintain that it ought to be permanent.
But we believe they are few. Many of the planters, we
know, feel their situation to be a painful and irksome one,
and would gladly be rid of it. But what should they have
done? They saw, as they aver, that manumission, with them,
did the colored man no good ; that he was a worse man,
and worse off for his freedom. They felt, too, that their
characters were assailed with rude and cruel severity, and
they were naturally indignant. This was set down, at
once, to Southern pride and selfishness and inhumanity ;
but was it just ? We have known the Southern people, as
generous and hospitable and kind-hearted and courteous to
a proverb ; no people in the world more so ; was it right to
heap upon them unmeasured opprobrium and indignity,
instead of approaching them as brethren, with kind and
respectful reasoning ; instead of mildly asking them what
ought to be, and what could be done ?
And indeed, what is to be done ? This we say, in the
third place, is the great question ; and it is a difficult ques
tion ; it is environed with difficulties. The way out of
these difficulties is not so plain that a good conscience
must needs see it at once and feel no hesitation. The
example of West India emancipation has indeed relieved
some doubts. The docility, the gratitude, the joy of the
colored people there, and their willingness quietly to enter
into new social relations, to work as freemen upon the
fields which they had tilled as slaves, presented a beautiful
and touching spectacle ; and we rejoice at it ; we thank
God for it. But yet, is West India emancipation an ex-
arnple for us ? The colored race, with us, must ever be
a small and depressed minority. They can never be the
dominant class, as in the West Indies. Scattered among
us and yet separated from us by impassable physical, if not
mental barriers ; refused intermarriage, refused intercourse
as equals, be it ever so unjustly ; how are they ever to rise ?
How are they to enjoy any fair chance as men ? We are

20
disposed to ask for them an ampler measure of relief than
mere emancipation. And yet how they are to get it,
except in entire removal from the country, we see not.
Force, for this purpose, is out of the question ; but we have
thought that, if, being emancipated, they should see it to be
for their advantage to retire to Hayti or the West Indies, it
would be fortunate for them ; it would be the only situa
tion in which they could rise to their proper place as men.
And we have doubted whether emancipation in this country,
either at the North or South, has done them any good.
The instances that have fallen under our particular and
personal observation, go to prove the contrary. We have
known communities of them, where fifty years of freedom
have left them worse and worse off for it. We do not say,
that they were less happy ; for we think that freedom is a
boon that may compensate for the loss of almost everything
beside. At the same time wc hear that there are far more
favorable instances than those wc have examined. We
are told, that in the cities of New York and Philadelphia
there are communities of regular, orderly and industrious
colored people, who have their churches, their schools, their
charitable institutions, and among whom are far fewer poor
and wretched than among the Irish emigrants. They are
said to have improved very much within the last ten years.
Something of this we have suspected ; and it has occurred
to us that the demonstration of friendship given in the
visible array of the .Vbolition movement, may have been of
great service to them.
The question before us, we say, is one of momentous
concern, and fraught with diflficulty and danger. It were a
comparatively easy thing to vote twenty millions, or a hun
dred millions, to free slaves in a distant island. And we verily
believe that our difficulties would be less, if all the States
were slave States. Then wo should have one common
interest. Then we might go togetlier. Now there is a
perilous altercation between the Nortli and the South. To
our apprehension it endangers the Union. Foreigners can
feel little concern about it, compared with what we feel:
and they may use a rough and violent language on this
subject, which it would not be our wisdom to imitate.
On the whole, we think it must be apparent that this is
a subject to be treated with the utmost care and con-

21
sideration, with the utmost Christian seriousness and mod
eration. We are accused abroad of a base and criminal
apathy upon it. Who of us may deserve this charge
we know not, but we do know many who have stood
aloof from the Abolition movement, in application to whom
it would be utterly and cruelly false. From our youth up,
we have known the fact to be far otherwise. Twenty-five
years ago — long before any Abolition Society was heard of
— we knew of a private Association of gentlemen formed
for the investigation of this subject.* Often and often have
we known this matter to be discussed, as the most fatal evil
and peril of the country ; discussed at the North with
solemn deliberation, and at the South with anxieties and
tears even, which should have won a consideration far dif
ferent from this coarse and ferocious abuse.
It has been proclaimed abroad that our pulpit dares not
speak out on this subject ; that many of our clergy are Abo
litionists, but have not the courage to confess it. We
repel the charge with indignation. Our clergy generally,
though of course opposed to Slavery, are not Abolitionists.
Nay, and we have discussed the subject of Slavery less fre
quently than we otherwise might have done, because we saw,
or thought we saw, that the discussion was taking a danger
ous turn. Foreigners can strike in freely among us ; the
blow does not hurt them ; they care little for our dissen-
tions and our perils ; but we, with their leave, must look a
little more carefully after these matters. It is always found
that one's neighbors can speak much more freely of his
family than he can himself. They understand but little of
the difficulty and delicacy of his situation. We say plainly,
that we do not like the tone of English criticism upon us.f
* The writer of this article was a member of this Association.
t We do not descend so low in this allusion as to a late article, run
mad with the rage for abuse, in the last London Foreign Quarterly Re
view. Nor do we refer now to its criticism on our poets. But the first
few pages contain an attack upon this country of such unmeasured injus
tice, that we can find no words wherewith adequately to speak of it.
We are sometimes tempted to ask, is there something coarse and brutal
in the English civilization ? But we check ourselves. We have seen the
homes of England, and never and nowhere on earth do we expect to find
more refinement, courtesy and hospitality than we have seen there. And
we trust the higher mind of that country to rebuke, as they deserve, such
insane ebullitions, when occupying any loflier place than the vilest news
paper, or the lowest gin-shop.

22
We have seen more than one rough and reckless comment
upon our soberest writers on politics, Hke Channing and
Story. They are considered as timid and time-serving.
We recollect' that in one of the leading Reviews, Channing
was represented — the high-hearted and intrepid Channing
— as "bowing and kissing hands to the public all round! "
Nay, even on the subject of Slavery, he was too prudent for
some. The celebrated John Foster said, when reading one
of his powerful Essays, " it is very fine, but rather too
much like a razor." He wanted that the American cham
pion should strike with a club. The fact is. people abroad
look with a sort of speculative and curious feehng upon
our discussions. They like to see the Democratic principle,
as they consider it, carried out to tlic fullest extent, as it is in
the former writings of Brownson, and of others young and
rash as he was. That pleases them, amuses them. But we
have somethini,' else to do in this country, besides pleasing
or amusing anybody. We must be sober, if we would be
wise mi'ii. Wc have many things to consider, that are out
of the reach of trans-.\tlantic eyes. We have many inter
ests to take into the account, many powers and tendencies
to hold in a careful balance. God forbid that we should
set anything above the sovereign, solemn, eternal truth!
But beneath that truth we must walk reverently, soberly,
humbly. We have now considered tlie three heaviest char^jos that
are brought against our national morality ; repudiation, the
spirit of gain, and slavery. We might proceed to sav some
thing, if we had space, of certain disorders, private broils and
violations of law, under the name of Lynch Law. which char
acterize the state of society in the far ^\'est. There is a
certain border-land between ci\ilization and barbarism.
where personal vindication, and lawless defence of society
against thieves and gamblers, sometimes take place of the
regular administration of public justice. Wo have no
defence whatever to make of these usages. We have only
to say, that tliey are loss remarkable and portentous than
tlioy appear to European eyes ; es|x>cially when it is con
sidered that these nro continually exhibited in newspaper
paragraphs, instead of the general order of society which pre
vails in that part of the country. But the important obsor\a-
tion to be iiiaili" is, thai this border land is constantly retreat-

23
ing before the advances of settled law and order. If it were
otherwise, if this border were coming Eastward, if Lynch
law and the bowie knife were gaining upon us, it were an
invasion to be looked upon with unmitigated horror. But
the truth is, that they are constantly driven back and are
fast retreating to " their own place," the wild domain of
savage life.
After all, we are not sure but the great offence of this coun
try lies in what is called " a Democratic levelling of all dis
tinctions," and in what is represented as " a consequent gen
eral vulgarity of mind and manners." Strangely enough Mr.
Dickens has especially taken it to heart, to make this impres
sion upon the people of England and upon his readers all over
Europe. We do not say that he was obliged to think well of
us, because we thought well of him and received him kindly.
He had delighted the people of this country with his pic
tures of life and manners ; he had provided them with
what, amidst their too serious and engrossing cares, they
very much wanted — a great deal of harmless amusement;
he had won them by the broad and beautiful seal of hu
manity that is set upon his genius ; and they paid him a
homage which no other people on earth could pay. It was
really a most extraordinary demonstration, creditable to
both parties, indicative of great intellectual power on the
one side, and of no mean share of intelligence on the
other : and out of this bare fact of Mr. Dickens's reception,
doing him more justice than he does himself, we could
frame an argument good against more than half he says
of America. We confess, under all the circumstances of the
case, that we were never more at loss to account for any
state of mind than for this bitterness towards America, of
the popular novelist. It will not do for him to say that he
is a fiction-writer and somewhat of a caricaturist. When
he draws pictures of disgusting meanness and vulgarity at
home, he lets the reader plainly understand that they be
long to the lowest fife in England. But he presents to the
English and European pubUc, pictures of a vulgarity which
nobody ever saw or heard or conceived of in America, and
when they walk out of the frame, lo ! they are merchants
of New York, Generals and landed proprietors in the
West, persons holding respectable positions in society.
This is no play of fiction. Speaking in his own person, he

24
permits himself, amidst a strain of almost insane vitupera^
tion, to use language like this concerning America: "that
Republic," he says, "but yesterday let loose upon her
noble course, and but to-day so maimed and lame, so full
of sores and ulcers, foul to the eye and almost hopeless (?)
to the sense, that her best friends turn from the loathsome
creature with disgust." ! ! We grieve to say, that the dis
gust inspired by this passairc must turn, we fear, upon the
writer of it. Mr. Dickens might be reminded that there are
other vehicles for scurrility, as it would seem, besides news
papers. We cliaili iige him to find in the lowest of our
public prints any language concerning any civilized people
on earth, to compare with the passage we have just quoted.
Can it be a respcf table thinu: in EiiL'land, to treat a nation
with such indignity as tiiis ? We believe not. The angry
novelist, as we have reason to know, is doing himself more
hurt at home, even than abroad.
But there is ne\erilieless a slate of opinion in England to
wliicli this treneral representation addresse> iiM If It is doubt
less believeii by many that the [>eople in this country are. in
the mass, a knavisii, mean and vulgar i)eople ; that we are a
|)ei>ple of infinite pretension and very little performance;
that our intpllii,'ence is cunnimr, our virtue wordy talk, and
our reli'_'ion fanaticism; in short that our Democratic in
stitutions are fast breaking down all reverence, nobleness
and true culture among our peo|)le. From the high places
of society in England, tiiey cast down scorn u|K>n this
poor Republic, wallowing in the mire and filth of bijundlcss
license and vulgarity! *
We are soinewliat tenqiled to take tliat bull, John Bull,
by the horns in tins matter, though we should be gored by
him. Nobility against Democracy then — l>c it so. We
are ready to maintain that DeiiuM-mcv is yielding nobler
results. We will not direct attention to the iiiisiTV of tlie
lower classes in tiiat country ; but wi' point directly to the
higiier classes. We say that much of that misery is owing
to them. We say that tiny do not now. and that they never
did, tiieir duly to the people of England. Wo iwy that
they have never made any contribution, pro|K>rUonabie to
their udvaiitagos, to the wialili, improvemonl, learning,

" .*<op I.oril SMteiihnm'ii I.i'tlor.

25
literature, or even to the statesmanship of England,
Were not their ranks continually recruited from the com
monalty, they would have more than half died and ceased
out -of the land by this time. Their position is essentially
a false and wrong position for human beings to occupy.
Nay, their feeble hands cannot hold the very property that
is committed to them. Were it not lashed on to them by
entail, it would be scattered during the life-time of the
present generation. At this very moment, more than half
of the great landed estates of England are under mort
gage. We say moreover, that their position is one totally
unjust and infinitely ungenerous to the rest of the people.
They have a most unfair start in the race of life. There is
no generous boy in any country, that would not disdain
such an advantage. Suppose that such a boy were sent to
any public school : and that the master, patting him on the
head, should say to him, ' I know where you came from,
my dear ; you are the son of such or such an one ; now do
not trouble yourself about the tasks, my boy ; though you
do not work half so hard as the others, you shall have more
marks than any of them ; and when you run races with them,
you shall always have two rods the start ; so you shall be a
grand boy in the school any way.' Now what would any
spirited and generous boy say of this ? With bursting
tears of indignation, we should expect him to say, ' I do not
want to be treated so ; I do not want any advantage ; let
me take my chance with the rest.' The peerage is the
great baby-nursery of England ; and all the land is taxed
and tasked to keep it warm and comfortable — especially
for the oldest boy : and when the younger ones run out,
instantly coats and cloaks — to wit, army and navy uni
forms, cassocks, good secretaryships, appointments, — are
provided for them by the kind and nursing public.
The good people of England especially admire this insti
tution, and it is our especial marvel that they do. We
cannot help thinking that many a noble lord laughs in his
sleeve at it. Our own feeling is, that the people in that
country are not elevated, but degraded by this worship of
the aristocracy. We remember once asking in a company
of intelligent and cultivated persons in England, whether
there was anybody, any man in the country, who on being
3

26
invited by the Lord of a neighboring casde to visit him and
spend a week in hunting with his Lordship, would not feel
— and that too whether his Lordship was w ise or simple,
bad or good — would not feel, we say, sensibly gratified
and very highly honored. With a shout of kughter at
our simplicity, they all answered, "No, there is no such
man in England 1 "
Give us then, we say, the chance for the noblest develop
ment of all human faculties and affections, that is found in
our generous freedom, with all its faults, rather than that
which is offered in the tide-worshipping land of Britain I
In connection with our morahty, wc wish to say a word or
two, in passing, of our religion. There is a total miscon
ception in Europe on this subject. We have no established
church and no ecclesiastical revenue, and it is inferred
that we have no religion. Dr. Chalmers, some years ago,
came out in London with a series of lectures on the \ ol-
untary System, and much did he delight the members of
the I'.siabllshmcnt by proving, as they supposed, that religion
cannot be left to take care of itself, that it is not in this, as
in Worldly matters, that demand will procure supply. V\'e
should like to know what he thinks of it now, since one of
the noblest voluntary contributions has been made that ever
the world saw, to support him and the tree churelies of his
new communion in breaking off from the Establishment, Be
this as it may ; here in America, is a perfect illustration of
the jiermanent working of the voluntary principle. Here
is a country without either establishment or endowment or
revenue, or ermipulsion of any sort to support religion.
And what do we see? More Divinity Schools are estab
lished here, more churches are builded, and larger salaries.
to the body of the clergy, are paid in this country, than
anywhere else in the world. Demand will not procure
sup|»ly — the \oluiitary principle will not sustain religious
iiistituiioiis — is it said? Look at Uie churches tliat are
rising around us in every city in the Union — and not
one stone laid in their foundations, but what the voluntary
principle lays there. But this zeal is not confined to our
cities. We took a journey three or four years since, across
till' hills of our own and a neighboring county in Mossa-
cliiisetis, and we must confess that wo were equally sur
prised and delighted with what wo saw. In the first town-

27
ship that we came to, they were building a new church,
for the convenience of a half-parish two or three miles from
the 61d church. In the second, they were painting their
church, and had replaced the old steeple with a new one.
We shall be permitted to be thus minute, because these are
the simple facts. In a third township — all lying adjacent
to each other — they had pulled down the old church, and
built a new, commodious and tasteful structure in its stead.
In a fourth, not far distant, we came out upon what seemed
a church in the wilderness ; all surrounded by woods, with
not a dwelling-house in sight. One other building there
was, indeed, hard by it, and that was a new academy —
with a bell that was ringing out its matin call to the pupils,
and sounded like a convent bell amidst the solitudes of the
Alps. Now, let a man travel over England, and where
can he find anything hke this ? Dr. Chalmers asks for a
power that shall build churches and support their ministers.
We point him to the voluntary principle. It does build
churches here, and it does pay the clergy ; and it does
everything else that we want done. At least it accom
plishes more than is done in any other country. England
with all her ecclesiastical revenues, and all the power of
her hierarchy, and all the wealth of her nobles, cannot
build churches nor raise funds in her waste places, nay, nor
in her thronged cities, to any such extent as is done here,
simply by the voluntary principle.
Passing from our morals and religion, we would say
something, in the next place, of our manners. And we
freely admit the high significance of this consideration.
Manners really are, according to the old usages of language,
matters of morality. Manners are the instant unfolding,
out-flowing of a people's mind ; they are unpremeditated
expressions of culture or coarseness, refinement or vulgarity,
self-considering or self-forgetting, justice or injustice, kind
ness or coldness of heart ; they are as significant as charities
or churches, as bankruptcies or battles. Show us a people
whose manners are essentially bad — gross, coarse, ungen
tle and bad ; and we should give up the defence of it in as
utter despair, as if it had neither priests nor altars, neither
hospitals nor alms-houses.
We hope to show by some simple discriminations, that
we have no cause so to despair of ourselves as a people ;

28
whatever may be said by foreign tourists who scan our
manners in a month, or study our domestic usages in a
steamboat. And we offer one of these discriminations, by
saying in the first place, that there are certain things, not
attaching to us as a |)eople. and yet found among us, m hich
we freely give up to " the whips and scorns" of whosoever
pleases to lay upon them the lash and the sting.
The manners, for instance, of some of the members of our
legislative assemblies — and must we say? of the highest —
we give up ; we have not a word to say in defence or
extenuation. Tiiis only will we say. that if there be men
who have found their way into liie legislature, rather than
the wn siling-riiig or the cock-pit — if there be such m<n
who have given the lie, or lifted ihe hand and struck the
vulirar blow, in the majestic halls of public debate — if
there be sucii men, who are not made to feel the weight
of that dishonor so long as they live, we do not know, and
we do not wisli to know, tlie people and the public senti
ment of this country. .Mi! if they could understand with
what biiier and insupportable shame, every American, in
every land, hangs his head when tlii>e things are mentioned,
tluv might i)arilon soinetliing of the indignation with which
we write. We would that our countrymen migiit be
aroused to consider this matter iiii>..-t seriousl\ ; and that
when such a man presents himself before them for re-elec
tion, they would say to him, • No, sir, we are >eeking a
statesman, not a |)ugilist.'
.Again ; the character of the newspaper press has been
made the matter of heavy re|iroaciies against us. It has
been made the subject of elaborate articles in the foreign
journals. Wv must think there has been some injustice,
some want of discrimination in the case. From the innu
merable columns of the daily |)ress, written in haste and
weariness often, it might be ex|iected that many objection
able passages could be selected, and when these are spread
out side by side, it is easy to see that a false impression
may be created. But still no observing and llioughtful
man among us can help admitting, unless he bo rostrainod
by the sheerest cowardice, that tiio character of our news
papers deserves much of the reproach that is cast upon
it. Many of their editors, wo believe, see mid fool this as
much as others. Wo have heard more than one of them

29
admit, that even the vexatious prosecutions for libel by one
of our distinguished authors, have done good. If nothing
of this sort were admitted, if the press stood up in its own
defence, we should hke to see it tried by its own testimony.
Look at the party prints, for instance. What unprincipled,
nefarious, outrageous, lying prints are they all, by the judg
ment of their opponents ! But we are afraid we must press
this evidence a little farther ; into the barriers of the same
party. Look at the rival prints of our cities. Within any
period of a year or two, we know of one city at least, in
which not one of them, nor one of their editors, escapes the
charge of being malignant, base, indecent and reckless of
all truth and principle. If this were bad taste only, it
were bad enough ; but certainly it is something much
worse. The truth is, printing has become almost as com
mon as talking ; and we have in it, therefore, almost all
the freedom of talk, without the restraints of personal
presence. It is, in some sort, like an anonymous letter ;
always the most reckless and abusive of all writing, because
of the veil that covers the attack. In short, we have come
to a new era in printing. Newspaper freedom never before
tried any people to the same extent ; the peril of it, has
come upon us unsuspected ; we have fallen into the mis
takes incident to a new and untried state of things ; and
we must look to the teachings of experience and to the
corrective power of public sentiment, as they have helped
us always and everywhere, to help us here.
Much good satire has been expended upon a minor
immorality of our manners, in defence of which we have
nothing to say but this, — that we never saw the transgres
sion. What may be done in bar-rooms, in steamboats and
railroad cars, we say not, we need not describe nor defend
it; these places are out-of-doors to many people. But
speaking of what passes in-doors, and from thirty or forty
years' observation of this country and from a pretty wide
circle of intercourse, we say, taxing our memory to the
utmost, that we never saw any person spit on a carpet or
parlor-floor in America. Wherever the fault lies, there let the
reprobation fall ; but to multitudes among us, this represen
tation of foreign tourists, as a general one, must be a matter
of as unmixed surprise, as if they had said, that we keep
3*

30
bears in our parlors, or settle our fire-sLde discussions with
fisticufl's. With regard to our manners on the whole, while there
is, doubtless, less of ease and polish than in the higher circles
of Europe, where men live in and for society almost entirely,
and less of a certain civility and kindliness than in the
humbler classes abroad, educated for ages to deference and
respect ; yet there is a self-respect among our people, and a
delicacy and consideration of different classes in the treat
ment of one another, and a freedom from mannerism, from
hackneyed and heartless forms — the devices of modem
etiquette or the stereotypes of old precision — all of which
we value, and value as the results of our better and juster
political condition. Manners are the mirror of a people's
mind. .\nd we believe that each class in this country,
as compared ^vith its res[)ecti\e class abroad, will be found
from iis relative position, to have manners more manly and
sincere and more just,"as between man and man ; the hiu'iier
less assumption, the lower less sycophancy ; and the mid-
dhnir classes decidedly more cultivation.
We are fir from an.vious, however, to defend our man
ners in all jioints. We think it is easy to see that causes
are at work, which for a time must have an unfavorable
influence in this respect, while in the long run they
are to elevate the character, and ultimately indeed the
very manners of the people. The case of the nation per
haps may he illustrated by tliat of an indiviiiual. Compare
a humble citizen of this country, rising into lite and having
nothing but his good heart and hand to help him. with Uie
man of a similar class in Europe, There, he is a laborer,
always to depend for work and fife, for the very soil on
which he labors, upon others ; a serf in Russia, a poor
tenant in England, He is humble, civil, obsequious.
quiet ; he bears in his whole manner and being the stamp
of an inferiority, from which lie never hopes to escape; his
very dress marks him out as a member of that class ; he
never aspires to rise above it; he reads little, perhaps he
cannot read at all ; ho thinks little ; ids ideas revolve in a
narrow circle ; he agitates no questions of social prudence
with his superiors ; lie scarcely feels himself to be a man in
their presence, and in the sense in which they are men ;
he expects to die as he has lived, and his children are to

31
live as he died ; in fine, he is an orderly, decent, useful
person, and from the high places of society they look down
upon him with complacency, for with them he is never to
come into competition. Now look at the humble man of
America. He is a backwoods-man, if you please. He
owns the soil he treads upon ; he pays neither rent nor
tithes nor taxes, but by his own consent and that of his
peers. He acknowledges no master ; he bows to no lord
nor land-holder. All this may have an effect, and, for a
time, a bad effect upon his manners. He is free, fearless,
uncourteous, reckless perhaps in his bearing ; he seems
almost lawless : the experiment looks not well. The
traveller from another country, accustomed to homage
from this class, looks upon him with displeasure, perhaps
with disgust. He speaks his mind too freely, he does not
take off his hat with sufficient deference. Something rough
and unamiable there is, perhaps, in his manner. He has
not learned to vindicate himself in the right way. That
which is struggling in his bosom, is not to be softened and
humanized in a moment. O nature ! poor human nature !
— through errors and sorrows must thou work out thy wel
fare ; and the thoughtful and considerate must wait for thee
a little. Wait then, we say, and look a little farther.
Does not this man become in time a far more intelligent
being than his fellow in Europe ; with a wider range of
thought and culture ? Is he not more hopeful and strong-
hearted ? Does he not strike his spade into the soil that is his
own, with a more willing energy and a more cheerful hope ?
Does not the light from the opening sky of his fortunes
break clearer and stronger, into the cloud of strife and
passion ? Yes, he rises. He rises in character, in culture,
in dignity and influence. He takes a place in society as
hopeless to his brother in the Old World as the possession
of fiefs and earldoms. His children after him rise to the
highest places in the land.
This is a picture of the man in this country. This, in
'some sort, is a picture of the country. Is there a man on
earth, with a human heart in his bosom, that does not
rejoice in the spectacle ; that does not sympathize with the
experiment ; that does not say, God speed it ? No, there is
no man. But there are — and they are not a few — distorted
from the shape and nobleness of men, who hate the experi-

32
ment, and wish it nothing but ill. Clothed in the robes of
selfish grandeur, they would as soon think of taking their
dogs into an equality with themselves, as of taking the
mass of mankind. With this spirit is our quarrel. With
this spirit is the quarrel of this country. And by all the
hope of Christianity and faith in God, do we trust and
believe that this country shaU vindicate the great cause
which is committed to it.
Yes, humanity — not knighthood nor nobihty — the
great, wide humanity has its first, perhaps its last, fair, free
chance here. Sighing and broken through ages, it wan
dered to this new world. It struck the virgin soil, and
forth, from the great heart of the land, burst the word,
FREEDOM ! The waters of a thousand spreading bays and
shores heard it. The winds took it up, and bore it over
the wide sea. It smote the sceptre of injustice and oppres
sion. It shook the thrones of the world. This is no mere
figure : it is true. There is nothing which all the crowned
tyrannies of the world fear and hate, like the example of
America. Wc say not, the crowns of the world. We
have no hostility to royalty as such. We have no hostility
to it, if it can possibly be reconciled with a just and tem
perate freeiloni : and we see no necessary incompatibility
between tiie two. But all the injustice that reigns, all the
tyranny, all the oppression that reigns in the world, has its
practical controversy now, with the example of America.
If we can stand, they must faU. This is the great contro
versy : and may God defend the right !
Would that it were possible to impress upon the people
of this country, a sense of their responsibility to God and
men — to the world and to the hopes of future ages. We
have humbly attempted to defend our cause against the
misgivings of the timid at home, and the mistakes of tliose
who assail us from abroad. The fact is, they do not know
this country. We perhaps ought to know better ; and yet
we, the most of us, have had no opportunity for comparing
it with others. We have never seen an .American trav
eller, who in a just and manly spirit has really looked into
the state of things in Europe, that did not bless, on his
return, the land of his birth. But tfuy, we repeat, do not
know us. They have no idea of our fortunate condition.
They have no idea of the free-hold farms, the neat and

33
thriving villages, and the happy and improving communi
ties that are spread all over this land. They do not know
the spirit of this country. And yet we wonder that they
do not observe, that almost all the great moral and humane
reforms of the age have proceeded from it ; Popular Educa
tion, the Temperance Reform, the Prison Discipline Reform,
the kinder treatment in Asylums for the Insane, the Min
istry for the Poor in Cities, and the Peace Society. Can
the country be so morally bad, out of which such things
have sprung?
But it is time that we should draw to a close. There
has been one great example of Republican Government in
ancient times, arid it failed. We have stood upon its
mournful ruins ; and when asked there, what most im
pressed us in Rome, we answered, — " To stand still and
think that this is Rome ! " To stand indeed upon the
Janiculum or upon the Gardens of Sallust, and cast your
eye around you ; to think of the stupendous histories that
have made their theatre within the range of your vision ; to
think what has passed there, — there where that momen
tary glance of your eye falls, — is to submit your mind to
a more awful meditation than pertains to any other spot of
earth, with one only exception. But those hills upon
which has been enthroned the grandeur of successive Em
pires — what is written upon their now desolate seats ?
What is the lesson taught to the world by the sub-
limest history in the world ? No historian, we doubt, has
answered this question ; for the philosophy of history is yet
to be written.
But, one question there is above all, which presses itself
upon the American traveller, as he gazes upon that theatre
of the old Roman story, and that is, — are we, who have
set the great modern example of Repubhcan freedom, to be
discouraged by the failure of that ancient experiment?
Does the awful shadow of the past, that forever lingers
amidst those majestic ruins, point to the grand experiment
that is passing on these shores, and say, ' it is all in vain ! '
 to the labors of our statesmen and sages, and say, ' they
are all in vain 1 ' — to the blood that has stained our hills
and waters, and say, ' it has been spilt in vain ! ' This is
the great question that issues from that sepulchre of Roman
grandeur — shall America fail ?

34
God forbid 1 She must not, she will not fail. Chris
tianity is here. Educated man is here. Vigor and hope,
promise and prayer are here. Heaven, that spreads its fair
sky over a fertile land, is with us. May it breathe its
blessing into our people's heart, rich as our teeming earth ;
fresh and bright as the light and breezes of our sky !

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