SECTION XII. RESUMPTION ACTUAL TENDENCY OF THE STATES-FUTURE OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN REPUBLICS. Through the phases of public or private life which we have noticed, education, polities, enterprise, position of woman, religion, passions, debates, wo have always found the three clements of the past,-Teutonic, Puritan, Anglo-Saxon, Christian-variety, liberty, tradition, labor, energy, charity. These virtues, make the force and power of present America, which lives and grows by them, not by her political instituThe object of these institutions is to protect, but not to interfere with the development of these living forces; if there be little government, there are characteristics, and it is where characteristics are wanting, that a government is needed. tions. The Irish with their love of disorder, the French with their administrative habits, and the Germans with their antique respect for hierarchy, are all being absorbed-the northern people more easily than the southern-in the general stream. of antique Anglo-Saxon liberty. What is called "the American Revolution," "War of American Independence," are words, phrases useful to orators. The Anglo-Saxon colonies, independent from the beginning, attended a favorable moment to declare themselves free; grown strong, they refused to pay taxes to those who did them no good; they were right. Since 1715, they were more than ready for a republic; the reality existed before the appearance; the name came after the thing. But they did not lay down their arms; it is now half a century, that, aided by the Germanic and Christian sentiments, with English respect for law, they produce cotton, tobacco, Indian corn, railroads and dollars. Faithful to Teutonism and Christianity, faithful to their language, in which the word people has no such sense as is given to it by Roman nations, but means, fellows, folk, volk, a term which embraces rich and poor alike, the most powerful and the feeblest member of the community; a race of brothers, knowing that there is no real association. without sympathy, they, like their fathers, practise those words of A. Kempis, "You must suffer much annoyance and trouble, to live peacefully together." In Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, as in America, the Christian German idea has produced association. Herds and flocks are in common, the gain of cheese and milk is shared; and this community comes not from law, but from custom. The Americans think, like their Calvinist forefathers, that man is feeble, has need of help and charity, and should assist and labor with his fellow. With such dispositions, the form of government is unimportant; they . possess already what is indispensable--religious love for humanity, unconquerable antiquity and respect for law. Without these moral elements of a social organic body, the Mexican and Peruvian Spaniards, who tread on gold and silver, more tolerant, civilized, sociable and amiable than the Mathers and Smiths, have fallen into degradation and decay. The present political mechanism of the States of the South, to speak properly, does not exist; that of the Anglo-French possessions is languishing, contradictory and incomplete ; that of the United States vigorous, complex and effective. I have shown in all the chapters of this book what America will become; a mightier Europe! The space between the Alleghanics and the Rocky Moun tains is six-fold greater than all France. Add to this the three hundred and ninety leagues of the old States, and the new Western territories recently acquired, and even the imagination is urprised. It is the tenth part of the globe." Thus no American sees his country in his village church, but in the face and society to which he belongs. The New Yorker goes to New Orleans, the Louisianian to Kentucky Leave him only the laws and customs which allow a free development of the American form, and he is at home. Laws, soil, land, customs, memories, desires, institutions, pride, passions, qualities, all agree. The partial democracies which compose the union are as solid and stable as the best organized States: their roots are in the soul, their sap in the customs. Yesterday obscure, walking with bold step in the unknown, America cares little for the Present; the Future is hers. A fact governs her life; it is Expansion, activity, energy, tendency to variety, go aheadism. Her moral vigor, identical in its causes and essence with Rome's inner force under the Scipios, or that of France under Louis XIV., or of Spain under Isabella, or of England under the Georges, moves in a vaster sphere. The American soul, profoundly identified with the institutions of the country, desires only what can result from them and from national customs. Everywhere one works, lives at the hotel, marries young, loves adventure, fears bankruptcy but little, but fears less danger or death; and land is never wanting to the courageous American. To this vast social experiment now being made in the States, you must add the eternal physical effort of Nature. Rivers change their beds, Niagara rolls back, the forests fall, the prairies burn, the temperature becomes milder and more temperate, the miaşma loses its fatal force, the means of subsistence increase, the population doubles in twenty years, . and yet all this is but a preparatory work. The heroic age, the war age is at hand; this mighty race has yet much to do. The tendencies of North America, are, on one hand towards conquest, on the other, towards the expansion of the federative groups, and by no means towards the formation of monarchics. The States may break up into two or three different federations, when the individual States become too numerous. Already the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi have a desire to separate. Texas, California, and Oregon, now wild and unpeopled, will one day form another sphere. It is possible that Cuba, Florida, and all the Slave States. will form one group; Canada and the old Northern States another, and the third will be in the far West. Before 18-15, the advance of civilization had not passed a line which, drawn from the head of the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, angled off to the mouth of the St. Lawrence and comprised a third of North America. Now the possession of California is one of the most important facts of our day, not only because of the precious metals, so abundant there, but because of the solidarity which it confers upon the various portions of the New World. While America thus goes on, what of our Europe? What future is reserved for that old country which Franklin called the "good Grandmama"? Are the decrepit children of our worn-out world wise in attempting, despite their Past, to imitate the American selfgovernment? Will they succeed? We doubt it. Already the south of Europe has recognized its incapacity to receive the burden of half-democratic, half-oligarchic institutions, which have raised Great Britain so high. |