The Englishwoman in America by Isabella Lucy Bird (cool books to read TXT) 📕

act of the legislature the power to extend it is placed in the hands of the majority, should that majority declare for it, in the new States. The struggle between the advocates of freedom and slavery is now convulsing America; it has already led to outrage and bloodshed in the State of Kansas, and appearances seem to indicate a prolonged and disastrous conflict between the North and South. The question is one which cannot be passed over by any political party in the States. Perhaps it may not be universally known in England that slavery is a part of the ratified Constitution of the States, and that the Government is bound to maintain it in its integrity. Its abolition must be procured by an important change in the constitution, which _would_ shake, and _might_ dislocate, the vast and unwieldy Republic. Each State, I believe, has it in its power to abolish slavery within its own limits, but the Federal Government has no power to introduce a modification of the system in any. The federal compact binds the Government "not to meddle with slavery in the States where it exists, to protect the owners in the case of runaway slaves, and to defend them in the event of invasion or domestic violence on account of it." _Thus the rights and property in slaves of the slaveholders are legally guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States._ At the last census the slaves amounted to more than 3,000,000, or about an eighth of the population, and constitute an alien body, neither exercising the privileges nor animated by the sentiments of the rest of the commonwealth. Slavery at this moment, as it is the curse and the shame, is also the canker of the Union. By it, by the very constitution of a country which proudly boasts of freedom, three millions of intelligent and responsible beings are reduced to the level of mere property--property legally reclaimable, too, in the Free States by an act called the Fugitive Slave Act. That there are slaveholders amiable, just, and humane, there is not a doubt; but slavery in its practice as a system deprives these millions of knowledge, takes away from them the Bible, keeps a race in heathen ignorance in a Christian land, denies to the slaves compensation for their labour, the rights of marriage and of the parental relation, which are respected even among the most savage nations; it sustains an iniquitous internal slave-trade--it corrupts the owners, and casts a slur upon the dignity of labour. It acts as an incubus on public improvement, and vitiates public morals; and it proves a very formidable obstacle to religion, advancement, and national unity; and so long as it shall remain a part of the American constitution, it gives a living lie to the imposing declaration, "All men are free and equal."

Where the whole machinery of government is capable of being changed or modified by the will of the people while the written constitution remains, and where hereditary and territorial differences of opinion exist on very important subjects, it is not surprising that party spirit should run very high. Where the highest offices in the State are neither lucrative enough nor permanent enough to tempt ambition--where, in addition, their occupants are appointed by the President merely for a short term--and where the highest dignity frequently precedes a lifelong obscurity, the notoriety of party leadership offers a great inducement to the aspiring. Party spirit pervades the middle and lower ranks; every man, almost every woman, belongs to some party or other, and aspires to some political influence.

Any person who takes a prominent part either in local or general politics is attacked on the platform and by the press, with a fierceness, a scurrility, and a vulgarity which spare not even the sanctity of private life. The men of wealth, education, and talent, who have little either to gain or lose, and who would not yield up any carefully adopted principle to the insensate clamour of an unbridled populace, stand aloof from public affairs, with very few exceptions. The men of letters, the wealthy merchants, the successful in any profession, are not to be met with in the political arena, and frequently abstain even from voting at the elections. This indisposition to mix in politics probably arises both from the coarse abuse which assails public men, and from the admitted inability, under present circumstances, to stem the tide of corrupt practices, mob-law, and intimidation, which are placing the United States under a tyranny as severe as that of any privileged class--the despotism of a turbulent and unenlightened majority. Numbers are represented _exclusively_, and partly in consequence, property, character, and stake in the country are the last things which would be deemed desirable in a candidate for popular favour.

Owing to the extraordinary influx of foreigners, an element has been introduced which could scarcely have entered into the views of the framers of the Constitution, and is at this time the great hindrance to its beneficial working. The large numbers of Irish Romanists who have emigrated to the States, and whose feelings are too often disaffected and anti-American, evade the naturalisation laws, and, by surreptitiously obtaining votes, exercise a most mischievous influence upon the elections. Education has not yet so permeated the heterogeneous mass of the people as to tell effectually upon their choice of representatives. The electors are caught by claptrap, noisy declamation, and specious promises, coupled with laudatory comments upon the sovereign people. As the times for the elections approach, the candidates of the weaker party endeavour to obtain favour and notoriety by leading a popular cry. The declamatory vehemence with which certain members of the democratic party endeavoured to fasten a quarrel upon England at the close of 1855 is a specimen of the political capital which is too often relied upon in the States.

The enormous numbers of immigrants who annually acquire the rights of citizenship, without any other qualification for the franchise than their inability to use it aright, by their ignorance, turbulence, and often by their viciousness, tend still further to degrade the popular assemblies. It is useless to speculate upon the position in which America would be without the introduction of this terrible foreign element; it may be admitted that the republican form of government has not had a fair trial; its present state gives rise to serious doubts in the minds of many thinking men in the States, whether it can long continue in its present form.

The want of the elements of permanency in the Government keeps many persons from entering into public life; and it would appear that merit and distinguished talent, when accompanied by such a competence as renders a man independent of the emoluments of office, are by no means a passport to success. The stranger visiting the United States is surprised with the entire absence of gentlemanly feeling in political affairs. They are pervaded by a coarse and repulsive vulgarity; they are seldom alluded to in the conversation of the upper classes; and the ruling power in this vast community is in danger of being abandoned to corrupt agitators and noisy charlatans. The President, the Members of Congress, and to a still greater extent the members of the State Legislatures, are the _delegates_ of a tyrannical majority rather than the _representatives_ of the people. The million succeeds in exacting an amount of cringing political subserviency, in attempting to obtain which, in a like degree, few despots have been successful.

The absence of a property qualification, the short term for which the representatives are chosen, and the want, in many instances, of a pecuniary independence among them, combined with a variety of other circumstances, place the members of the Legislatures under the direct control of the populace; they are its servile tools, and are subject to its wayward impulses and its proverbial fickleness; hence the remarkable absence of any fixed line of policy. The public acts of America are isolated; they appear to be framed for the necessities of the moment, under the influence of popular clamour or pressure; and sometimes seem neither to recognise engagements entered into in the past, or the probable course of events in the future. America does not possess a traditional policy, and she does not recognise any broad and well-defined principle as the rule for her conduct. The national acts of spoliation or meanness which have been sanctioned by the Legislature may be distinctly traced to the manner in which the primary elections are conducted. It is difficult, if not impossible, for the European governments to do more than guess at the part which America will take on any great question--whether, in the event of a collision between nations, she will observe an impartial neutrality, or throw the weight of her influence into the scale of liberty or despotism.

It is to be feared that political morality is in a very low state. The ballot secures the electors from even the breath of censure by making them irresponsible; few men dare to be independent. The plea of expediency is often used in extenuation of the grossest political dishonesty. To obtain political favour or position a man must stoop very low; he must cultivate the good will of the ignorant and the vicious; he must excite and minister to the passions of the people; he must flatter the bad, and assail the honourable with unmerited opprobrium. While he makes the assertion that his country has a monopoly of liberty, the very plan which he is pursuing shows that it is fettered by mob rule. No honourable man can use these arts, which are, however, a high-road to political eminence. It is scarcely necessary to remark upon the effect which is produced in society generally by this political corruption.

The want of a general and high standard of morality is very apparent. That dishonesty which is so notoriously and often successfully practised in political life is not excluded from the dealings of man with man.

It is jested about under the name of "smartness," and commended under that of "cuteness," till the rule becomes of frequent and practical application, that the disgrace attending a dishonourable transaction lies only in its detection,--that a line of conduct which custom has sanctioned in public life cannot be very blameable in individual action.

While the avenues to distinction in public life are in great measure closed against men of honour, wealth offers a sure road to eminence, and the acquisition of it is the great object followed. It is often sought and obtained by means from which considerations of honesty and morality are omitted; but there is not, as with us, that righteous censorship of public opinion which brands dishonesty with infamy, and places the offender apart, in a splendid leprosy, from the society to which he hoped wealth would be a passport. If you listen to the conversation in cars, steamboats, and hotels, you become painfully impressed with the absence of moral truth which pervades the country. The success of Barnum, the immense popularity of his infamous autobiography, and the pride which large numbers feel in his success, instance the perverted moral sense which is very much the result of the absence of principle in public life; for the example of men in the highest positions in a state must influence the masses powerfully either for good or evil. A species of moral obliquity pervades a large class of the community, by which the individuals composing it are prevented from discerning between truth and falsehood, except as either tends to their own personal aggrandisement. Thus truth is at a fearful discount, and men exult in successful roguery, as though a new revelation had authorised them to rank it among the cardinal virtues.

These remarks apply to a class, unfortunately a very numerous one, of the existence of which none are more painfully