American Institutions And Their Influence

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When a compact nation divides its sovereignty, and adopts a
confederate form of government, the traditions, the customs, and
the manners of the people are for a long time at variance with
their legislation; and the former tend to give a degree of
influence to the central government which the latter forbids.
When a number of confederate states unite to form a single
nation, the same causes operate in an opposite direction. I have
no doubt that if France were to become a confederate republic
like that of the United States, the government would at first
display more energy than that of the Union; and if the Union were
to alter its constitution to a monarchy like that of France, I
think that the American government would be a long time in
acquiring the force which now rules the latter nation. When the
national existence of the Anglo-Americans began, their provincial
existence was already of long standing; necessary relations were
established between the townships and the individual citizens of
the same states; and they were accustomed to consider some
objects as common to them all, and to conduct other affairs as
exclusively relating to their own special interests.

The Union is a vast body, which presents no definite object to
patriotic feeling. The forms and limits of the state are
distinct and circumscribed; since it represents a certain number
of objects which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all.
It is identified with the very soil, with the right of property
and the domestic affections, with the recollections of the past,
the labors of the present, and the hopes of the future.
Patriotism, then, which is frequently a mere extension of
individual egotism, is still directed to the state, and is not
excited by the Union. Thus the tendency of the interests, the
habits, and the feelings of the people, is to centre political
activity in the states, in preference to the Union.

It is easy to estimate the different forces of the two
governments, by remarking the manner in which they fulfil their
respective functions. Whenever the government of a state has
occasion to address an individual, or an assembly of individuals,
its language is clear and imperative; and such is also the tone
of the federal government in its intercourse with individuals,
but no sooner has it anything to do with a state, than it begins
to parley, to explain its motives, and to justify its conduct, to
argue, to advise, and in short, anything but to command. If
doubts are raised as to the limits of the constitutional powers
of each government, the provincial government prefers its claims
with boldness, and takes prompt and energetic steps to support
it. In the meanwhile the government of the Union reasons, it
appeals to the interests, to the good sense, to the glory of the
nation; it temporizes, it negotiates, and does not consent to act
until it is reduced to the last extremity. At first sight it
might readily be imagined that it is the provincial government
which is armed with the authority of the nation, and that
congress represents a single state.

The federal government is, therefore, notwithstanding the
precautions of those who founded it, naturally so weak, that it
more peculiarly requires the free consent of the governed to
enable it to subsist. It is easy to perceive that its object is
to enable the states to realize with facility their determination
of remaining united; and, as long as this preliminary
consideration exists, its authority is great, temperate, and
effective. The constitution fits the government to control
individuals, and easily to surmount such obstacles as they may be
inclined to offer, but it was by no means established with a view
to the possible separation of one or more of the states from the
Union.

If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with
that of the states at the present day, its defeat may be
confidently predicted; and it is not probable that such a
struggle would be seriously undertaken. As often as steady
resistance is offered to the federal government, it will be found
to yield. Experience has hitherto shown that whenever a state
has demanded anything with perseverance and resolution, it has
invariably succeeded; and that if a separate government has
distinctly refused to act, it was left to do as it thought
fit.[Footnote:

See the conduct of the northern states in the war of 1812.
"During that war," said Jefferson, in a letter to General
Lafayette, "four of the eastern states were only attached to the
Union, like so many inanimate bodies to living men."

]

But even if the government of the Union had any strength inherent
in itself, the physical situation of the country would render the
exercise of that strength very difficult.[Footnote:

The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for a standing
army; and without a standing army a government is not prepared to
profit by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take
the sovereign power by surprise.

] The United States cover an immense territory; they are
separated from each other by great distances; and the population
is disseminated over the surface of a country which is still half
a wilderness. If the Union were to undertake to enforce the
allegiance of the confederate states by military means, it would
be in a position very analogous to that of England at the time of
the war of independence.

However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from
the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the
foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the
voluntary agreement of the states; and, in uniting together, they
have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced
to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the
states chose to withdraw its name from the compact, it would be
difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the federal
government would have no means of maintaining its claims
directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the
federal government easily to conquer the resistance which may be
offered to it by any one of its subjects, it would be necessary
that one or more of them should be especially interested in the
existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the
history of confederations.

If it be supposed that among the states which are united by the
federal tie, there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal
advantages of union, or whose prosperity depends on the duration
of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be
ready to support the central government in enforcing the
obedience of the others. But the government would then be
exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle
contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to
derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just
alluded to, the federal government would derive its power from
the unequal distribution of those benefits among the states.

If one of the confederated states have acquired a preponderance
sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession of
the central authority, it will consider the other states as
subject provinces, and will cause its own supremacy to be
respected under the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the
Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the federal
government, but in reality that government will have ceased to
exist.[Footnote:

Thus the province of Holland in the republic of the Low
Countries, and the emperor in the Germanic Confederation, have
sometimes put themselves in the place of the Union, and have
employed the federal authority to their own advantage.

] In both these cases, the power which acts in the name of the
confederation becomes stronger, the more it abandons the natural
state and the acknowledged principles of confederations.

In America the existing Union is advantageous to all the states,
but it is not indispensable to any one of them. Several of them
might break the federal tie without compromising the welfare of
the others, although their own prosperity would be lessened. As
the existence and the happiness of none of the states are wholly
dependent on the present constitution, they would none of them be
disposed to make great personal sacrifices to maintain it. On
the other hand, there is no state which seems, hitherto, to have
its ambition much interested in the maintenance of the existing
Union. They certainly do not all exercise the same influence in
the federal councils, but no one of them can hope to domineer
over the rest, or to treat them as its inferiors or as its
subjects.

It appears to me unquestionable, that if any portion of the Union
seriously desired to separate itself from the other states, they
would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt, to prevent it;
and that the present Union will only last as long as the states
which compose it choose to continue members of the confederation.
If this point be admitted, the question becomes less difficult;
and our object is not to inquire whether the states of the
existing Union are capable of separating, but whether they will
choose to remain united.

[The remarks respecting the inability of the federal government
to retain within the Union any state that may choose "to withdraw
its name from the contract," ought not to pass through an
American edition of this work, without the expression of a
dissent by the editor from the opinion of the author. The laws
of the United States must remain in force in a revolted state,
until repealed by congress; the customs and postages must be
collected; the courts of the United States must sit, and must
decide the causes submitted to them; as has been very happily
explained by the author, the courts act upon individuals. If
their judgments are resisted, the executive arm must interpose,
and if the state authorities aid in the resistance, the military
power of the whole Union must be invoked to overcome it. So long
as the laws affecting the citizens of such a state remain, and so
long as there remain any officers of a general government to
enforce them, these results must follow not only theoretically
but actually. The author probably formed the opinions which are
the subject of these remarks, at the commencement of the
controversy with South Carolina respecting the tariff. And when
they were written and published, he had not learned the result of
that controversy, in which the supremacy of the Union and its
laws was triumphant. There was doubtless great reluctance in
adopting the necessary measures to collect the customs, and to
bring every legal question that could possibly arise out of the
controversy, before the judiciary of the United States, but they
were finally adopted, and were not the less successful for being
the result of deliberation and of necessity. Out of that
controversy have arisen some advantages of a permanent character,
produced by the legislation which it required. There were
defects in the laws regulating the manner of bringing from the
state courts into those of the United States, a cause involving
the constitutionality of acts of congress or of the states,
through which the federal authority might be evaded. Those
defects were remedied by the legislation referred to; and it is
now more emphatically and universally true, than when the author
wrote, that the acts of the general government operate through
the judiciary, upon individual citizens, and not upon the
states.--_American Editor._]

Among the various reasons which tend to render the existing Union
useful to the Americans, two principal causes are peculiarly
evident to the observer. Although the Americans are, as it were,
alone upon their continent, their commerce makes them the
neighbors of all the nations with which they trade.
Notwithstanding their apparent isolation, the Americans require a
certain degree of strength, which they cannot retain otherwise
than by remaining united to each other. If the states were to
split, they would not only diminish the strength which they are
now able to display toward foreign nations, but they would soon
create foreign powers upon their own territory. A system of
inland custom-houses would then be established; the valleys would
be divided by imaginary boundary lines; the courses of the rivers
would be confined by territorial distinctions and a multitude of
hindrances would prevent the Americans from exploring the whole
of that vast continent which Providence has allotted to them for
a dominion. At present they have no invasion to fear, and
consequently no standing armies to maintain, no taxes to levy.
If the Union were dissolved, all these burdensome measures might
ere long be required. The Americans are then very powerfully
interested in the maintenance of their Union. On the other hand,
it is almost impossible to discover any sort of material interest
which might at present tempt a portion of the Union to separate
from the other states.

When we cast our eyes upon the map of the United States, we
perceive the chain of the Allegany mountains, running from the
northeast to the southwest, and crossing nearly one thousand
miles of country; and we are led to imagine that the design of
Providence was to raise, between the valley of the Mississippi
and the coasts of the Atlantic ocean, one of those natural
barriers which break the mutual intercourse of men, and form the
necessary limits of different states. But the average height of
the Alleganies does not exceed 2,500 feet; their greatest
elevation is not above 4,000 feet; their rounded summits, and the
spacious valleys which they conceal within their passes, are of
easy access from several sides. Beside which, the principal
rivers that fall into the Atlantic ocean, the Hudson, the
Susquehannah, and the Potomac, take their rise beyond the
Alleganies, in an open district, which borders upon the valley of
the Mississippi. These streams quit this tract of
country,[Footnote:

See Darby's View of the United States, pp. 64, 79.

] make their way through the barrier which would seem to turn
them westward, and as they wind through the mountains, they open
an easy and natural passage to man.

No natural barrier exists in the regions which are now inhabited
by the Anglo-Americans; the Alleganies are so far from serving as
a boundary to separate nations, that they do not even serve as a
frontier to the states. New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia,
comprise them within their borders and extend as much to the west
as to the east of the line.

The territory now occupied by the twenty-four states of the
Union, and the three great districts which have not yet acquired
the rank of states, although they already contain inhabitants,
covers a surface of 1,002,600 square miles,[Footnote:

See Darby's View of the United States, p. 435. [In Carey & Lea's
Geography of America, the United States are said to form an area
of 2,076,400 square miles.--_Translator's Note._]

[The discrepance between Darby's estimate of the area of the
United States given by the author, and that stated by the
translator, is not easily accounted for. In Bradford's
comprehensive Atlas, a work generally of great accuracy, it is
said that "as claimed by this country, the territory of the
United States extends from 25 deg. to 54 deg. north latitude, and
from 65 deg. 49' to 125 deg. west longitude, over an area of about
2,200,000 square miles."--_American Editor._]

] which is about equal to five times the extent of France.
Within these limits the qualities of the soil, the temperature,
and the produce of the country, are extremely various. The vast
extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American republics has
given rise to doubts as to the maintenance of the Union. Here a
distinction must be made; contrary interests sometimes arise in
the different provinces of a vast empire, which often terminate
in open dissensions; and the extent of the country is then most
prejudicial to the power of the state. But if the inhabitants of
these vast regions are not divided by contrary interests, the
extent of the territory may be favorable to their prosperity; for
the unity of the government promotes the interchange of the
different productions of the soil, and increases their value by
facilitating their consumption.

It is indeed easy to discover different interests in the
different parts of the Union, but I am unacquainted with any
which are hostile to each other. The southern states are almost
exclusively agricultural; the northern states are more peculiarly
commercial and manufacturing; the states of the west are at the
same time agricultural and manufacturing. In the south the crops
consist of tobacco, of rice, of cotton, and of sugar; in the
north and the west, of wheat and maize; these are different
sources of wealth; but union is the means by which these sources
are opened to all, and rendered equally advantageous to the
several districts.

The north, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans to all
parts of the world, and brings back the produce of the globe to
the Union, is evidently interested in maintaining the
confederation in its present condition, in order that the number
of American producers and consumers may remain as large as
possible. The north is the most natural agent of communication
between the south and the west of the Union on the one hand, and
the rest of the world upon the other; the north is therefore
interested in the union and prosperity of the south and the west,
in order that they may continue to furnish raw materials for its
manufactures, and cargoes for its shipping.

The south and the west, on their side, are still more directly
interested in the preservation of the Union, and the prosperity
of the north. The produce of the south is for the most part
exported beyond seas; the south and the west consequently stand
in need of the commercial resources of the north. They are
likewise interested in the maintenance of a powerful fleet by the
Union, to protect them efficaciously. The south and the west
have no vessels, but they cannot refuse a willing subsidy to
defray the expenses of the navy; for if the fleets of Europe were
to blockade the ports of the south and the delta of the
Mississippi, what would become of the rice of the Carolinas, the
tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton which grow in the
valley of the Mississippi? Every portion of the federal budget
does therefore contribute to the maintenance of material
interests which are common to all the confederate states.

Independently of this commercial utility, the south and the west
of the Union derive great political advantages from their
connexion with the north. The south contains an enormous slave
population; a population which is already alarming, and still
more formidable for the future. The states of the west lie in
the remoter part of a single valley; and all the rivers which
intersect their territory rise in the Rocky mountains or in the
Alleganies, and fall into the Mississippi, which bears them
onward to the gulf of Mexico. The western states are
consequently entirely cut off, by their position, from the
traditions of Europe and the civilisation of the Old World. The
inhabitants of the south, then, are induced to support the Union
in order to avail themselves of its protection against the
blacks; and the inhabitants of the west, in order not to be
excluded from a free communication with the rest of the globe,
and shut up in the wilds of central America. The north cannot
but desire the maintenance of the Union, in order to remain, as
it now is, the connecting link between that vast body and the
other parts of the world.

The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union are,
then, intimately connected; and the same assertion holds true
respecting those opinions and sentiments which may be termed the
immaterial interests of men.

The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their
attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not rely
upon that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest,
and which a change in the interest at stake may obliterate. Nor
do I attach much importance to the language of the Americans,
when they manifest in their daily conversation, the intention of
maintaining the federal system adopted by their forefathers. A
government retains its sway over a great number of citizens, far
less by the voluntary and rational consent of the multitude, than
by that instinctive and, to a certain extent, involuntary
agreement, which results from similarity of feelings and
resemblances of opinion. I will never admit that men constitute
a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the
same laws. Society can only exist when a great number of men
consider a great number of things in the same point of view; when
they hold the same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same
occurrences suggest the same thoughts and impressions to their
minds.

The observer who examines the present condition of the United
States upon this principle, will readily discover, that although
the citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties,
they nevertheless constitute a single people; and he may perhaps
be led to think that the state of the Anglo-American Union is
more truly a state of society, than that of certain nations of
Europe which live under the same legislation and the same prince.

Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they
all regard religion in the same manner. They are not always
agreed upon the measures which are most conducive to good
government, and they vary upon some of the forms of government
which it is expedient to adopt; but they unanimous upon the
general principles which ought to rule human society. From Maine
to the Floridas, and from Missouri to the Atlantic ocean, the
people is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The
same notions are entertained respecting liberty and equality, the
liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the
responsibility of the agents of government.

If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the
moral and philosophical principles which regulate the daily
actions of life, and govern their conduct, we shall still find
the same uniformity. The Anglo-Americans[Footnote:

It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the expression
_Anglo-Americans,_ I only mean to designate the great
majority of the nation; for a certain number of isolated
individuals are of course to be met with holding very different
opinions.

] acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the reason of the
community, as they acknowledge the political authority of the
mass of citizens; and they hold that public opinion is the surest
arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden, true or false. The
majority of them believe that a man will be led to do what is
just and good by following his own interests, rightly understood.
They hold that every man is born in possession of the right of
self-government, and that no one has the right of constraining
his fellow-creatures to be happy. They have all a lively faith
in the perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that the
effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be
advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all
consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as
a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent;
and they admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be
superseded by something better to-morrow. I do not give all
these opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of the
Americans.

The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by those common
opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a
common feeling of pride. For the last fifty years, no pains have
been spared to convince the inhabitants of the United States that
they constitute the only religious, enlightened, and free people.
They perceive that, for the present, their own democratic
institutions succeed, while those of other countries fail; hence
they conceive an overweening opinion of their superiority, and
they are not very remote from believing themselves to belong to a
distinct race of mankind.

The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in
the diversity of interests or opinions; but in the various
characters and passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit
the vast territory of the United States are almost all the issue
of a common stock; but the effects of the climate, and more
especially of slavery, have gradually introduced very striking
differences between the British settler of the southern states,
and the British settler of the north. In Europe it is generally
believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one part of
the Union contrary to those of another part; but I by no means
remarked this to be the case; slavery has not created interests
in the south contrary to those of the north, but it has modified
the character and changed the habits of the natives of the south.