American Institutions And Their Influence

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Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent
features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I
contemplate the ardor with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute
commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and
the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from
believing that they will one day become the first maritime power
of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were
to conquer the world.

* * * * *

CONCLUSION.

I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry. Hitherto, in
speaking of the future destiny of the United States, I have
endeavored to divide my subject into distinct portions, in order
to study each of them with more attention. My present object is
to embrace the whole from one single point; the remarks I shall
make will be less detailed, but they will be more sure. I shall
perceive each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the
principal facts with more certainty. A traveller, who has just
left the walls of an immense city, climbs the neighboring hill;
as he goes farther off, he loses sight of the men whom he has so
recently quitted; their dwellings are confused in a dense mass;
he can no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can
scarcely trace out the great thoroughfares; but his eye has less
difficulty in following the boundaries of the city, and for the
first time he sees the shape of the vast whole. Such is the
future destiny of the British race in North America to my eye;
the details of the stupendous picture are overhung with shade,
but I conceive a clear idea of the entire subject.

The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States of
America, forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable earth.
But extensive as these confines are, it must not be supposed that
the Anglo-American race will always remain within them; indeed,
it has already far overstepped them.

There was once a time at which we also might have created a great
French nation in the American wilds, to counterbalance the
influence of the English upon the destinies of the New World.
France formerly possessed a territory in North America, scarcely
less extensive than the whole of Europe. The three greatest
rivers of that continent then flowed within her dominions. The
Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of the St. Lawrence
and the delta of the Mississippi were unaccustomed to any tongue
but ours; and all the European settlements scattered over that
immense region recalled the traditions of our country.
Louisburg, Montmorency, Duquesne, Saint-Louis, Vincennes, New
Orleans (for such were the names they bore), are words dear to
France and familiar to our ears.

But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious to
enumerate,[Footnote:

The foremost of these circumstances is, that nations which are
accustomed to free institutions and municipal government are
better able than any others to found prosperous colonies. The
habit of thinking and governing for oneself is indispensable in a
new country, where success necessarily depends, in a great
measure, upon the individual exertions of the settlers.

] have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance. Wherever the
French settlers were numerically weak and partially established,
they have disappeared; those who remain are collected on a small
extent of country, and are now subject to other laws. The
400,000 French inhabitants of Lower Canada constitute, at the
present time, the remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a
new people. A foreign population is increasing around them
unceasingly, and on all sides, which already penetrates among the
ancient masters of the country, predominates in their cities, and
corrupts their language. This population is identical with that
of the United States; it is therefore with truth that I asserted
that the British race is not confined within the frontiers of the
Union, since it already extends to the northeast.

To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few
insignificant Russian settlements; but to the southwest, Mexico
presents a barrier to the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards
and the Anglo-Americans are, properly speaking, the only two
races which divide the possession of the New World. The limits
of separation between them have been settled by a treaty; but
although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly favorable
to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will shortly
infringe this arrangement. Vast provinces, extending beyond the
frontiers of the Union toward Mexico, are still destitute of
inhabitants. The natives of the United States will forestall the
rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They will take
possession of the soil, and establish social institutions, so
that when the legal owner arrives at length, he will find the
wilderness under cultivation, and strangers quietly settled in
the midst of his inheritance.

The lands of the New World belong to the first occupants and they
are the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the
countries which are already peopled will have some difficulty in
securing themselves from this invasion. I have already alluded
to what is taking place in the province of Texas. The
inhabitants of the United States are perpetually migrating to
Texas, where they purchase land, and although they conform to the
laws of the country, they are gradually founding the empire of
their own language and their own manners. The province of Texas
is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain
no Mexicans: the same thing has occurred whenever the
Anglo-Americans have come into contact with populations of a
different origin.

[The prophetic accuracy of the author, in relation to the present
actual condition of Texas, exhibits the sound and clear
perception with which he surveyed our institutions and
character.--_American Editor_.]

It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing
preponderance over all the other European races in the New World;
and that it is very superior to them in civilisation, in
industry, and in power. As long as it is only surrounded by
desert or thinly-peopled countries, as long as it encounters no
dense populations upon its route, through which it cannot work
its way, it will assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked
out by treaties will not stop it; but it will everywhere
transgress these imaginary barriers.

The geographical position of the British race in the New World is
peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its northern
frontiers the icy regions of the pole extend; and a few degrees
below its southern confines lies the burning climate of the
equator. The Anglo-Americans are therefore placed in the most
temperate and habitable zone of the continent.

It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of
population in the United States is posterior to their declaration
of independence. But this is an error: the population increased
as rapidly under the colonial system as it does at the present
day; that is to say, it doubled in about twenty-two years. But
this proportion, which is now applied to millions, was then
applied to thousands, of inhabitants; and the same fact which was
scarcely noticeable a century ago, is now evident to every
observer.

The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king,
augment and spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of
the United States, who live under a republican government.
During the war of independence, which lasted eight years, the
population continued to increase without intermission in the same
ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied with the English
existed, at that time, upon the western frontiers, the emigration
westward was never checked. While the enemy laid waste the
shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western parts of
Pennsylvania, and the states of Vermont and of Maine were filling
with inhabitants. Nor did the unsettled state of the
constitution, which succeeded the war, prevent the increase of
the population, or stop its progress across the wilds. Thus, the
difference of laws, the various conditions of peace and war, of
order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible influence
upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This may be
readily understood: for the fact is, that no causes are
sufficiently general to exercise a simultaneous influence over
the whole of so extensive a territory. One portion of the
country always offers a sure retreat from the calamities which
afflict another part; and however great may be the evil, the
remedy which is at hand is greater still.

It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British
race in the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment of the
Union, and the hostilities which might ensue, the abolition of
republican institutions, and the tyrannical government which
might succeed it, may retard this impulse, but they cannot
prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the destinies to which that
race is reserved. No power upon earth can close upon the
emigrants that fertile wilderness which offers resources to all
industry and a refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever
nature they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their
climate or of their inland seas, of their great rivers or of
their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and
anarchy, be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that
spirit of enterprise which seem to be the distinctive
characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge
which guides them on their way.

Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least is
sure. At a period which may be said to be near (for we are
speaking of the life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone
cover the immense space contained between the polar regions and
the tropics, extending from the coasts of the Atlantic to the
shores of the Pacific ocean. The territory which will probably
be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at some future time, may be
computed to equal three-quarters of Europe in extent.[Footnote:

The United States already extend over a territory equal to one
half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 square leagues,
and its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. (Maltebrun,
liv. 114, vol. vi., p. 4.)

] The climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to that
of Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it is
therefore evident that its population will at some future time be
proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is between so
many different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars
and the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding
attained a population of 410 inhabitants to the square
league.[Footnote:

See Maltebrun, liv. 116, vol. vi., p. 92.

] What cause can prevent the United States from having as
numerous a population in time?

Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the British
race in America cease to present the same homogeneous
characteristics; and the time cannot be foreseen at which a
permanent inequality of conditions will be established in the New
World. Whatever differences may arise, from peace or from war,
from freedom or oppression, from prosperity or want, between the
destinies of the different descendants of the great
Anglo-American family, they will at least preserve an analogous
social condition, and they will hold in common the customs and
the opinions to which that social condition has given birth.

In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently powerful
to imbue all the different populations of Europe with the same
civilisation. The British of the New World have a thousand other
reciprocal ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to
equality is general among mankind. The Middle Ages were a period
when everything was broken up; when each people, each province,
each city, and each family, had a strong tendency to maintain its
distinct individuality. At the present time an opposite tendency
seems to prevail, and the nations seem to be advancing to unity.
Our means of intellectual intercourse unite the most remote parts
of the earth; and it is impossible for men to remain strangers to
each other, or to be ignorant of the events which are taking
place in any corner of the globe. The consequence is, that there
is less difference, at the present day, between the Europeans and
their descendants in the New World, than there was between
certain towns in the thirteenth century, which were only
separated by a river. If this tendency to assimilation brings
foreign nations closer to each other, it must _a
fortiori_ prevent the descendants of the same people from
becoming aliens to each other.

The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions
of men will be living in North America,[Footnote:

This would be a population proportionate to that of Europe, taken
at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the square league.

] equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin
to the same cause, and preserving the same civilisation, the same
language, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners,
and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same
forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a
fact new to the world--a fact fraught with such portentous
consequences as to baffle the efforts even of the imagination.

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world,
which seem to tend toward the same end, although they started
from different points; I allude to the Russians and the
Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and while the
attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly
assumed a most prominent place among the nations; and the world
learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same
time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural
limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their
power; but these are still in the act of growth;[Footnote:

Russia is the country in the Old World in which population
increases most rapidly in proportion.

] all the others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme
difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity
along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The
American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose
him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats
the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilisation with all
its weapons and its arts; the conquests of the one are therefore
gained by the ploughshare; those of the other, by the sword. The
Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his
ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common
sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the authority of
society in a single arm: the principal instrument of the former
is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is
different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them
seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the
destinies of half the globe.

* * * * *

APPENDIX

* * * * *

APPENDIX A.

For information concerning all the countries of the West which
have not been visited by Europeans, consult the account of two
expeditions undertaken at the expense of congress by Major Long.
This traveller particularly mentions, on the subject of the great
American desert, that a line may be drawn nearly parallel to the
20th degree of longitude[Footnote:

The 20th degree of longitude according to the meridian of
Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th degree on the
meridian of Greenwich.

] (meridian of Washington), beginning from the Red river and
ending at the river Platte. From this imaginary line to the
Rocky mountains, which bound the valley of the Mississippi on the
west, lie immense plains, which are almost entirely covered with
sand, incapable of cultivation, or scattered over with masses of
granite. In summer, these plains are quite destitute of water,
and nothing is to be seen on them but herds of buffaloes and wild
horses. Some hordes of Indians are also found there, but in no
great number.

Major Long was told, that in travelling northward from the river
Platte, you find the same desert constantly on the left; but he
was unable to ascertain the truth of this report. (Long's
Expedition, vol. ii., p. 361.)

However worthy of confidence may be the narrative of Major Long,
it must be remembered that he only passed through the country of
which he speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he
had traced out for his journey.

* * * * *

APPENDIX B.

South America, in the regions between the tropics, produces an
incredible profusion of climbing-plants, of which the Flora of
the Antilles alone presents us with forty different species.

Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower,
which, according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the
Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which
it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant
festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, and fragrant
with perfume. (Vol. i., p. 265).

The _mimosa scandens_ (acacia a grandes gousses) is a
creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to
tree, and sometimes covers more than half a league. (Vol. iii.,
p. 227.)

* * * * *

APPENDIX C.

The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America, from
the Pole to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the same
model, and subject to the same grammatical rules; whence it may
fairly be concluded that all the Indian nations sprang from the
same stock.

Each tribe of the American continent speaks a different dialect;
but the number of languages, properly so called, is very small, a
fact which tends to prove that the nations of the New World had
not a very remote origin.

Moreover, the languages of America have a great degree of
regularity; from which it seems probable that the tribes which
employ them had not undergone any great revolutions, or been
incorporated, voluntarily, or by constraint, with foreign
nations. For it is generally the union of several languages into
one which produces grammatical irregularities.

It is not long since the American languages, especially those of
the north, first attracted the serious attention of philologists,
when the discovery was made that this idiom of a barbarous people
was the product of a complicated system of ideas and very learned
combinations. These languages were found to be very rich, and
great pains had been taken at their formation to render them
agreeable to the ear.

The grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others
in several points, but especially in the following:--

Some nations in Europe, among others the Germans, have the power
of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus giving a
complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given a most
surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means
of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term. This
will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted by
Mr. Duponceau, in the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of
America.

"A Delaware woman, playing with a cat or a young dog," says this
writer, "is heard to pronounce the word _kuligatschis_;
which is thus composed; _k_ is the sign of the second
person, and signifies 'thou' or 'thy;' _uli_ is a part of
the word _wulit_, which signifies 'beautiful,' 'pretty;'
_gat_ is another fragment of the word _wichgat_, which
means 'paw;' and lastly, _schis_ is a diminutive giving the
idea of smallness. Thus in one word the Indian woman has
expressed, 'Thy pretty little paw.'"

Take another example of the felicity with which the savages of
America have composed their words. A young man of Delaware is
called _pilape_. This word is formed from _pilsit_,
chaste, innocent; and _lenape_, man; viz., man in his purity
and innocence.

This facility of combining words is most remarkable in the
strange formation of their verbs. The most complex action is
often expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the
shades of an idea by the modification of its construction.

Those who may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which
I have only glanced at superficially, should read:--

1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the
Rev. Mr. Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages; which is to
be found in the first volume of the Memoirs of the Philosophical
Society of America, published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham
Small, vol. i., pp. 356-464.

2. The grammar of the Delaware or Lenape language by Geiberger,
the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same
collection, vol. iii.

3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of
the 6th volume of the American Encyclopaedia.

* * * * *

APPENDIX D.

See in Charlevoix, vol. i., p. 235, the history of the first war
which the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610,
against the Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows,
offered a desperate resistance to the French and their allies.
Charlevoix is not a great painter, yet he exhibits clearly
enough, in this narrative, the contrast between the European
manners and those of savages, as well as the different way in
which the two races of men understood the sense of honor.

When the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which
covered the Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies,
were greatly offended at this proceeding; but without hesitation
they set to work in their usual manner, inflicting horrid
cruelties upon the prisoners, and devouring one of those who had
been killed, which made the Frenchmen shudder. The barbarians
prided themselves upon a scrupulousness which they were surprised
at not finding in our nation; and could not understand that there
was less to reprehend in the stripping of dead bodies, than in
the devouring of their flesh like wild beasts.

Charlevoix, in another place (vol. i., p. 230), thus describes
the first torture of which Champlain was an eyewitness, and the
return of the Hurons into their own village.

"Having proceeded about eight leagues," says he, "our allies
halted: and having singled out one of their captives, they
reproached him with all the cruelties which he had practised upon
the warriors of their nation who had fallen into his hands, and
told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner;
adding, that if he had any spirit, he would prove it by singing.
He immediately chanted forth his death-song, and then his
war-song, and all the songs he knew, 'but in a very mournful
strain,'" says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage
music has a melancholy character. The tortures which succeeded,
accompanied by all the horrors which we shall mention hereafter,
terrified the French, who made every effort to put a stop to
them, but in vain. The following night one of the Hurons having
dreamed that they were pursued, the retreat was changed to a real
flight, and the savages never stopped until they were out of the
reach of danger.

The moment they perceived the cabins of their own village, they
cut themselves long sticks, to which they fastened the scalps
which had fallen to their share, and carried them in triumph. At
this sight, the women swam to the canoes, where they received the
bloody scalps from the hands of their husbands, and tied them
round their necks.

The warriors offered one of these horrible trophies to Champlain;
they also presented him with some bows and arrows--the only
spoils of the Iroquois which they had ventured to
seize--entreating him to show them to the king of France.

Champlain lived a whole winter quite alone among these
barbarians, without being under any alarm for his person or
property.

* * * * *

APPENDIX E.

Although the puritanical strictness which presided over the
establishment of the English colonies in America is now much
relaxed, remarkable traces of it are still found in their habits
and their laws. In 1792, at the very time when the
anti-Christian republic of France began its ephemeral existence,
the legislative body of Massachusetts promulgated the following
law, to compel the citizens to observe the sabbath. We give the
preamble, and the principal articles of this law, which is worthy
of the reader's attention.

"Whereas," says the legislator, "the observation of the Sunday is
an affair of public interest; inasmuch as it produces a necessary
suspension of labor, leads men to reflect upon the duties of life
and the errors to which human nature is liable, and provides for
the public and private worship of God the creator and governor of
the universe, and for the performance of such acts of charity as
are the ornament and comfort of Christian societies:--