FOOTNOTES:
[AX] According to the official report of the Trustees and visitors of the common schools, dated July 30, 1833, there were then in Cincinnati 6,000 children between the ages of 6 and 16 years, exclusive of 230 children of colour for whom there is a separate school. About 2,300 children attended the common schools and 1,700 private schools. The number of common schools is 18, under the care of 12 masters and 5 assistants, 6 mistresses and 7 assistant mistresses. The masters receive 400 dollars a year, and the assistants 250; the school mistresses 216, and the assistants 168. These salaries are thought to be too low.
[AY] This museum has one show which I never saw anywhere else; it is a representation of the Infernal Regions, to which the young Cincinnati girls resort in quest of that excitement which a comfortable and peaceful, but cold and monotonous manner of life denies them. This strange spectacle seems to afford a delicious agitation to their nerves, and is the principal source of revenue to the museum.
[AZ] The water used in Philadelphia is supplied by the Schuylkill, a fall in which is made to drive the pumps, by which the reservoirs are filled. The Fairmount works are arranged and ornamented with much taste, and at very little expense; the ornamental part, strictly speaking, merely consists of some lawns, wooden balustrades, and two wretched statues; yet the effect is very elegant.
[BA] In a report on executive patronage lately made to the Senate by Mr Calhoun, the following statement of the number of persons employed by the Federal government is given:
| Administrative and financial agents | 12,144 |
| Military Service and Indian affairs | 9,643 |
| Naval affairs | 6,499 |
| Post Office | 31,917 |
| Total | 60,203 |
[LETTER XIX.]
Cincinnati.
Natchez, (Miss.) Jan. 4, 1835.
Cincinnati contains about 40,000 inhabitants, inclusive of the adjoining villages; although founded 40 years ago, its rapid growth dates only about 30 years back. It seems to be the rendezvous of all nations; the Germans and Irish are very numerous, and there are some Alsacians; I have often heard the harsh accents of the Rhenish French in the streets. But the bulk of the population, which gives its tone to all the rest, is of New England origin. What makes the progress of Cincinnati more surprising is, that the city is the daughter of its own works. Other towns, which have sprung up in the United States in the same rapid manner, have been built on shares, so to speak. Lowell, for example, is an enterprise of Boston merchants, who, after having raised the necessary funds, have collected workmen and told them, "Build us a town." Cincinnati has been gradually extended and embellished, almost wholly without foreign aid, by its inhabitants, who have for the most part arrived on the spot poor. The founders of Cincinnati brought with them nothing but sharp-sighted, wakeful, untiring industry, the only patrimony which they inherited from their New England fathers, and the other inhabitants have scrupulously followed their example and adopted their habits. They seem to have chosen Franklin for their patron-saint, and to have adopted Poor Richard's maxims as a fifth gospel.
I have said that Cincinnati was admirably situated; this is true in respect of its geographical position, but, if you follow the courses of the rivers on the map, and consider the natural resources of the district, you will find that there are several points on the long line of the rivers of the West as advantageously placed, both for trade and manufactures, and that there are some which are even more favoured in these respects. Pittsburg, which has within reach both coal and iron, that is to say, the daily bread of industry, which stands at the head of the Ohio, at the starting point of steam-navigation, at the confluence of the Monongahela and the Alleghany, coming the one from the south and the other from the north; Pittsburg, which is near the great chain of lakes, appears as the pivot of a vast system of roads, railroads, and canals, several of which are already completed. Pittsburg was marked out by nature at once for a great manufacturing centre and a great mart of trade. Louisville, built at the falls of the Ohio, at the head of navigation for the largest class of boats, is a natural medium between the commerce of the upper Ohio and that of the Mississippi and its tributaries. In respect to manufacturing resources, Louisville is as well provided as Cincinnati, and the latter, setting aside its enchanting situation, seemed destined merely to become the market of the fertile strip between the Great and Little Miami.
But the power of men, when they agree in willing anything and in willing it perseveringly, is sufficient to overbear and conquer that of nature. In spite of the superior advantages of Louisville as an entrepôt, in spite of the manufacturing resources of Pittsburg, Cincinnati is able to maintain a population twice that of Louisville and half as large again as that of Pittsburg in a state of competence, which equals, if it does not surpass, the average condition of that of each of the others. The inhabitants of Cincinnati have fixed this prosperity among them, by one of those instinctive views with which the sons of New England are inspired by their eminently practical and calculating genius. A half-word, they say, is enough for the wise, but cleverer than the wisest, the Yankees understand each other without speaking, and by a tacit consent direct their common efforts toward the same point. To work Boston fashion means, in the United States, to do anything with perfect precision and without words. The object which the Cincinnatians have had in view, almost from the origin of their city, has been nothing less than to make it the capital, or great interior mart of the West. The indirect, means which they have employed, have been to secure the manufacture of certain articles, which, though of little value separately considered, form an important aggregate when taken together, and getting the start of their neighbours, with that spirit of diligence that characterises the Yankees, they have accordingly distributed the manufacture of these articles among themselves. This plan has succeeded.
Thus with the exception of the pork trade, one is surprised not to see any branch of industry carried on on the great scale of the manufacturing towns of England and France. The Cincinnatians make a variety of household furniture and utensils, agricultural and mechanical implements and machines, wooden clocks, and a thousand objects of daily use and consumption, soap, candles, paper, leather, &c., for which there is an indefinite demand throughout the flourishing and rapidly growing States of the West, and also in the new States of the Southwest, which are wholly devoted to agriculture, and in which, on account of the existence of slavery, manufactures cannot be carried on. Most of these articles are of ordinary quality; the furniture, for instance, is rarely such as would be approved by Parisian taste, but it is cheap and neat, just what is wanted in a new country, where, with the exception of a part of the South, there is a general ease and but little wealth, and where plenty and comfort are more generally known than the little luxuries of a more refined society. The prosperity of Cincinnati, therefore, rests upon the sure basis of the prosperity of the West, upon the supply of articles of the first necessity to the bulk of the community; a much more solid foundation than the caprice of fashion, upon which, nevertheless, the branches of industry most in favour with us, depend. The intellectual also receives a share of attention; in the first place, there is a large type-foundery in Cincinnati, which supplies the demand of the whole West, and of that army of newspapers that is printed in it. According to the usual English or American mode of proceeding, the place of human labour is supplied as much as possible by machinery, and I have seen several little contrivances here, that are not probably to be found in the establishments of the Royal Press or of the Didots. Then the printing-presses are numerous, and they issue nothing but publications in general demand, such as school-books, and religious books, and newspapers. By means of this variety of manufactures, which, taken separately appear of little consequence, Cincinnati has taken a stand, from which it will be very difficult to remove her, for, in this matter, priority of occupation is no trifling advantage. The country trader, who keeps an assortment of everything vendible, is sure to find almost everything he wants in Cincinnati, and he, therefore, goes thither in preference to any other place in order to lay in his stock of goods. Cincinnati is thus in fact the great central mart of the West; a great quantity and variety of produce and manufactured articles find a vent here, notwithstanding the natural superiority of several other sites, either in regard to the extent of water-communication or mineral resources.
M. Fourrier has characterised the spirit of the 19th century by the term industrial feudalism. The human race, according to some, has thrown off one yoke only to bear another, less burdensome perhaps, but also less noble. The warlike lords of the Middle Ages have passed away but the industrial lords have come to take their place, the princes of manufactures, banks, and commerce. These new masters will embitter the life of the poor with less distress and privation, but they will also shed less glory upon it. They will increase the body's pittance, but diminish the soul's. At the sight of the great manufactories of England and some of those of the European continent, of those which are multiplying so rapidly in New England, in that wonderful creation the city of Lowell, one is tempted to think that the industrial feudalism is already established in the former, and is creeping beneath the democratic institutions, like the snake under the grass, in the latter. Those who do not believe that the human race can go backward, and who prefer to rock themselves in the cradle of hope, rather than to yield to flat despair, while they admit the existence of this tendency of the age, console themselves by the contemplation of its other characteristic features, at the head of which they place the general spirit of emancipation, which breaks down all obstacles in its way. If in England, for instance, there are, in the factories, a thousand germs of despotism, there are, in the working classes, a thousand germs of resistance, in the population a thousand germs of liberalism; there are Trades' Unions, there are radicals: neither of these opposite forces alone will decide the destinies of the future. From their opposing impulses will result a single force, different from both, yet partaking of both. The force of emancipation will make what to some seems about to become feudalism, simply patronage.
Patronage has not finished its career upon the earth; it will endure while Providence shall continue to cast men in different moulds; it will subsist for the good of the weak and the poor, and for that of the class of men, so numerous in southern Europe, for example, who require the support of somebody more powerful than themselves. But it will be modified in character, growing successively less and less violent, and more and more mild. The inferior has been a slave, a serf, a paid freeman; he may in time become an associate or partner without ceasing to be an inferior. However this may be, there is no germ of industrial feudalism in Cincinnati, there are no great factories or workshops. Mechanical industry is subdivided there, pretty much as the soil is amongst us; each head of a family, with his sons and some newly arrived emigrants as assistants and servants, has his domain in this great field. Cincinnati is, therefore, as republican in its industrial organisation, as in its political. This subdivision of manufactures has hitherto been attended with no inconvenience, because in the vast West, whose growth is visible to the eye, the production cannot at present keep pace with the consumption. But how will it be in a century, or perhaps in fifty years? Will not the condition of mechanical industry undergo some great change, or rather will not the whole of this vast region undergo a complete change of character and condition, which will involve a reorganisation of the industrial system?
The moral aspect of Cincinnati is delightful in the eyes of him who prefers work to every thing else, and with whom work can take the place of every thing else. But whoever has a taste for pleasure and display, whoever needs occasional relaxation from business, in gaiety and amusement, would find this beautiful city, with its picturesque environs, an insupportable residence. It would be still more so for a man of leisure, desirous of devoting a large part of his time to the cultivation of the fine arts and the rest to pleasure. For such a man, indeed, it would not be possible to live here; he would find himself denounced from political considerations, because men of leisure are looked upon in the United States as so many steppingstones to aristocracy, and anathematised by religion, for the various sects, however much they may differ on other points, all agree in condemning pleasure, luxury, gallantry, the fine arts themselves. Now the United States are not like some countries in Europe, particularly France, where religion and the pulpit can be braved with impunity. Hemmed in by the laborious habits of the country, by political notions, and by religion, a man must either resign himself to the same mode of life with the mass, or seek a soil less unfriendly to his tastes in the great cities of New York, Philadelphia, or New Orleans, or even in Europe. There is, therefore, no such thing in Cincinnati as a class of men of leisure, living without any regular profession on their patrimony, or on the wealth acquired by their own enterprise in early life, although there are many persons of opulence, having one hundred thousand dollars and upwards. I met a young man there, the future heir of a large fortune, who, after having been educated at West Point and received a commission, had retired from the service in order to live at home. Wearied out with his solitary leisure, burdened with the weight of his own person, he could find no other relief than to open a fancy-goods shop.
Every where in the United States where there are no slaves, and out of the large towns of the sea-coast, a strict watch is kept up in regard to persons of leisure, obliging those who might be seduced by a taste for this kind of life to fall into the ranks and work, at least until age makes repose necessary. Public opinion is on the lookout to banish any habits of dissipation, however innocent, that might get a footing in society, and make a life of leisure tolerable. Religious and philanthropical societies, instituted under various names, take upon themselves the task of enforcing the decrees of public opinion; like vigilant sentinels, they compel a rigid observance of the austerities, or if you choose the ennuis, of Sunday, labour to suppress intemperance and gaming, the spirit of which, if once diffused among a people so wholly devoted to money-making, might lead to the most fatal consequences. These societies and committees pursue their task with a more than British perseverance, and sometimes with a puritanical fanaticism. When Mr John Quincy Adams became President, he had a billiard-table placed in the President's House, and such is here the real or affected abhorrence of every thing called a game, that this billiard-table was actually one of the arguments against the re-election of Mr Adams. "It is a scandal, the abomination of desolation," was the general cry. Mr Adams, whose private character is above suspicion, was, if we must believe the Opposition journals of the day, a teacher of immorality, because he had a billiard-table in his house, and General Jackson has doubtless caused that scandalous piece of furniture to be broken up and burnt, since he has become master of the White House. Any where else this rigour would be called intolerance, inquisition; here it is submitted to without a murmur, and few persons are really annoyed by it, or show that they are. The American can support a constant and unrelaxing devotion to labour; he does not feel the need of amusement and recreation. The silence and retirement of his Sunday seem to be a more effectual relaxation for him, than the noisy gaiety of our festivals; one might even say that he was destitute of the sense of pleasure. All his faculties and energies are admirably and vigourously combined for production; he wants those without which pleasure is not enjoyment, and amusement is but a painful effort; and, between these two kinds of work, he would of course prefer that which is gainful, to that which is expensive.
Such a social organisation is the very best for a pioneer people. Without this devotion to business, without this constant direction of the energies of the mind to useful enterprises, without this indifference to pleasure, without those political and religious notions which imperiously repress all passions but those whose objects are business, production, and gain, can any one suppose that the Americans would ever have achieved their great industrial conquests? With any other less exclusive system, they would yet, perhaps, be meditating the passage over the Alleghanies. Instead of having that great domain of the West, immense in its extent and resources, already cleared and cultivated, furrowed with roads and dotted over with farms, they would probably be still confined to the sandy strip that borders the Atlantic. It must be allowed that this ardent and entire devotion to business gives the nation a strange aspect in the eyes of a European: And this explains the fact that the Americans have found so little favour with most foreigners who have visited their country. But, in return, they are sure of the gratitude of that innumerable posterity for whom they are preparing with such energy and sagacity an abode of plenty, a land of promise. This posterity, it is said, will change the habits of their fathers, will adopt new tastes, and even new institutions. So be it! It is of little consequence whether the Americans of the 20th or 21st century, shall retain the national character, customs, and laws of the Americans of the 19th. But the more interesting consideration is, whether the Americans of our day do not fulfil, as perfectly as human nature is capable of doing, the mission which Providence has entrusted to them, that of acting as a nation of pioneers and subduers of the forest; and if they do not deserve to be excused, like all nations and individuals, for having the defects inherent in their good qualities. The question thus stated will be easily answered by every one who sets any value on the interests and welfare of the future.
[LETTER XX.]
WESTERN STEAMBOATS.
New Orleans, Jan. 8, 1835.
One of the points in which modern society differs most from the ancient, is, certainly, the facility of travelling. Formerly it was possible only for a patrician to travel; it was necessary to be rich even to travel like a philosopher. Merchants moved in caravans, paying tribute to the Bedoweens of the desert, to the Tartars of the steppes, to the chieftains perched, like eagles, in castles built in the mountain passes. Instead of the English stage-coach, or the post-chaise, rattling at high speed over the paved road, they had the old Asiatic litter or palanquin, still preserved in Spanish America, or the camel, the ship of the desert, or four bullocks yoked to the slow wagon, or for the common citizens or the iron warriors, the horse; and instead of those sumptuous steam-packets, genuine floating palaces, the small and frail bark, pursued by robbers on the rivers and by pirates by sea, the sight of which extorted from the Epicurean Horace the exclamation of terror,
Illi robur et æs triplex—Circa pectus erat.
The roads were then rough and narrow paths, rendered dangerous by the violence of men, or by the monsters of the forest, or by precipices. A long train of luggage, provisions, servants, and guards, was necessary, and from time to time the traveller reposed himself with some hereditary friend of his family, for there were then no comfortable hotels, in which he can now procure all he needs for money, and command the attentive services of officious attendants. If there were any place of shelter, it was some filthy den, like the caravanserais of the East, wretched, naked, and comfortless, where he found nothing but water and a roof, or like the inns of Spain and South America, which are a happy mean between a caravanserai and a stable. The great bulk of mankind, slaves in fact and in name, were then attached to the glebe, chained to the soil by the difficulty of locomotion.
To improve the means of communication, then, is to promote a real, positive, and practical liberty; it is to extend to all the members of the human family the power of traversing and turning to account the globe, which has been given to them as their patrimony; it is to increase the rights and privileges of the greatest number, as truly and as amply as could be done by electoral laws; I go further, it is to establish equality and democracy. The effect of the most perfect system of transportation is to reduce the distance not only between different places, but between different classes. Where the rich and the great travel only with a pompous retinue, while the poor man, who goes to the next village, drags himself singly along in mud and sand, over rocks and through thickets, the word equality is a mockery and a falsehood, and aristocracy stares you in the face. In India and China, in the Mahometan countries, in half-Arabian Spain and her former American colonies, it matters little whether the government is called republic, empire, or limited monarchy; the peasant and the labourer cannot there persuade himself that he is the equal of the soldier, the brahmin, the mandarin, the pacha, or the noble, whose retinue runs over him, or covers him with mud. Spite of himself, he is filled with awe at its approach, and servilely bends before it as it passes him. In Great Britain, on the contrary, in spite of the wealth and the great privileges of the nobility, the mechanic and the labourer, who can go to the office and get a ticket for the railroad cars, if they have a few shillings in their pockets, and who have the right, if they will pay for it, of sitting in the same vehicle, on the same seat with the baronet or the peer and duke, feel their dignity as men, and touch, as it were, the fact, that there is not an impassable gulf between them and the nobility.
These considerations would make me slow to believe in the tyrannical projects of a government which should devote itself zealously to the task of opening roads through the country, and diminishing the time and expense of transportation. Is it not true that ideas, as well as goods, circulate along the great highways, the canals, and the rivers, and that every travelling clerk is more or less a missionary? Those who are possessed with the retrograde spirit, are fully convinced of this fact; they favour no projects of internal improvement; they fear an engineer almost as much as they do a publisher of Voltaire. As it is undeniable that one of the first railroads in Europe was constructed in the Austrian empire, as the imperial government has opened many fine roads from one end of its possessions to the other, and as it is encouraging the introduction of steamboats on the Danube, I may venture to conclude that Von Metternich deserves a better reputation than he enjoys, on this side the Rhine. You know, on the other hand, that during the short ministry of M. de Labourdonnaye, in 1829, the surveys and plans of various roads in Vendée disappeared from the archives, and have never since been found. Only a few months ago, in Puebla, one of the free and sovereign States of the Mexican confederacy, which, however, enjoys a very high reputation for ignorance and bigotry, the representatives of the people, animated with a holy wrath against those ruthless unbelievers (mostly foreigners), who have pushed the sacrilegious spirit of innovation so far as to set up a line of stage-coaches between Vera Cruz and Mexico, and to repair the great road between the two cities, imposed an annual tax of 135,000 dollars upon them, and prohibited their taking any tolls within the limits of the State.
There is a region where, by simply perfecting the means of water-transportation, a revolution has been produced, the consequences of which on the balance of power in the New World are incalculable. It is the great Valley of the Mississippi, which had, indeed, been conquered from the wild beasts and Red Skins previous to the invention of Fulton, but which, without the labours of his genius, would never have been covered with rich and populous States. After the conquest of Canada had put an end to the brilliant but sterile exploits of the French on the Ohio and the Mississippi, the Anglo-Americans, then subjects of the king of Great Britain, began to spread themselves over the Valley. The first settlers seated themselves in Kentucky, and occupied the soil for agricultural purposes. In a short time they had effaced from its surface the slight traces, which the French, almost exclusively engaged in hunting, had left of their passage. Instead of the little and restless, but indolent race produced by a cross of French with Indian blood, the new comers, avoiding all mixture with the natives, produced a laborious and energetic population, which, on this fertile soil, and like its natural productions, acquired those gigantic proportions, which characterise the West-Virginian, the Kentuckian, and the Tennesseean, no less than the trees of their forests. Without ever laying aside their rifles, which forty years ago were carried to divine service in Cincinnati itself, they cleared and brought under the plough, the fertile tracts, which were converted into fine farms for themselves and their rapidly multiplying families. They had to pass days of terrour and distress, and in many an encounter with the Indians, from whom they conquered the wilderness, more than one husband, and more than one father, fell under the balls of the Red men, were dragged into the most wretched captivity, or underwent the horrid torments of the stake. The name of Blue Licks still sounds in the ears of Kentucky, like that of Waterloo in ours. Before the decisive victory of the Fallen Timber, gained by General Wayne, two American armies, under the command of Generals Harmer and Saint Clair, were successively defeated with great slaughter. The story of this long struggle between the whites and the Red men is still repeated in the bar-rooms of the West.
In 1811, although the formidable Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet, had not yet been conquered by General Harrison, the American had extended his undisputed empire over the most fertile districts of the West. Here and there villages had been built; and the forest every where showed clearings, in the midst of which stood the log-house of some squatter or some more legal proprietor. On the left bank of the Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee had been erected into States, and Western Virginia had been settled. A current of emigration had transported the industrious sons of New England upon the right bank of the river, and by their energy the State of Ohio had been founded, and already contained nearly 250,000 inhabitants. Indiana and Illinois, then mere Territories, gave fair promise of the future. The treaty of 1803 had added to the Union our Louisiana, in which one State and several Territories, with a total population of 160,000 souls had already been organised. The whole West, at that time, had a population of nearly a million and a half: Pittsburg and Cincinnati were considerable towns. The West had, then, made a rapid progress, but separated as it was from the Gulf of Mexico by the circuitous windings and the gloomy swamps of the Mississippi, from the eastern cities by the seven or eight ridges that form the Alleghany Mountains, destitute of outlets and markets, its further progress seemed to be arrested. The embryo could grow but slowly and painfully, for want of the proper channels through which the sources of life might circulate.
At present, routes of communication have been made or are making from all sides, connecting the rivers of the West with the Eastern coast, on which stand the great marts, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston. At that time, there was not one which was practicable through the whole year, and there was not capital enough to undertake one. All the commerce of the West was carried on by the Ohio and the Mississippi, which is, indeed, still, and, probably, always will be, the most economical route for bulky objects. The western boatmen descended the rivers with their corn and salt-meat in flat boats, like the Seine coal-boats; the goods of Europe and the produce of the Antilles, were slowly transported up the rivers by the aid of the oar and the sail, the voyage consuming at the least one hundred days, and sometimes two hundred. One hundred days is nearly the length of a voyage from New York by the Cape of Good Hope to Canton; in the same space of time France was twice conquered, once by the allies and once by Napoleon. The commerce of the West, was, therefore, necessarily very limited, and the inhabitants, separated from the rest of the world, had all the rudeness of the forest. It was in this period and this state of manners, that the popular saying, which describes the Kentuckian as half horse, half alligator, had its origin. The number of boats, which made the voyage up and down once a year, did not exceed ten, measuring on an average about 100 tons; other small boats, averaging about 30 tons measurement, carried on the trade between different points on the rivers, beside which there were numerous flat boats, which did not make a return voyage. Freight from New Orleans to Louisville or Cincinnati was six, seven, and even nine cents a pound. At present the passage from Louisville to New Orleans is made in about 8 or 9 days, and the return voyage in 10 or 12, and freight is often less than half a cent a pound from the latter to the former.
In 1811, the first steamboat in the West, built by Fulton, started from Pittsburg for New Orleans; it bore the name of the latter city. But such are the difficulties in the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, and such was the imperfection of the first boats, that it was nearly six years before a steamboat ascended from New Orleans, and then not to Pittsburg, but to Louisville, 600 miles below it. The first voyage was made in twentyfive days, and it caused a great stir in the West; a public dinner was given to Captain Shreve, who had solved the problem. Then and not before, was the revolution completed in the condition of the West, and the hundred-day boats were supplanted. In 1818, the number of steamboats was 20, making an aggregate of 3,642 tons; in 1819 the whole number that had been built was 40, of which 33 were still running; in 1821, there were 72 in actual service. In that year the Car of Commerce, Captain Pierce, made the passage from New Orleans to Shawneetown, a little below Louisville, in 10 days. In 1835, after fourteen years of trials and experiments, the proper proportion between the machinery and the boats was finally settled (See Note 21). In 1827, the Tecumseh ascended from New Orleans to Louisville in eight days and two hours. In 1829, the number of boats was 200, with a total tonnage of 35,000 tons; in 1832, there were 220 boats making an aggregate of 40,000 tons, and at present there are 240, measuring 64,000 tons. According to statements made to me by experienced and well-informed persons, the whole amount of merchandise annually transported by them between New Orleans and the upper country, is at least 140,000 tons. The trade between the basins of the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Upper Mississippi, not included in this amount, forms another considerable mass. To have an idea of the whole extent of the commerce on the western waters, we must also add from 160,000 to 180,000 tons of provisions and various objects, which go down in flat-boats. This amount is, indeed, enormous, and yet it is probably but a trifle compared with what will be transported on the rivers of the West in 20 years from this time; for on the Erie canal, which, compared with the Mississippi is a line of but secondary importance, and at a single point, Utica, 420,000 tons passed in a period of seven months and a half.
Such is the influence of routes of communication on which cheapness is combined with dispatch.[BB] In Mexico, where nature has done so much, and where, in return, man has done so little, in those countries where natural resources are, perhaps, tenfold greater than those of the United States, but where man is a hundred fold less active and industrious, transportation is effected wholly on the backs of mules or men, even in the plain country. The annual amount of the transportation from Vera Cruz, the principal port, to Mexico, the capital of the country, does not, therefore, amount to 6,000 tons, and the descending freight is much less. The western steamboats look very much like the Vigier baths on the Seine; they are huge houses of two stories.[BC] Two large chimneys of columnar form vomit forth torrents of smoke and thousands of sparks; from a third a whitish cloud breaks forth with a loud noise; this is the steam-pipe. In the interior they have that coquettish air that characterises American vessels in general; the cabins are showily furnished, and make a very pretty appearance. The little green blinds and the snugly fitted windows, pleasingly contrasting with the white walls, would have made Jean-Jacques sigh with envy.
The more ordinary capacity is from 200 to 300 tons, but many of them measure from 500 to 600; their length varies from 100 to 150 feet. Notwithstanding their dimensions and the elegance with which they are fitted up, they cost but little, the largest boats being built for about 40,000 dollars, including their engines and furniture.[BD] A very nice boat 100 feet long, of the legal measurement of 100 tons but carrying 150, only costs from 7,000 to 8,000 dollars. It is estimated that the large boats cost about 100 dollars a ton, legal measurement, and the small ones, 80 dollars. But if these elegant craft cost little, they do not last long; whatever care is taken in the choice of materials and for the preservation of the boat, it is rare that they wear more than four or five years. An old captain, lately giving me an account of a boat about the construction of which he had taken great pains, told me, with a deep sigh, that "she died at three years." The magnificent vegetation of the West, those thrifty, tall, straight trees, by the side of which our European oaks would appear like dwarfs, growing rapidly on the thick layer of soil deposited by the great rivers of the West in the diluvian period of geologists, last just in proportion to the time occupied by their growth. And in this case, as in regard to human glory and the splendour of empires, the rule holds good, that time respects only what he has himself founded.
The number of passengers which these boats carry, is very considerable; they are almost always crowded, although there are some which have two hundred beds. I have myself been in one of these boats which could accommodate only 30 cabin passengers, with 72. A river voyage was formerly equivalent to an Argonautic expedition, at present it is one of the easiest things in the world. The rate of fare is low; you go from Pittsburg to New Orleans for 50 dollars, all found, and from Louisville to New Orleans for 25 dollars. It is still lower for the boatmen, who run down the river in flat boats and return by the steamers; there are sometimes 500 or 600 of them in a separate part of the boat, where they have a shelter, a berth, and fire, and pay from 4 to 6 dollars for the passage from New Orleans to Louisville; they are, however, obliged to help take in wood. The rapidity with which these men return, has contributed not a little to the extension of the commerce of the West; they can now make three or four trips a year instead of one, an important consideration in a country where there is a deficiency of hands. On the downward voyage, their place is occupied by horses and cattle, which are sent to the South for sale, and by slaves, human cattle destined to enrich the soil of the South with their sweat, to supply the loss of hands on the sugar plantations of Louisiana, or to make the fortune of some cotton planters. Virginia is the principal seat of this traffic, "the native land of Washington, Jefferson and Madison, having become," as one of her sons sorrowfully observed to me, "the Guinea of the United States."
Excellent as these boats are, great as is the service they render America, when the first feeling of curiosity is once satisfied, a long confinement in one of them has little that is attractive for a person of a cultivated mind and refined manners. There are few Europeans of the polished classes of society, and even few Americans of the higher class in the Eastern cities, who, on escaping from one of these floating barracks, would not feel disposed, under the first impulse of ill humour, to attest the correctness of Mrs Trollope's views of western society. There is in the West a real equality, not merely an equality to talk about, an equality on paper; everybody that has on a decent coat is a gentleman; every gentleman is as good as any other, and does not conceive that he should incommode himself to oblige his equal. He is occupied entirely with himself, and cares nothing for others; he expects no attention from his neighbour, and does not suspect that his neighbour can desire any from him. In this rudeness, however, there is not a grain of malice; there is on the contrary an appearance of good humour that disarms you. The man of the West is rude, but not sullen or quarrelsome. He is sensitive, proud of himself, proud of his country, and he is so to excess, but without silliness or affectation. Remove the veil of vanity in which he wraps himself, and you will find him ready to oblige you and even generous. He is a great calculator, and yet he is not cold, and he is capable of enthusiasm. He loves money passionately, yet he is not avaricious; he is often prodigal. He is rough because he has not had time to soften his voice, and cultivate the graces of manner. But if he appears ill-bred, it is not from choice, for he aspires to be considered a man of breeding; but he has been obliged to occupy himself much more with the cultivation of the earth, than of himself. It is perfectly natural that the first generation in the West should bear the impress of the severe labours it has so energetically and perseveringly pursued. If these reflections, however, are consoling for the future, they cannot give to a life aboard the Ohio and Mississippi steamboats any charms for him who sets value on amiable and engaging manners.
Besides, the voyage on the Mississippi is more dangerous than a passage across the ocean; I do not mean merely from the United States to Europe, but from Europe to China. In the former, you are exposed to the risk of explosions, and of fire, and in ascending, to that of running against snags and planters. Then there is the danger of your boat falling afoul of another, running in an opposite direction, in a fog, to say nothing of the inconvenience of getting aground on sand-bars. Add to these things the monotonous aspect of the country on the river, the solitude of its flat and muddy banks, the filthy appearance of its yellow and turbid waters, the strange habits of most of the travellers crowded into the same cage with yourself, and you may conceive, that, in course of time, such a situation becomes extremely unpleasant. The Louisiana planters, therefore, who go North in the hot season in search of a fresher and purer air than that of New Orleans, make their annual migrations by sea, aboard the fine packet-ships, which run regularly between that city and New York. Explosions of the boilers are frequent, either on account of the ignorance and want of skill of the engineers, or on account of the defective nature of the boilers themselves, and they are always attended with serious injury, because the boats are so much crowded with passengers. A few days ago, sixty persons were killed and wounded aboard a single boat, but these accidents do not occur in well managed boats, in which no unseasonable economy has been practised in the purchase of the machinery and the wages of the engineers.[BE] Some law containing provisions similar to those in force in France, is required here, but in order to be practicable, it should be made to apply to the whole Valley, which would only be the case with an act of Congress. Public opinion, however, would not permit Congress to meddle with the matter, and the cry of Federal encroachment on State rights would be raised at once. One State only, Louisiana, has passed a law on the subject, but it is very defective, and I do not suppose that it is enforced. Preventive measures are what is wanted, inspection of the machinery and licensing of competent engineers, while the law of Louisiana only provides for the punishment of the captain on board whose boat an accident happens, with a special penalty in case he should be engaged in any game of hazard, at the time of the accident.
There have been many accidents by fire in the steamers, and many persons have perished in this way, although the river is not very wide. The Brandywine was burnt near Memphis, in 1832, and every soul on board, to the number of 110, was lost. The Americans show a singular indifference in regard to fires, not only in the steamboats, but also in their houses; they smoke without the least concern in the midst of the half open cotton-bales, with which a boat is loaded, they ship gunpowder with no more precaution than if it were so much maize or salt pork, and leave objects packed up in straw right in the torrent of sparks that issue from the chimneys. The accidents caused by the trunks of trees in the bed of the river, called logs, snags, sawyers, or planters, according to their position, have been very numerous; attempts have been made to prevent this class of disasters, by strengthening the bows, and by bulk-heads which double the hull in that part. The Federal government has two snag-boats, constructed with great ingenuity, which are employed in removing these obstructions from the rivers, but the bordering States, whose taxes are very light, have contributed nothing towards these objects. The machinery of the Heliopolis and Archimedes, contrived by Captain Shreve, has done much toward clearing the channel, but there is still much to be done.
The chances of accident might be diminished in various ways, by well-directed measures, and at a moderate expense. The character of the river is now well understood, and there are many engineers in the United States, who can manage the Great Father of Waters. Unluckily the Federal government, which does not know what to do with its money, (for it has now on hand a surplus of eleven millions,) is checked by a doctrine with which, one cannot tell why, the democratic party have become possessed, and which forbids the general government from engaging in public works within the limits of the individual States. Thus, although the whole Union is interested in the improvement of the navigation of the western rivers, the Federal government does not venture to undertake it with energy and on a liberal scale. General Jackson's predecessor, Mr Adams, was a warm friend to the action of the government in internal improvements. He thought, like Mr Clay and other men of superior abilities, that the progress of the young States of the West would be very much accelerated, to the advantage of the whole Union, if the central government would undertake to execute, in whole or in part, a system of public works of general interest. But one of the watchwords of the opponents of Mr Adams was, No Internal Improvements! and the very States which would have been most immediately benefited by it, rallied to this cry. So utterly can party spirit blind the most clear-sighted of men!
If accidents of so serious a nature succeeded each other with such frequency in Europe, there would be a general outcry. The police and the legislative power would vie with each other in their efforts to put a stop to them. Steamboats would become the terror of travellers, the public would abandon them, and they would be left deserted on the rivers. The effect would be the same, in a degree, around the large eastern cities, because society there is beginning to be regularly organised, and a man's life counts for something. In the West, the flood of emigrants, descending from the Alleghanies, rolls swelling and eddying over the plains, sweeping before it the Indian, the buffalo, and the bear. At its approach the gigantic forests bow themselves before it, as the dry glass of the prairies disappears before the flames. It is for civilisation, what the hosts of Genghis Khan and Attila were for barbarism; it is an invading army, and its law is the law of armies. The mass is everything, the individual nothing. Wo to him who trips and falls! he is trampled down and crushed under foot. Wo to him who finds himself on the edge of a precipice! The impatient crowd, eager to push forward, throngs him, forces him over, and he is at once forgotten, without even a half-suppressed sigh for his funeral oration. Help yourself! is the watchword. The life of the genuine American is the soldier's life; like the soldier he is encamped, and that, in a flying camp, here to-day, fifteen hundred miles off in a month. It is a life of vigilance and strong excitement; as in a camp, quarrels are settled in the west, summarily and on the spot, by a duel fought with rifles, or knives, or with pistols at arm's length. It is a life of sudden vicissitudes, of successes and reverses; destitute to-day, rich tomorrow, and poor the day after, the individual is blown about with every wind of speculation, but the country goes on increasing in wealth and resources. Like the soldier, the American of the West takes for his motto, Victory or death! But to him, victory is to make money, to get the dollars, to make a fortune out of nothing, to buy lots at Chicago, Cleveland, or St. Louis, and sell them a year afterward at an advance of 1000 per cent.; to carry cotton to New Orleans when it is worth 20 cents a pound. So much the worse for the conquered; so much the worse for those who perish in the steamboats! The essential point is not to save some individuals or even some hundreds; but, in respect to steamers, that they should be numerous; staunch or not, well commanded or not, it matters little, if they move at a rapid rate, and are navigated at little expense. The circulation of steamboats is as necessary to the West, as that of the blood is to the human system. The West will beware of checking and fettering it by regulations and restrictions of any sort. The time is not yet come, but it will come hereafter.
There are certain feelings in the human heart that must show themselves in some form or another, and if repressed in one point, will break out in another. Respect for the depositaries of authority, which until the time of our revolution, had so firmly cemented European society together, has constantly been on the wane on this side of the Atlantic, and in the West is totally obscured. There the authorities, for so they are called, have as little power as pay; there are governors who govern nothing, judges who are very liable to be brought to judgment themselves. The chief magistrate is pompously styled in the constitutions of these new States commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the State. Pure mockery! for it is at the same time provided, except in time of war; and even in time of peace, he has hardly the power of appointing a corporal. Yet the feeling of discipline and obedience subsists, and it is instinctively transferred to those men who are in fact the generals of the great migration. If little concern is felt in regard to the Governor of the State, every body is docile and obedient to the innkeeper, the driver of the coach, and the captain of the steamboat; with them no one ventures to maintain the principles of self-government. All rise, breakfast, dine, sup, when the landlord or his lieutenant-general, the bar-keeper, thinks fit to ring the bell, or beat the gong; it is just as it is in a camp. They eat what is placed before them, without ever allowing themselves to make any remark about it. They stop at the pleasure of the driver and the captain, without showing the least symptom of impatience; they allow themselves to be overturned and their ribs to be broken by the one, they suffer themselves to be drowned or burnt up by the other, without uttering a complaint or a reproach; the discipline is even more complete than in the camp. It has been said that the life of founders of empires, from the times of Romulus to that of the buccaneers, consists of a mixture of absolute independence and passive obedience. The society which is now founding itself in the West, has not escaped the common law.
This part of the United States, which was a mere wilderness at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and on which no one spent a thought, when the capital was fixed at Washington, will be the most powerful of the three great sections of the Union, at the taking of the next census. Before long, it will singly be superior to the two others taken together, it will have the majority in Congress, it will govern the New World. Already the old division into North and South is becoming of secondary moment, and the great division of the Union will soon be into the East and the West; the present President is a man of the West. The democratic party have just held a convention at Baltimore to agree upon the selection of candidates for the next presidential election. Mr Van Buren, who is from the East, has been chosen, but although he had the unanimous vote of the convention, he seems about to find a formidable competitor in the bosom of his own party, in the person of Mr White of Tennessee. On the subject of the Vice-Presidency there was an animated debate in the convention itself; some proposed Mr Rives from the South, others Mr Johnson from the West. Mr Rives passes for a man in every respect superior to his antagonist, his diplomatic services have been highly esteemed by his countrymen. Mr Johnson is honest, indeed, but there is great doubt, or rather there is no doubt at all, about his abilities. The only claim set up by his friends is, a strong suspicion that he killed the celebrated Indian chief Tecumseh, in the battle of the Thames. But then Mr Johnson is from the West, and he has been preferred to his rival, even at the risk of offending Virginia, whose influence in the South is acknowledged to be commanding. Mr Van Buren has yielded to this arrangement or probably he has concerted it, because he would rather risk the loss of the South than of the West. This, then, the West is already become; and when we reflect that the only visible instrument of this progress is the steamboat, we shall not wonder that the whole political system of some men is comprised in physical improvements, and the interests connected with them.