When the white and red roses were the symbols of faction in England, and when the contest between Baliol and Bruce made way for invasion and tyranny in Scotland, the destruction of armies and of cities, public executions, plunder and confiscations, were the least evils that they occasioned. The annihilation of public virtue and private confidence; the exasperation of hereditary hatred; the corrupting the milk of human kindness, and breaking asunder every sacred tie by which man and man are held together: all these dreadful results of civil discord are the means of visiting the sins of civil war on the third and fourth generation of those who have kindled it. Yet the extinction of charity and kindness in dissensions like these, is not to be compared to that which is the consequence of an entire subversion of the accustomed form of government. Attachment to a monarch or line of royalty, aims only at a single object, and is at worst loyalty and fidelity misplaced: yet war once begun on such a motive, loosens the bands of society, and opens to the ambitious and the rapacious the way to power and plunder. Still, however, the laws, the customs, and the frame of government stand where they did. When the contest is decided, and the successful competitor established, if the monarch possesses ability, and courts popularity, he, or at any rate, his immediate successor, may rule happily, and reconcile those who were the enemies, not of his place, but of his person. The mighty image of sovereign power may change its “head of gold” for one of silver; but still it stands firm on its basis, supported by all those whom it protects: but when thrown from its pedestal by an entire subversion of government, the wreck is far more fatal and the traces indelible. Those who on each side support the heirs claiming a disputed crown, mean equally to be faithful and loyal to their rightful sovereign; and are thus, though in opposition to each other, actuated by the same sentiment. But when the spirit of extermination walks forth over prostrate thrones and altars, ages cannot efface the traces of its progress. A contest for sovereignty is a whirlwind, that rages fiercely while it continues, and deforms the face of external nature. New houses, however, replace those it has demolished; trees grow up in the place of those destroyed; the landscape laughs, the birds sing, and every thing returns to its accustomed course. But a total subversion of a long established government is like an earthquake, that not only overturns the works of man, but changes the wonted course and operation of the very elements; makes a gulf in the midst of a fertile plain, casts a mountain into a lake, and in line, produces such devastation as it is not in the power of man to remedy. Indeed, it is too obvious that, even in our own country, that fire which produced the destruction of the monarchy, still glows among the ashes of extinguished factions; but that portion of the community who carried with them across the Atlantic, the repugnance to submission, which grew out of an indefinite love of liberty, might be compared to the Persian Magi. Like them, when forced to fly from their native country, they carried with them a portion of the hallowed fire, which continued to be the object of their secret worship. Those who look upon the revolution, of which this spirit was the prime mover, as tending to advance the general happiness, no doubt consider these opinions as a rich inheritance, productive of the best effects. Many wise and worthy persons have thought and still continue to think so. There is as yet no room for decision, the experiment not being completed. Their mode of government, anomalous, and hitherto inefficient, has not yet acquired the firmness of cohesion, or the decisive tone of authority.
The birth of this great empire is a phenomenon in the history of mankind. There is nothing like it in reality or fable, but the birth of Minerva, who proceeded full armed and full grown out of the head of the thunderer. Population, arts, sciences, and laws, extension of territory, and establishment of power, have been gradual and progressive in other countries, where the current of dominion went on increasing as it flowed, by conquests or other acquisitions, which it swallowed like rivulets in its course; but here it burst forth like a torrent, spreading itself at once into an expanse, vast as their own Superior lake, before the eyes of the passing generation which witnessed its birth. Yet it is wonderful how little talent or intellectual pre-eminence of any kind has appeared in this new-born world, which seems already old in worldly craft, and whose children are indeed “wiser in their generation than the children of light.” Self-interest, eagerly grasping at pecuniary advantages, seems to be the ruling principle of this great continent.
Love of country, that amiable and noble sentiment, which by turns exalts and softens the human mind, nourishes enthusiasm, and inspires alike the hero and sage, to defend and adorn the sacred land of their nativity, is a principle which hardly exists there. An American loves his country, or prefers it rather, because its rivers are wide and deep, and abound in fish; because he has the forests to retire to, if the god of gainful commerce should prove unpropitious on the shore. He loves it because if his negro is disrespectful or disobedient, he can sell him and buy another; while if he himself is disobedient to the laws of his country, or disrespectful to the magistracy appointed to enforce them, that shadow of authority, without power to do good, or prevent evil, must possess its soul in patience.
We love our country because we honour our ancestors; because it is endeared to us not only by early habit, but by attachments to the spots hallowed by their piety, their heroism, their genius, or their public spirit. We honour it as the scene of noble deeds, the nurse of sages, bards, and heroes. The very aspect and features of this blest asylum of liberty, science, and religion, warm our hearts, and animate our imaginations. Enthusiasm kindles at the thoughts of what we have been, and what we are. It is the last retreat, the citadel, in which all that is worth living for is concentrated. Among the other ties which were broken, by the detachment of America from us, that fine ligament, which binds us to the tombs of our ancestors, (and seems to convey to us the spirit and the affections we derive from them) was dissolved: and with it perished all generous emulation. Fame,
“That spur which the clear mind doth raise
To live laborious nights and painful days,”
has no votaries among the students of Poor Richard’s almanack, the great Pharos of the states. The land of their ancestors, party hostility has taught them to regard with scorn and hatred. That in which they live calls up no images of past glory or excellence. Neither hopeful nor desirous of that after-existence, which has been most coveted by those who do things worth recording, they not only live, but thrive; and that is quite enough. A man no longer says of himself with exultation, “I belong to the land where Milton sung the song of seraphims, and Newton traced the paths of light; where Alfred established his throne in wisdom, and where the palms and laurels of renown shade the tombs of the mighty and the excellent.” Thus dissevered from recollections so dear, and so ennobling, what ties are substituted in their places? Can he regard with tender and reverential feelings, a land that has not only been deprived of its best ornaments, but become a receptacle for the outcasts of society from every nation in Europe? Is there a person whose dubious or turbulent character has made him unwelcome or suspected in society, he goes to America, where he knows no one, and is of no one known; and where he can with safety assume any character. All that tremble with the consciousness of undetected crimes, or smart from the consequence of unchecked follies; fraudulent bankrupts, unsuccessful adventurers, restless projectors, or seditious agitators, this great Limbus Patrum has room for them all; and too it they fly in the day of their calamity. With such a heterogeneous mixture a transplanted Briton of the original stock, a true old American, may live in charity, but never can assimilate. Who can, with the cordiality due to that sacred appellation, “my country,” apply it to that land of Hivites and Girgashites, where one cannot travel ten miles, in a stretch, without meeting detachments of different nations, torn from their native soil and first affections, and living aliens in a strange land, where no one seems to form part of an attached connected whole.
To those enlarged minds, who have got far beyond the petty consideration of country and kindred, to embrace the whole human race, a land, whose population is like Joseph’s coat, of many colours, must be a peculiarly suitable abode. For in the endless variety of the patchwork, of which society is composed, a liberal philosophic mind might meet with the specimens of all those tongues and nations which he comprehends in the wide circle of his enlarged philanthropy.