North America — Volume 2

by Anthony Trollope

That demerit and that mistake have doubtless brought upon the Americans the grievances of their present position; and will, as I think, so far be accompanied by ultimate punishment that they will be the immediate means of causing the first disintegration of their nation. I will leave it to the Americans themselves to say, whether such disintegration must necessarily imply that they have failed in their political undertaking. The most loyal citizens of the northern States would have declared a month or two since,—and for aught I know would declare now,—that any disintegration of the States implied absolute failure. One stripe erased from the banner, one star lost from the firmament, would entail upon them all the disgrace of national defeat! It had been their boast that they would always advance, never retreat. They had looked forward to add ever State upon State, and territory to territory, till the whole continent should be bound together in the same union. To go back from that now, to fall into pieces and be divided, to become smaller in the eyes of the nations,—to be absolutely halfed, as some would say of such division, would be national disgrace, and would amount to political failure. "Let us fight for the whole," such men said, and probably do say. "To lose anything is to lose all!"

But the citizens of the States who speak and think thus, though they may be the most loyal, are perhaps not politically the most wise. And I am inclined to think that that defiant claim of every star, that resolve to possess every stripe upon the banner, had become somewhat less general when I was leaving the country than I had found it to be at the time of my arrival there. While things were going badly with the North,—while there was no tale of any battle to be told except of those at Bull's Run and Springfield, no northern man would admit a hint that secession might ultimately prevail in Georgia or Alabama. But the rebels had been driven out of Missouri when I was leaving the States, they had retreated altogether from Kentucky, having been beaten in one engagement there, and from a great portion of Tennessee, having been twice beaten in that State. The coast of North Carolina, and many points of the southern coast, were in the hands of the northern army, while the army of the South was retreating from all points into the centre of their country. Whatever may have been the strategetical merits or demerits of the northern generals, it is at any rate certain that their apparent successes were greedily welcomed by the people, and created an idea that things were going well with the cause. And, as all this took place, it seemed to me that I heard less about the necessary integrity of the old flag. While as yet they were altogether unsuccessful, they were minded to make no surrender. But with their successes came the feeling, that in taking much they might perhaps allow themselves to yield something. This was clearly indicated by the message sent to Congress by the President in February, 1862, in which he suggested that Congress should make arrangements for the purchase of the slaves in the border States; so that in the event of secession—accomplished secession—in the gulf States, the course of those border States might be made clear for them. They might hesitate as to going willingly with the North, while possessing slaves,—as to setting themselves peaceably down as a small slave adjunct to a vast free soil nation, seeing that their property would always be in peril. Under such circumstances a slave adjunct to the free soil nation would not long be possible. But if it could be shown to them that in the event of their adhering to the North, compensation would be forthcoming, then, indeed, the difficulty in arranging an advantageous line between the two future nations might be considerably modified. This message of the President's was intended to signify, that secession on favourable terms might be regarded by the North as not undesirable. Moderate men were beginning to whisper that, after all, the gulf States were no source either of national wealth or of national honour. Had there not been enough at Washington of cotton lords and cotton laws? When I have suggested that no senator from Georgia would ever again sit in the United States senate, American gentlemen have received my remark with a slight demur, and have then proceeded to argue the case. Six months before they would have declaimed against me and not have argued.

I will leave it to Americans themselves to say whether that disintegration of the States, should it ever be realized, will imply that they have failed in their political undertaking. If they do not protest that it argues failure, their feelings will not be hurt by any such protestations on the part of others. I have said that the blunder made by the founders of the nation with regard to slavery has brought with it this secession as its punishment. But such punishments come generally upon nations as great mercies. Ireland's famine was the punishment of her imprudence and idleness, but it has given to her prosperity and progress. And indeed, to speak with more logical correctness, the famine was no punishment to Ireland, nor will secession be a punishment to the northern States. In the long result step will have gone on after step, and effect will have followed cause, till the American people will at last acknowledge, that all these matters have been arranged for their advantage and promotion. It may be that a nation now and then goes to the wall, and that things go from bad to worse with a large people. It has been so with various nations and with many people since history was first written. But when it has been so, the people thus punished have been idle and bad. They have not only done evil in their generation, but have done more evil than good, and have contributed their power to the injury rather than to the improvement of mankind. It may be that this or that national fault may produce or seem to produce some consequent calamity. But the balance of good or evil things which fall to a people's share will indicate with certainty their average conduct as a nation. The one will be the certain consequence of the other. If it be that the Americans of the northern States have done well in their time, that they have assisted in the progress of the world, and made things better for mankind rather than worse, then they will come out of this trouble without eventual injury. That which came in the guise of punishment for a special fault, will be a part of the reward resulting from good conduct in the general. And as to this matter of slavery, in which I think that they have blundered both politically and morally,—has it not been found impossible hitherto for them to cleanse their hands of that taint? But that which they could not do for themselves the course of events is doing for them. If secession establish herself, though it be only secession of the gulf States, the people of the United States will soon be free from slavery.

In judging of the success or want of success of any political institutions or of any form of government, we should be guided, I think, by the general results, and not by any abstract rules as to the right or wrong of those institutions or of that form. It might be easy for a German lawyer to show that our system of trial by jury is open to the gravest objections, and that it sins against common sense. But if that system gives us substantial justice, and protects us from the tyranny of men in office, the German lawyer will not succeed in making us believe that it is a bad system. When looking into the matter of the schools at Boston, I observed to one of the committee of management that the statements with which I was supplied, though they told me how many of the children went to school, did not tell me how long they remained at school. The gentleman replied that that information was to be obtained from the result of the schooling of the population generally. Every boy and girl around us could read and write, and could enjoy reading and writing. There was therefore evidence to show that they remained at school sufficiently long for the required purposes. It was fair that I should judge of the system from the results. Here in England, we generally object to much that the Americans have adopted into their form of government, and think that many of their political theories are wrong. We do not like universal suffrage. We do not like a periodical change in the first magistrate; and we like quite as little a periodical permanence in the political officers immediately under the chief magistrate. We are, in short, wedded to our own forms and therefore opposed by judgment to forms differing from our own. But I think we all acknowledge that the United States, burdened as they are with these political evils,—as we think them, have grown in strength and material prosperity with a celerity of growth hitherto unknown among nations. We may dislike Americans personally, we may find ourselves uncomfortable when there, and unable to sympathize with them when away; we may believe them to be ambitious, unjust, self-idolatrous, or irreligious. But, unless we throw our judgment altogether overboard, we cannot believe them to be a weak people, a poor people, a people with low spirits or a people with idle hands. To what is it that the government of a country should chiefly look? What special advantages do we expect from our own government? Is it not that we should be safe at home and respected abroad;—that laws should be maintained, but that they should be so maintained that they should not be oppressive? There are, doubtless, countries in which the government professes to do much more than this for its people,—countries in which the government is paternal; in which it regulates the religion of the people, and professes to enforce on all the national children respect for the governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters. But that is not our idea of a government. That is not what we desire to see established among ourselves or established among others. Safety from foreign foes, respect from foreign foes and friends, security under the law and security from the law,—this is what we expect from our government; and if I add to this that we expect to have these good things provided at a fairly moderate cost, I think I have exhausted the list of our requirements.

And if the Americans with their form of government have done for themselves all that we expect our government to do for us; if they have with some fair approach to general excellence obtained respect abroad and security at home from foreign foes; if they have made life, liberty, and property safe under their laws, and have also so written and executed their laws as to secure their people from legal oppression,—I maintain that they are entitled to a verdict in their favour, let us object as we may to universal suffrage, to four years' Presidents, and four years' presidential cabinets. What, after all, matters the theory or the system, whether it be King or President, universal suffrage or ten-pound voter, so long as the people be free and prosperous? King and President, suffrage by poll and suffrage by property, are but the means. If the end be there, if the thing has been done, King and President, open suffrage and close suffrage may alike be declared to have been successful. The Americans have been in existence as a nation for seventy-five years, and have achieved an amount of foreign respect during that period greater than any other nation ever obtained in double the time. And this has been given to them, not in deference to the statesman-like craft of their diplomatic and other officers, but on grounds the very opposite of those. It has been given to them because they form a numerous, wealthy, brave, and self-asserting nation. It is, I think, unnecessary to prove that such foreign respect has been given to them: but were it necessary, nothing would prove it more strongly than the regard which has been universally paid by European governments to the blockade placed during this war on the southern ports by the government of the United States. Had the United States been placed by general consent in any class of nations below the first, England, France, and perhaps Russia would have taken the matter into their own hands, and have settled for the States, either united or disunited, at any rate that question of the blockade. And the Americans have been safe at home from foreign foes; so safe, that no other strong people but ourselves have enjoyed anything approaching to their security since their foundation. Nor has our security been equal to theirs if we are to count our nationality as extending beyond the British Isles. Then as to security under their laws and from their laws! Those laws and the system of their management have been taken almost entirely from us, and have so been administered that life and property have been safe, and the subject also has been free from oppression. I think that this may be taken for granted, seeing that they who have been most opposed to American forms of government, have never asserted the reverse. I may be told of a man being lynched in one State, or tarred and feathered in another, or of a duel in a third being "fought at sight." So I may be told also of men garotted in London, and of tithe proctors buried in a bog without their ears in Ireland. Neither will seventy years of continuance nor will seven hundred secure such an observance of laws as will prevent temporary ebullition of popular feeling, or save a people from the chance disgrace of occasional outrage. Taking the general, life and limb and property have been as safe in the States as in other civilized countries with which we are acquainted.

As to their personal liberty under their laws, I know it will be said that they have surrendered all claim to any such precious possession by the facility with which they have now surrendered the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. It has been taken from them, as I have endeavoured to show, illegally, and they have submitted to the loss and to the illegality without a murmur! But in such a matter I do not think it fair to judge them by their conduct in such a moment as the present. That this is the very moment in which to judge of the efficiency of their institutions generally, of the aptitude of those institutions for the security of the nation, I readily acknowledge. But when a ship is at sea in a storm, riding out all that the winds and waves can do to her, one does not condemn her because a yard-arm gives way, nor even though the mainmast should go by the board. If she can make her port, saving life and cargo, she is a good ship, let her losses in spars and rigging be what they may. In this affair of the habeas corpus we will wait a while before we come to any final judgment. If it be that the people, when the war is over, shall consent to live under a military or other dictatorship,—that they shall quietly continue their course as a nation without recovery of their rights of freedom, then we shall have to say that their institutions were not founded in a soil of sufficient depth, and that they gave way before the first high wind that blew on them. I myself do not expect such a result.

I think we must admit that the Americans have received from their government, or rather from their system of policy, that aid and furtherance which they required from it; and, moreover, such aid and furtherance as we expect from our system of government. We must admit that they have been great, and free, and prosperous, as we also have become. And we must admit, also, that in some matters they have gone forward in advance of us. They have educated their people, as we have not educated ours. They have given to their millions a personal respect, and a standing above the abjectness of poverty, which with us are much less general than with them. These things, I grant, have not come of their government, and have not been produced by their written constitution. They are the happy results of their happy circumstances. But so, also, those evil attributes which we sometimes assign to them are not the creatures of their government, or of their constitution. We acknowledge them to be well educated, intelligent, philanthropic, and industrious; but we say that they are ambitious, unjust, self-idolatrous, and irreligious. If so, let us at any rate balance the virtues against the vices. As to their ambition, it is a vice that leans so to virtue's side, that it hardly needs an apology. As to their injustice, or rather dishonesty, I have said what I have to say on that matter. I am not going to flinch from the accusation I have brought, though I am aware that in bringing it I have thrown away any hope that I might have had of carrying with me the good will of the Americans for my book. The love of money,—or rather of making money,—carried to an extreme, has lessened that instinctive respect for the rights of meum and tuum which all men feel more or less, and which, when encouraged within the human breast, finds its result in perfect honesty. Other nations, of which I will not now stop to name even one, have had their periods of natural dishonesty. It may be that others are even now to be placed in the same category. But it is a fault which industry and intelligence combined will after a while serve to lessen and to banish. The industrious man desires to keep the fruit of his own industry, and the intelligent man will ultimately be able to do so. That the Americans are self-idolaters is perhaps true,—with a difference. An American desires you to worship his country, or his brother; but he does not often, by any of the usual signs of conceit, call upon you to worship himself. As an American, treating of America, he is self-idolatrous; but that is a self-idolatry which I can endure. Then, as to his want of religion—and it is a very sad want—I can only say of him, that I, as an Englishman, do not feel myself justified in flinging the first stone at him. In that matter of religion, as in the matter of education, the American, I think, stands on a level higher than ours. There is not in the States so absolute an ignorance of religion as is to be found in some of our manufacturing and mining districts, and also, alas! in some of our agricultural districts; but also, I think, there is less of respect and veneration for God's word among their educated classes, than there is with us; and, perhaps, also less knowledge as to God's word. The general religious level is, I think, higher with them; but there is with us, if I am right in my supposition, a higher eminence in religion, as there is also a deeper depth of ungodliness.

I think then that we are bound to acknowledge that the Americans have succeeded as a nation, politically and socially. When I speak of social success, I do not mean to say that their manners are correct according to this or that standard. I will not say that they are correct, or are not correct. In that matter of manners I have found that those, with whom it seemed to me natural that I should associate, were very pleasant according to my standard. I do not know that I am a good critic on such a subject, or that I have ever thought much of it with the view of criticising. I have been happy and comfortable with them, and for me that has been sufficient. In speaking of social success I allude to their success in private life as distinguished from that which they have achieved in public life;—to their successes in commerce, in mechanics, in the comforts and luxuries of life, in medicine and all that leads to the solace of affliction, in literature, and I may add also, considering the youth of the nation, in the arts. We are, I think, bound to acknowledge that they have succeeded. And if they have succeeded, it is vain for us to say that a system is wrong which has, at any rate, admitted of such success. That which was wanted from some form of government, has been obtained with much more than average excellence; and therefore the form adopted has approved itself as good. You may explain to a farmer's wife with indisputable logic, that her churn is a bad churn; but as long as she turns out butter in greater quantity, in better quality, and with more profit than her neighbours, you will hardly induce her to change it. It may be that with some other churn she might have done even better; but, under such circumstances, she will have a right to think well of the churn she uses.

The American constitution is now, I think, at the crisis of its severest trial. I conceive it to be by no means perfect, even for the wants of the people who use it; and I have already endeavoured to explain what changes it seems to need. And it has had this defect,—that it has permitted a falling away from its intended modes of action, while its letter has been kept sacred. As I have endeavoured to show, universal suffrage and democratic action in the Senate were not intended by the framers of the constitution. In this respect, the constitution has, as it were, fallen through, and it is needed that its very beams should be re-strengthened. There are also other matters as to which it seems that some change is indispensable. So much I have admitted. But, not the less, judging of it by the entirety of the work that it has done, I think that we are bound to own that it has been successful.

And now, with regard to this tedious war, of which from day to day we are still, in this month of May, 1862, hearing details which teach us to think that it can hardly as yet be near its end;—to what may we rationally look as its result? Of one thing I myself feel tolerably certain,—that its result will not be nothing, as some among us have seemed to suppose may be probable. I cannot believe that all this energy on the part of the North will be of no avail, more than I suppose that southern perseverance will be of no avail. There are those among us who say that as secession will at last be accomplished, the North should have yielded to the South at once, and that nothing will be gained by their great expenditure of life and treasure. I can by no means bring myself to agree with these. I also look to the establishment of secession. Seeing how essential and thorough are the points of variance between the North and the South, how unlike the one people is to the other, and how necessary it is that their policies should be different; seeing how deep are their antipathies, and how fixed is each side in the belief of its own rectitude and in the belief also of the other's political baseness, I cannot believe that the really southern States will ever again be joined in amicable union with those of the North. They, the States of the Gulf, may be utterly subjugated, and the North may hold over them military power. Georgia and her sisters may for a while belong to the Union, as one conquered country belongs to another. But I do not think that they will ever act with the Union;—and, as I imagine, the Union before long will agree to a separation. I do not mean to prophesy that the result will be thus accomplished. It may be that the South will effect their own independence before they lay down their arms. I think, however, that we may look forward to such independence, whether it be achieved in that way, or in this, or in some other.