The perusal of this passage, after a day spent, as I have described, in the city of New York, naturally gave rise to singular reflections. “What is it,” said I to myself, “that the Americans have established without a struggle? And wherein consists the stability of their republican institutions, if it be not in the fact that the people from year to year conquer them anew from the wealthy opposition? And, as regards the predilection for monarchical and aristocratic institutions, who that has observed the higher classes of Americans, at home or abroad, can doubt but that they are at this moment as strong as at the time of Thomas Jefferson?”
The old Federalists have not given up one of their former pretensions,—for there is no converting men in politics by argument; but they are probably satisfied that they must wait for a favourable opportunity of establishing them: they have become more cautious in their actions and expressions, because they now fear the people over whom they once expected to rule. All that I have been able to see in the United States convinces me that the wealthy classes are in no other country as much opposed to the existing government; and that, consequently, no other government can be considered as less permanently established, or more liable to changes, than that of the United States. And this state of danger the soft speeches of the Whigs try to conceal from the people by directing their attention almost exclusively to the financial concerns of the country. Wealth, in other countries,—as, for instance, in England,—acts as the vis inertiæ of the state; talent from above, and the wants of the labouring classes from below, acting as motors. In America the case is the reverse: the wealthy classes wishing for a change which the labouring ones resist; and talent, I am sorry to say, acting a subordinate part, ready to serve the cause of either party that promises to reward its exertions.
This, I am aware, is a sad picture of America, but nevertheless a true one; and I appeal to the history of the last half century, and to the biography of American statesmen, if an impartial one should ever be written, in confirmation of the general correctness of my statement. Exceptions to this rule exist, of course, in every State; but, without any particular predilection in favour of democracy, it is easy to perceive that these mostly occur on the popular side.
Whenever a man of talent or wealth embraces the cause of democracy, he becomes at once the butt of society, and the object of the most unrelenting persecution with all the “respectable” editors, lawyers, bankers, and business men in the large cities. To one democratic paper published in a city, there are generally from ten to twelve, sometimes twenty, Federal or Whig journals; which I take for the best possible proof that talent loves to be rewarded, and in republics, as well as in monarchies, naturally serves those who are best able to reward it.
The democrats have not the means of remunerating the services of their public men in the manner of the Whigs; for, with the exception of a few government offices, with mere pittances for salaries, and the election of senators and members of Congress,—persons “hired at the rate of eight dollars a day,”—all lucrative offices of trust and emolument are in the gift of the opposition, whose patronage, therefore, is a matter of infinitely higher consideration than that of the President and his cabinet.
The little pecuniary reward which the zealots and champions of democracy meet with in the United States, is, indeed, one of the reasons for which they are despised by their aristocratic opponents. “What talents,” argue the latter, “can a man possess who will give up all manner of business, and devote himself exclusively to politics, in order, near the close of his life, to sit down contented with the editorship of a penny paper, a membership of Congress, or an office of from twelve hundred to two thousand dollars a year? Success in life is the best proof of ability; and who that will look upon the respective condition of our political partisans can for one moment be doubtful as to which of them have the best side of the question?”
It is for such and similar reasons that they take every opportunity of railing against the increased patronage of the government; as if the government of the United States were something apart from the people,—a power which the people have to contend with, and against which, therefore, they must direct their concentrated efforts! And a considerable portion of the people are actually duped in that way; they imagine that what is taken away from the government is gained by the community, forgetting that the government is of their own choice, and that the men placed at the head of it rise or fall at their beck. They do not seem to be aware that, as long as the government of the United States remains elective, all executive power vested in it increases but the sovereignty of the people, and that the patronage of the government is essentially their own.
On the subject of patronage the aristocratic press of America is truly eloquent; that being the point for which it most contends, the lever of its patriotism. What, indeed, would become of the flower of statesmen of the present Whig party, if the government of the country, or the people who elect that government, could reward the advocacy of their cause as princely as the “wealthy and enlightened” opposition?—if money were at the command of the public servants, as it is at the disposal of those who manage the great financial concerns of the country? Hence the people are warned against putting the sword and the purse into the same hands. “Let the government have the sword,” say the Whigs, “provided we keep the purse.”
The purse is the point round which the whole system of politics turned ever since the origin of the country. The war for and against a bank did, indeed, agitate the United States before they were quite ushered into existence; and has continued to throw the elements of state into confusion, and to act in a truly corrosive manner on every true source of national grandeur. What effect it had on the progress of literature and the arts is exultingly shown in an article of “The Southern Literary Messenger;” a copy of which, as I observed before, I found by accident on my writing-table.
“The intellectual character of our republic,” says a writer in that clever periodical, in a paper bearing the title “Scriptural Anthology,” “makes rapid advances in improvement. A very few years ago it was seriously argued whether or not the air of America was favourable to the inspirations of genius; now our artists, actors, and poets bid fair to take the lead of their European rivals. If the former fall short in anything,