“When, by this course of instruction, they have amended their manners so far as no longer to be guilty of similar gaucheries, they are made to improve their language, to smooth down the roughness of terms by the substitution of more agreeable and palatable synonyms, and to set a right value on certain expressions altogether unintelligible to the great mass of the people.
“Thus the word ‘patriotism,’ as I told you before, is entirely proscribed by the higher classes; they designate that virtue by ‘political zeal,’ and the patriot himself by ‘a successful politician.’ ‘A popular candidate for office’ is equivalent to ‘a vagabond who has no business of his own;’ ‘popularity’ means ‘the approbation of the mob;’ and ‘popular distinction,’ ‘notoriety in vulgar pursuits.’ ‘A public man’ is ‘an individual lost to society and to all its virtues;’ the term ‘liberty’ is synonymous with ‘licence of the mob;’ and ‘universal suffrage’ stands for ‘universal blackguardism.’
“It is to be observed, however, that all these significations apply only to the members of the democratic party; there never having been a single man of fortune, in any of the Northern States, whose patriotic intentions have once been made the subject of doubt or inquiry: for it is easily understood why a man of property should be attached to his country; but the poor man has no right to be so, and is therefore to be justly suspected whenever he takes an interest in politics.
“Under these circumstances, you cannot wonder at our aspiring people—and where is the man in this country that is not so?—deprecating the idea of being called ‘democrats,’ and the influence which ‘good breeding and fashionable society’ exercise on our professional politicians. The gentleman I pointed out to you is just serving his apprenticeship in the fashionable salons of New York; and there are already heavy bets making on his being brought over to the opposition in less than a year. I have heard it said that he was a ‘rank’ democrat when he first came to New York, but that the ladies have already tamed him so far as to make him less positive in his opinions; and they hope, by the time they will teach him to wear white gloves and ‘behave himself like a gentleman,’ to make him altogether ‘harmless.’
“When once come to that, it takes but very little to make him ashamed of serving the ‘riff-raff,’ and declare in favour of those dignified opinions which are handed down to the Americans by the ablest writers of Great Britain, and which the commercial aristocracy of the United States apply to themselves in precisely the same manner as the nobility of England. He is then likely to perceive ‘the beauty of those British institutions’ which ensure the complete submission of the lower classes to the superior orders,—‘which assign to every man his proper place,’—which ‘teach the servants to be respectful to their masters,’ &c. The admiration of England and of the British government naturally begets a wish to establish, in America, a government after the British model; for, in the same manner as the honest Boston baker wished his native town to be raised to the rank of a city, in order that at some future day it might rival ‘the ancient and famous city of London,’ do our stockholders and stock-jobbers expect to become ‘ancient and far-famed families’ in ‘the great American empire,’ and to outshine the brightest stars in the galaxy of the British nobility.”
“And yet,” observed I, “there are very few aristocratic Americans who think America capable of national elevation. ‘We have gained nothing by our independence of Great Britain,’ said a fashionable and learned Bostonian, when the subject was started in the way of a national boast; “on the contrary, we have lost in personal consideration.”
“And I have not the least doubt he spoke the truth, as far as related to himself,” replied my friend. “Nothing can better prove the corrupting influence of our fashions,” he continued, “than the fact that most of the celebrated leaders of the present opposition have commenced their career by advocating democracy, and finished by betraying it. This is the price they have to pay for admission into good society, from which democrats are naturally excluded.”
Here my friend was interrupted by the approach of the gentleman of the house, who, in the most polite manner possible, inquired whether we were entertained with the party.
“How could that be otherwise?” replied my friend; “I have never before seen such a collection of pretty girls; I wish I could see them all dance.”
“The room is not large enough for that,” said our entertainer, little suspecting the meaning of my friend; “but next year I shall take another house, and then there will be no more complaints of that sort.”