This civil bearing is peculiar, as when they are excited by politics, or other causes, they are most insolent and overbearing. In his usual demeanour, the citizen born is quiet and obliging. The insolence you meet with is chiefly from the emigrant classes. I have before observed, that the Americans are a good-tempered people; and to this good temper I ascribe their civil bearing. But why are they good-tempered? It appears to me to be one of the few virtues springing from democracy. When the grades of society are distinct, as they are in the older institutions, when difference of rank is acknowledged and submitted to without murmur, it is evident that if people are obliged to control their tempers in presence of their superiors or equals, they can also yield to them with their inferiors; and it is this yielding to our tempers which enables them to master us. But under institutions where all are equal, where no one admits the superiority of another, even if he really be so, where the man with the spade in his hand will beard the millionaire, and where you are compelled to submit to the caprice and insolence of a domestic, or lose his services, it is evident that every man must from boyhood have learnt to control his temper, as no ebullition will be submitted to, or unfollowed by its consequences. I consider that it is this habitual control, forced upon the Americans by the nature of their institutions, which occasions them to be so good-tempered, when not in a state of excitement. The Americans are in one point, as a mob, very much like the English; make them laugh, and they forget all their animosity immediately.
One of the most singular points about the lower classes in America is, that they will call themselves ladies and gentlemen, and yet refuse their titles to their superiors. Miss Martineau mentions one circumstance, of which I very often met with similar instances. “I once was with a gentleman who was building a large house; he went to see how the men were getting on; but they had all disappeared but one. ‘Where are the people?’ inquired he. ‘The gentlemen be all gone to liquor,’ was the reply.”
I bought one of the small newspapers just as I was setting off in a steam-boat from New York to Albany. The boy had no change, and went to fetch it. He did not come back himself, but another party made his appearance. “Are you the man who bought the newspaper?” “Yes,” replied I. “The young gentleman who sold it to you has sent me to pay you four cents.”
A gentleman was travelling with his wife, they had stopped at an inn, and during the gentleman’s momentary absence the lady was taken ill. The lady wishing for her husband, a man very good-naturedly went to find him, and when he had succeeded he addressed him, “I say, Mister, your woman wants you; but I telled the young lady of the house to fetch her a glass of water.”
There was no insolence intended in this; it is a peculiarity to be accounted for by their love of title and distinction.
It is singular to observe human nature peeping out in the Americans, and how tacitly they acknowledge by their conduct how uncomfortable a feeling there is in perfect equality. The respect they pay to a title is much greater than that which is paid to it in England; and naturally so; we set a higher value upon that which we cannot obtain. I have been often amused at the variance on this point between their words and their feelings, which is shewn in their eagerness for rank of some sort among themselves. Every man who has served in the militia carries his title until the day of his death. There is no end to generals, and colonels, and judges; they keep taverns and grog shops, especially in the Western State; indeed, there are very few who have not brevet rank of some kind; and I being only a captain, was looked upon as a very small personage, as far as rank went. An Englishman, who was living in the State of New York, had sent to have the chimney of his house raised. The morning afterwards he saw a labourer mixing mortar before the door. “Well,” said the Englishman, “when is the chimney to be finished?” “I’m sure I don’t know, you had better ask the colonel.” “The colonel? What colonel?” “Why, I reckon that’s the colonel upon the top of the house, working away at the chimney.”
After all, this fondness for rank, even in a democracy, is very natural, and the Americans have a precedent for it. His Satanic Majesty was the first democrat in heaven, but as soon as he was dismissed to his abode below, if Milton be correct, he assumed his title.