The principal fear, expressed or concealed, of those who dislike the mere mention of the outgrowth of individual property is lest they should be deprived of their occupations, objects, and interests. But no such deprivation can take place till they will have arrived at preferring other interests than money, and at pursuing their favourite occupation with other views than of obtaining wealth. "O, what shall I ever do without my currant leaves?" might the caterpillar exclaim. "How shall I ever get rid of the day, if I must not crawl along the twigs any more?" By the time it has done with crawling, it finds a pair of wings unfolding, which make crawling appear despicable in comparison. It is conscious, also, of a taste for nectar, which is better than currant-leaves, be they of the juiciest. Men may safely dismiss all care about the future gratification of their tastes under new circumstances, as long as it happens to be the change of tastes which brings about the change of circumstances, the incompatibility between the two being lessened at every transition.
As for the details of the future economy indicated, it will be time enough for them when the idea which now burns like a taper in scattered minds shall have caught, and spread, and lighted up all into an illumination sufficient to do the work by. Whenever a healthy hunger enables the popular mind to assimilate a great principle, there are always strong and skilful hands enough to do the requisite work.
SECTION III.
INTERCOURSE.
The manners of the Americans (in America) are the best I ever saw: and these are seen to the greatest advantage in their homes, and as to the gentlemen, in travelling. But for the drawback of inferior health, I know of no such earthly paradise as some of the homes in which I have had the honour and blessing of spending portions of the two years of my absence. The hospitality of the country is celebrated; but I speak now of more than usually meets the eye of a stranger; of the family manners, which travellers have rarely leisure or opportunity to observe. If I am asked what is the peculiar charm, I reply with some hesitation: there are so many. But I believe it is not so much the outward plenty, or the mutual freedom, or the simplicity of manners, or the incessant play of humour, which characterise the whole people, as the sweet temper which is diffused like sunshine over the land. They have been called the most good-tempered people in the world: and I think they must be so. The effect of general example is here most remarkable. I met, of course, with persons of irritable temperament; with hot-tempered, and with fidgetty people; with some who were disposed to despotism, and others to contradiction: but it was delightful to see how persons thus afflicted were enabled to keep themselves in order; were so wrought upon by the general example of cheerful helpfulness as to be restrained from clouding their homes by their moods. I have often wondered what the Americans make of European works of fiction in which ailing tempers are exhibited. European fiction does not represent such in half the extent and variety in which they might be truly and profitably exhibited: but I have often wondered what the Americans make of them, such as they are. They possess the initiatory truth, in the variety of temperaments which exists among themselves, as everywhere else; and in the moods of children: but the expansion of deformed tempers in grown people must strike them as monstrous caricatures.
Of course, there must be some general influence which sweetens or restrains the temper of a whole nation, of the same Saxon race which is not everywhere so amiable. I imagine that the practice of forbearance requisite in a republic is answerable for this pleasant peculiarity. In a republic, no man can in theory overbear his neighbour; nor, as he values his own rights, can he do it much or long in practice. If the moral independence of some, of many, sinks under this equal pressure from all sides, it is no little set-off against such an evil that the outbreaks of domestic tyranny are thereby restrained; and that the respect for mutual rights which citizens have perpetually enforced upon them abroad, comes thence to be observed towards the weak and unresisting in the privacy of home.
Some may find it difficult to reconcile this prevalence of good temper with the amount of duelling in the United States; with the recklessness of life which is not confined to the semi-barbarous parts of the country. When it is understood that in New Orleans there were fought, in 1834, more duels than there are days in the year, fifteen on one Sunday morning; that in 1835, there were 102 duels fought in that city between the 1st of January and the end of April; and that no notice is taken of shooting in a quarrel; when the world remembers the duel between Clay and Randolph; that Hamilton fell in a duel; and several more such instances, there may be some wonder that a nation where such things happen, should be remarkably good-tempered. But New Orleans is no rule for any place but itself. The spirit of caste, and the fear of imputation, rage in that abode of heathen licentiousness. The duels there are, almost without exception, between boys for frivolous causes. All but one of the 102 were so. And even on the spot, there is some feeling of disgust and shame at the extent of the practice. A Court of Honour was instituted for the restraint of the practice; of course, without effectual result. Its function degenerated into choosing weapons for the combatants, so that it ended by sanctioning, instead of repressing, duelling. Those who fight the most frequently and fatally are the French creoles, who use small swords.
The extreme cases which afford the clearest reading of the folly and wickedness of the practice,—of the meanness of the fear which lies at the bottom of it,—are producing their effect. The young men who go into the west to be the founders of new societies are in some instances taking their responsibility to heart, and resolving to use well their great opportunity for substituting a true for a false, a moral for a physical courage. The dreadful affair at Philadelphia, never to be forgotten there, when a quiet, inoffensive young man, the only child of a widowed mother, was forced out into the field, against his strongest remonstrances, made to stand up, and shot through the heart, could not but produce its effect. One of the principal agents was degraded in the American navy, (but has been since reinstated,) and none of the parties concerned has ever stood as well with society as other men since. Hamilton's fall, again, has opened men's eyes to the philosophy of duelling, and is working to that purpose, more and more. At the time, it was pretty generally agreed that he could not help fighting; now, there are few who think so. His correspondence with his murderer, previous to the duel, is remarkable. Having been told, on my entrance into the country, that Hamilton had been its "greatest man," I was interested in seeing what a greater than Washington could say in excuse for risking his life in so paltry a way. I read his correspondence with Colonel Burr with pain. There is fear in every line of it; a complicated, disgraceful fear. He was obviously perishing between two fears—of losing his life, and of not being able to guard his own honour against the attacks of a ruffian. Between these two fears he fell. I was talking over the correspondence with a duelling gentleman, "O," said he, "Hamilton went out like a capuchin." So the "greatest man" did not obtain even that for which he threw away what he knew was considered the most valuable life in the country. This is as it should be. When contempt becomes the wages of slavery to a false idea of honour, it will cease to stand in the way of the true; and "greatest men" will not end their lives in littleness.
Certain extreme cases which occur on the semi-barbarous confines of the country come occasionally in aid of such lessons as those I have cited. A passenger on board the "Henry Clay," in which I ascended the Mississippi, showed in perfection the results of a false idea of honour. He belonged to one of the first families in Kentucky, had married well, and settled at Natchez, Mississippi. His wife was slandered by a resident of Natchez, who, refusing to retreat, was shot dead by the husband, who fled to Texas. The wife gathered their property together, followed her husband, was shipwrecked below New Orleans, and lost all. Her wants were supplied by kind persons at New Orleans, and she was forwarded by them to her destination, but soon died of cholera. Her husband went up into Missouri, and settled in a remote part of it to practise law; but with a suspicion that he was dogged by the relations of the man he had shot. One day he met a man muffled in a cloak, who engaged with him, shot him in both sides, and stabbed him with an Arkansas knife. The victim held off the knife from wounding him mortally till help came, and his foe fled. The wounded man slowly recovered; but his right arm was so disabled as to compel him to postpone his schemes of revenge. He ascertained that his enemy had fled to Texas; followed him there; at length met him, one fine evening, riding, with his double-barrelled gun before him. They knew each other instantly: the double-barrelled gun was raised and pointed; but before it could be fired, its owner fell from the saddle, shot dead like the brother he had sought to avenge. The murderer was flying up the river once more when I saw him, not doubting that he should again be dogged by some relation of the brothers he had shot. Some of the gentlemen on board believed that if he surrendered himself at Natchez, he would be let off with little or no punishment, and allowed to settle again in civilised society; but he was afraid of the gallows, and intended to join some fur company in the north-west, if he could; and if he failed in this, to make himself a chief of a tribe of wandering Indians.
This story may be useful to those (if such there be) for whom the catastrophe of Hamilton is not strong enough. The two cases differ in degree, not in kind.