If this quarrel should be terminated by a compromise, we may expect that it will be effected on the basis above stated. The upper classes will, perhaps, consider the conditions as hard, but they should beware of rejecting them. It would be a great gain to them to obtain, under any form, a decisive sanction of a National Bank, connected with the government, and therefore incorporated with the interests of the country. Not only are numbers at present against the Bank, and numbers give the law here, but the Opposition is not so well organised as the democratic party. The Opposition has, indeed, three leaders, who do not always agree; the views of Mr Calhoun of South Carolina do not coincide with those of Messrs Clay and Webster on the subjects of the tariff and States' rights; and Mr Clay, the son of the west, and Mr Webster, who comes from Boston, the focus of Federalism, differ on several constitutional questions. The democratic party, on the contrary, is better disciplined; the two heads, General Jackson and Mr Van Buren, present a formidable union of qualities and faculties. The old General is firm, prompt, bold, energetic; Mr Van Buren, who sets up for the American Talleyrand, is mild, conciliating, prudent, and sagacious; his adversaries call him the little magician. While the pretensions of Messrs Clay, Calhoun, and Webster are scarcely to be reconciled with each other, and neither of them is willing to be second, Mr Van Buren is ready to serve under General Jackson for the purpose of becoming his successor in the elections of 1836. Every kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. But, if no compromise can be made, if the democracy is too untractable, and the upper classes persist in claiming more than their position authorises them to do, if the feelings, kept in a state of excitement, become exasperated on both sides, and the contest be too much prolonged, the most frightful consequences may ensue; even the Union may be endangered.
At the close of the war of Independence, the American Confederacy occupied only a narrow strip along the Atlantic. Since that time the wave of an active, enterprising, and rapidly increasing population, has rolled over the Alleghanies, the Ohio, the Mississippi, more recently over the Missouri, the Red River, the Arkansas, and I know not how far. Toward the South it is already sweeping over the Sabine, and covering Texas, while toward the West, it has topped the Rocky Mountains, and is approaching the Pacific shore. Instead of thirteen States, there are twentyfour, and the number will soon be increased to twentysix. By the side of the old Atlantic strip, two other vast tracts with a more fertile soil, have yielded up their riches to civilised man; one, at the west, comprises the great triangle lying between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the lakes, and the other at the south, includes the fertile regions of Florida and Louisiana, which, under the French and Spanish rule, were a solitary wilderness. The geographical centre of the Union fifty years ago was on the banks of the Potomac, on the spot where the city of Washington—that paper capital—now stands; it is now at Cincinnati, and will soon be near St Louis. In proportion as the territory of the Confederacy has been extended, the Federal bond has been weakened. It was nearly snapped asunder during the Nullification crisis, occasioned by the resistance of South Carolina to the tariff adopted under the influence of New England, in order to protect her growing manufactures. If Congress had not satisfied the demands of South Carolina, Virginia would have made common cause with the latter, and her example would have carried the whole South. The patriotic eloquence of Mr Webster, the moderation of Mr Clay and his prodigies of parliamentary strategy, the efforts of Mr Livingston, then Secretary of State, the firm, and, at the same time, conciliatory conduct of the President, who, for the first time, heard a bold defiance with patience, and the calm attitude of the Northern States, prevented for the moment a general dissolution of the Union; but the germ of mischief remains; the charm is broken; the ear has become familiar with the ominous word SEPARATION. A habit has grown up of thinking, and even of declaring, whenever the interests of the North and the South jar, that the cure-all will be a dissolution of the Union.
South Carolina keeps her militia organised, and exacts from the State officers a special oath of allegiance. Georgia and Alabama contest the validity of treaties concluded between the Federal government and the Cherokee and Creek nations. (See Note 11.) Most of the States seek to extend the limits of their individual sovereignty. The doctrine of State rights has even insinuated itself into the bosom of orthodox Philadelphia, for I see by the journals, that a States' rights dinner is announced there. These symptoms may become full of danger in a moment of universal excitement. When the passions are at the helm, there is no pause in the course. What, for instance, would be the event, if Nullification should find an echo in the same States of the North, where it has lately been so firmly rejected? It is they that have the most direct interest in the establishment of a National Bank; it is they that suffer most from the financial combinations of General Jackson, and from the objections of Southern statesmen against the constitutionality of a bank. Although no allusion is made to this danger, it is evident that the solicitude of many persons has been aroused by it, and it is fortunate that it is so, for a more general disposition to conciliatory measures is the consequence.
The principle of separation is engaged in a deadly conflict with the spirit of centralisation or consolidation; hardly was the constitution signed, when twelve additional articles or Amendments were immediately adopted, almost all of which contained restrictions on the powers and attributes of the Federal government. At the same time the authority of Congress to charter a Bank, and give it powers within the territories of the States, was contested; on this point, however, the principle of union was victorious, and the Bank was established. Next, the right of engaging in Internal Improvements was denied to Congress, which, after a long struggle, has been compelled to resign its claims; General Jackson willed it, and it was done. The National Road, which extends from Washington to the western wilderness, and for which appropriations have been annually voted, each professing to be the last, shows what the Federal government could do and wished to do. Even the uniform system of weights and measures, seems to be on the point of being broken up, in spite of the express provisions of the constitution. Pennsylvania has undertaken, nobody knows why, to establish regulations on this point contrary to the general usage.[P] The public debt is now paid; that is one Federal tie the less. The Bank, assailed afresh, is on the point of falling; that is an immense loss to the Federal principle. The Supreme Court of the United States, one of the bulwarks of the Union, is assaulted. The vast domain of the West, (see Note 12,) the national property, seems in danger of being given up to individual States, for this disposition is one of the favorite topics of the democratic party.
But if centralisation comes off the worse in Federal politics, it has the better within the States. The principal States are engaged in constructing vast systems of internal communication; they are establishing for themselves financial systems, and many of them are about to set up great banks, which shall exercise within their respective limits the salutary influence possessed by the Bank of the United States throughout the whole Union. Thus each State, as it detaches itself from the Federal Union, organises more fully its own powers, and binds more firmly together its imperfectly combined elements. But, on the other hand, industry and the spirit of enterprise restore to the Union the strength, of which political jealousy and party quarrels tend to deprive it. There is not a family at the North, that has not a son or a brother in the South; the community of interests daily grows stronger; commerce is a centripetal force; along the whole Atlantic coast there is only one mart, New York; there is only one of importance on the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans; and the relations of New York and New Orleans make these two cities, instead of rivals, mutual supports. The railroads and the steamboats spread over the country the meshes of a net not easily broken; great distances vanish; before long it will be easy to go from Boston to New Orleans in eight days, less time than is generally required to go from Brest to Marseilles. When we reflect on the extent of the Roman empire for ages, we cannot doubt the possibility of maintaining a certain degree of unity on the American territory, immeasurably vast as it appears to an eye accustomed to the divisions of the map of Europe. The Romans had not attained that degree of perfection in the means of intercourse which we possess; not only had they no knowledge of steamboats and railroads, and the telegraph, but they had few highways, and were unacquainted with the use of carriages hung on springs. The progress of commercial and financial arts, makes it more easy to manage the financial concerns of the universe now, than it was to administer those of a province in the time of Cæsar. I cannot, therefore, make up my mind to believe, that the Union will be broken up into fragments, driven in different directions and dashing one against another.
And yet it is very possible, that the Union will not continue long on its present footing. Are the relations established between the States by the constitution of 1789, the most perfect that can be devised now? Ought not the unforeseen formation of the two great groups of the West and the Southwest be followed by some modification of those relations? Would not the subdivision of the general confederacy into three subordinate confederacies, conformable to the three great territorial divisions, the North, the South, and the West, with a more intimate union between the members of each group, have the effect of satisfying the advocates of State rights, without endangering the principle of union? Would not this arrangement be the means of giving more elasticity to the Union? Could not the existence of three partial confederacies be reconciled with that of a central authority, invested with the undisputed powers of the present Federal government, one army, one navy, one diplomatic representation abroad, one common right of citizenship, one Supreme Court, and, as far as possible, one system of customs, and one Bank? These are questions, which it will, perhaps, be worth while to examine some day, and even at no distant day. But it would be desirable, that they should be approached and discussed with calmness. If they should be unexpectedly raised in a period of irritation and bad feelings, they would be the signal of a deplorable catastrophe. Union gives strength; North America, once parcelled out into hostile fragments, would be of no more weight in the balance of the world, than the feeble republics of South America.
FOOTNOTES:
[P] An act has been passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, providing that 2,000 pounds shall make a ton.
[LETTER IX.]
THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.