Society, Manners and Politics in the United States / Being a Series of Letters on North America

by Michel Chevalier

History teaches us, that civilisation, in its successive phases, has gradually improved the condition of the lower classes; it proves also that each of the great changes that have taken place in the condition of the multitude, has been consummated or prepared by religion, and accompanied by a change in religion itself. It was religion that struck off the fetters of the slave, that gradually freed the serf from the glebe. The free principles of the French revolution were only the precepts of the Christian religion practised by persons who were no longer Christians, and the revolutionary actors themselves gave to Christ the title of sans-culotte, in their eyes a title of honour.

To render the efforts of the higher classes in favour of the people vigourous and sustained, they must, then, be directed by religion. To raise the lower orders effectually from their abasement, religion must fix them steadily on that high moral level, to which they have occasionally soared by sublime, but fitful and soon drooping flights. Now, the higher classes have not faith. If among the highest, the irreligious philosophy of the 18th century has of late lost adherents, it restores and increases its numbers from among the lower ranks. Incredulity has lowered its aim a peg; its train has lost in quality, but gained in quantity. Irreligion is at work among the populace of the cities, disposes them to revolt, and would make them unfit for the regular enjoyment of liberty. When we have roads, when schools have taught the whole population to read, which will be soon, you will see irreligion infecting the country people, if you do not provide against its approaches beforehand.

Christianity, or at least Catholicism, seems to be on the eve of suffering a general desertion amongst us. And yet how far are we from having drawn from the Christian principles, which some among us affect to consider as exhausted, all the elements of popular liberty and happiness which they contain! We are a most Christian people in this sense, that we believe in the unity of the whole human family, and we prove it by our good will to all nations; but it seems as if we expend abroad all the heat that Christianity has developed in our souls. We, the apostles of the brotherhood of nations, we have not yet breathed into our relations to each other the principle of the fraternity of men. We of the middle class, the sons of freedmen, think that labourers, the sons of slaves, are of a different nature from ourselves. We have still a remnant of the old pagan leaven at the bottom of our hearts. We do not, indeed, with Aristotle, teach the doctrine of two distinct natures, the free nature and the slave nature, but we act in practice as if we were brought up in that faith. We are not yet become the fathers and elder brothers of the peasant and the operative; but in our relations to them, we are still their masters, and hard masters too.

And unfortunately, whilst society, driven about by the waves, at the mercy of chance and without a compass, is exposed to disasters, which the control of religion alone can prevent, religion makes no effort to resume the helm and recover her authority. In the midst of nations which are rushing onward at every risk, Catholicism stands still, silently shrouded in her mantle, with her arms folded, and her eyes bent on heaven. The Church bore all the shocks of the revolutionary storm with a heroic resignation; she meekly submitted to be scourged with rods, like the Just One; like him she has been fixed to the cross, and has opened her mouth only to pray for her executioners. But the sufferings of the Just have saved sinners and changed the face of the world; nothing betokens that the recent sufferings of the Catholic church will have any saving power. From the tomb where it was laid for dead, we see it bring back no scheme for the restoration of suffering, longing humanity.

The Roman Church is yet what it was four hundred years ago; but within that period the world has become quite another thing; it has made great progress, and freed itself from the meshes of the past, with the firm purpose not to be again involved in them. If civilisation, then, is about to assume a new form, as every thing forebodes, religion, which is at once the beginning and end of society, the key-stone and the corner-stone, religion, must also re-cast herself. Would it be the first time that Christianity has modified her forms and rules, to adapt herself to the instincts and the tendencies of the nations she has sought to bless?

In this country, religion has wrought the elevation of the lower classes. Puritanism has been the starting point of the democratic movement. The Puritans came to America, not in quest of gold, nor to conquer provinces, but to found a church on the principle of primitive equality. They were as I have before said, new Jews; they wished to govern by the laws of Moses. In the beginning the state was completely swallowed up by the church; they divided themselves into religious congregations, in which all the heads of families were equal, conformably to the Mosaic law, over which the elders and the saints presided, and in which all earthly distinctions were abolished or contemned. One of the first objects of their care, under the influence of their religious views, was to establish schools, in which all the children should be educated together and in the same manner. Although unequal in respect to property, all adopted the same habits of life. The physical exertions, to which all were obliged to devote themselves in common, in order to defend themselves from famine and the savages, strengthened their habits and feelings of equality. Now, New England, which is inhabited exclusively by the sons of the Puritans, and in which their traditions and their faith are still kept unchanged, has ever been, and is yet, the focus of American democracy.

Thus American democracy has been enabled to organise and establish itself. All our efforts, on the contrary, to found a democracy in France in 1793, would have been vain, even had we not been unfitted for democratic habits, because we wished to build on irreligion, on the hatred of religion. Manners and feelings must prepare and inspire the means of social improvement; the laws must express and prescribe them. Politics and religion, then, must join hands in this difficult task. Politics, as well as religion, must be transformed for the furtherance of civilisation, and the safety of the world.

I admire the results, which the political system of the United States has produced in America. But it seems to me impossible, that the institutions by which the condition of the people has been so much bettered here, can be naturalised amongst us. There must be harmony between the political and religious schemes that are suited to any one people. Protestantism is republican; puritanism is absolute self-government in religion, and begets it in politics. The United Provinces were Protestant; the United States are Protestant. Catholicism is essentially monarchical; in countries, which are Catholic, at least by recollections, habits, and education, if not by faith, a regular democracy is impracticable. The anarchy of the former Spanish colonies fully proves to what bitter regrets Catholic nations expose themselves, when they attempt to apply to themselves the political institutions of Protestant countries.

Under the influence of Protestantism and republicanism, the social progress has been effected by the medium of the spirit of individuality; for protestantism, republicanism, and individuality are all one. Individuals stand apart from one another, or if they are associated together, they have formed only limited associations, which have no common bond of union. The republic of the United States is indefinitely subdivided into independent republics of various classes. The States are republics in the general confederation; the towns are republics within the States; a farm is a republic in a county. Banking, canal, and railroad companies, are so many distinct republics. The family is an inviolable republic in the state; each individual is a republic by himself in the family. The only effective militia consists of volunteer companies, which have no connexion with each other. The religious organisation of the country resembles its civil and political organisation. The different sects are independent of each other, and most of them tend to split up into completely detached fragments.