Our national genius, on the contrary, requires that in France we should act chiefly under the influence of association and unity, which are characteristic traits of Catholicism and monarchy. France is a specimen of the completest political and administrative unity that there is in the world. Our individual existence must be bound up with others; we love independence, but we do not feel that we live unless we make a part of a whole. Solitude overpowers us; the personality of the Englishman or the American can sustain itself alone; ours must be linked with that of others. For a people eminently social, like the French, how is it possible that the spirit of association should not be the best? But it must retain the distinction of ranks; for with us, a republican association would degenerate into anarchy.
If, then, I should attempt to define the conditions most favourable to the improvement of society in France, I should say that they require it to be undertaken under the influences of religion; that its accomplishment should be confided to the constituted authorities, central and local, and particularly to royalty; that it should be effected by means of institutions bearing the double impress of unity and hierarchical association, and reposing immediately on the general association, which is the state, or supported by powerful intermediary associations, which should be themselves attached to the state. The nearer we approach these conditions, the more complete will be our success, the sooner shall we have the happiness of seeing our beloved France, prosperous within, recover the high station which she ought to occupy in the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[DL] In Massachusetts and most of New England the blacks are legally citizens, and, as such, have the right of voting; they do not, however, at present exercise this right, either because they are prevented from doing so, or because their names are designedly omitted on the list of tax-payers, which in some States forms the list of voters. [Blacks vote and always have voted in Massachusetts.—Transl.] The constitution of Connecticut, formed in 1818, excludes them from this franchise. In New York, real estate of the value of 250 dollars, and the payment of taxes is made the electoral qualification of blacks. [The new constitution of Pennsylvania, formed in 1838, restricts the right of suffrage to the whites, although it was extended to blacks by the old constitution.—Transl.] The Western States, in which slavery does not exist, do not admit blacks to vote, and in the slave-holding States, it may readily be imagined that they do not enjoy that privilege.
[LETTER XXIX.]
THE EMPIRE STATE.
Albany, September 11, 1835.
It has been already shown (Letter X.), that there are in the United States two strongly marked types, the Yankee and the Virginian, the mutual action and reaction of which have hitherto been the life of the Union. A third is rising in the West, which seems destined to become the bond and umpire of the two others, if it is able to preserve its own unity; which will not, however, be easy, for the West comprises slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. For the present, this high office is filled by the Middle States, or rather by New York, which is the most important State not only of this group, but of the whole Union. To be a mediator between two types, it is necessary to unite in one person the principal qualities of both; the State of New York, then, should combine the large views of the South with the spirit of detail that marks the North. To be, even imperfectly, the personification of the principle of unity in the great American confederation, it is indispensable that the claimant of that honour should possess in a high degree the spirit of unity. To achieve the work of centralisation or consolidation in America, even partially, demands a high degree of the genius of centralisation. For some time there has appeared in the administration of the State of New York, a character of grandeur, unity, and centralisation, that has procured it the title of the Empire-State. Although it is the nearest neighbour of the New England States, and actually borders upon three of them, although a large number of its inhabitants are of New England origin, it has succeeded in freeing itself from the spirit of extreme division that is characteristic of the Yankees, or rather in counterbalancing it by a proportional development of the spirit of unity.
The Opposition, which is in the minority in the legislature in the State, and does not, therefore, feel in good humour, endeavours to create among the people a dislike to this control of the central power. "You are led," it says, "by the Albany Regency; a half-dozen of the friends of Mr Van Buren, taking their cue from Governor Marcy, make you their puppets." The Opposition exaggerates; but it is certain, that the organisation of the State, and the forms of administration, which have been established of late years under the influence of Mr Van Buren, and which form a precedent for the future, bear the impress of a centralism, at which the friends of unlimited individual independence have a right to take alarm, but which wise men must applaud; for it is by means of it that the State of New York is become superiour to the others, and it is by it alone that it can maintain its superiority. This combination of expansive force, which prevails every where else in the American confederacy, with a sufficient cohesive power, has given to the constitution of New York an elasticity, which, for communities as well as for individuals, is the condition of a long and prosperous existence.
The organisation of the public schools and of public instruction in general is centralised. Most of the States have a school-fund, the income of which in New England is distributed among the towns, who dispose of it according to their own good pleasure, without the State having the right to exercise any real control over it, or imposing any conditions in regard to it. New York proceeds more imperially; it obliges the different towns to raise a sum equal to that to which they are entitled from the State, under penalty of not receiving their share of the State fund. This method is preferable to that followed in Connecticut, which distributes annually among the towns about the same sum as New York, but exacts no account of the manner in which it has been employed, and cannot even be sure that it has been actually devoted to the purpose of instruction.