Thus the State of New York, in its imperial humour, has laid hands on public instruction, banks, and the means of communication, with the purpose of centralising them; the design is already effected in respect to public works; it is not yet fully accomplished in regard to the schools and the banks; but its fulfilment approaches gradually and surely. As I have already said, the spirit of centralisation has penetrated more deeply into the administration of the State, than into the acts of the legislature; a guarantee, that the laws of unity will not remain paper rules.
The lessons of New York have turned to the profit of its neighbours; like it, they also begin the work of centralisation, in embracing schools, banks, and public works within the action of the State. They see, by its example, that the spirit of individual enterprise does not suffer, when the government subjects to its control and its authority these three great springs of national prosperity, and even when it sets them in action on its own account; for nowhere is the spirit of enterprise more vigourous and clear-sighted than in New York. In spite of the Safety-Fund-Act, there are nowhere more numerous applications for the incorporation of banking companies. Notwithstanding the school laws, nowhere do institutions of education increase more rapidly. Nowhere are there more railroads in progress. The State contains 80 miles of canal and 100 of railroads, constructed by companies; from 150 to 200 miles of railroad are now in process of construction, and a company has been organised for constructing a railroad from the Hudson to Lake Erie through the southern counties, a distance of 350 miles.
It would be too much to suppose that a country like France, where so much value is set on the principles of unity and centralisation, would be less courageous than these little republics, born under the influence of the individual principle, and that we should any longer delay to take an imperial course in regard to institutions of credit, public works, and industrial education. The object to be accomplished is not merely to increase the wealth of the country. But there are other and more elevated motives to induce modern governments to take part in such institutions, and thus to extend their control over the interests and operations of industry.
The progress of civilisation, considered with reference to the individual, consists in this; that each becomes more and more suited to bear the weight of his individuality. Social order, being thus supplied with stronger individual guarantees, seems to require less and less of legal and public ones; but in this matter, there is an important distinction to be kept in view. Civilisation gradually strips man of the grosser habits and the brutal propensities of savage life. There are many prohibitions and commands in the Deuteronomy, which in our day would be perfectly superfluous. Mankind hardly has further need to be taught: Thou shalt not kill. The lictor and the headsman are losing their social importance; the constable, the sheriff, and the gaoler are, it is to be hoped, on the eve of taking their places every where. Public order has begun, and will continue more and more, to dispense with the use of the sword; and thus individual reason substitutes its voluntary sanction for the imperative sanction of political power and the force of arms.
The human understanding is expanded and enlightened by cultivation; the heart is elevated and purified; yet the elementary passions are the same. They are combined under different forms, and are turned to different objects; but if they are moderated, it is only in outward appearances; if they are polished, it is only on the surface; within all is as rough and fierce as ever.[DN] In politics, particularly, jealousy and ambition exist in the same degree amongst us as they did amongst the Greeks and Romans; they no longer wield the dagger or administer the poison, they do not even employ an assassin or a Locusta; but they are neither less unjust, nor less insatiable, nor less bitter than in ancient times; they do not stab the body, but they wound the honour; slander takes the place of the stiletto, and serves them as well as the juices of venomous plants; civilisation furnishes them a thousand new means of assuaging their thirst. I do not believe that Sylla and Marius, Cæsar and Pompey, hated each other more cordially than General Jackson, President of the United States, and Mr Biddle, president of the United States' Bank. If one were to search out the types of Cain and Abel among modern statesmen, the list would be of frightful length.
To that force of dissolution, which increases instead of diminishing, in proportion to the increasing number of individuals admitted to a share of political influence, it is necessary to oppose cohesive elements of equal activity and intensity. It is for this reason that in the future, as well as in the past, the existence of society involves that of religion. Even did not religion touch the tenderest cords and stir the liveliest sensibilities of the human heart; if it did not offer to the imagination a vast field in which to wander in safety; even if it were not indispensable to peace of conscience and to domestic tranquillity, it would be impossible to get along without it, for it has also a political necessity. It has been rightly said, that if there were no God, it would be necessary to feign one.
A single institution, however, would not suffice to regulate and govern the passions at all times and in all places, unless it were to follow men in all their movements, control them in all their acts, bind them hands and feet, or, in a word, unless it were despotic, after the image of the old theocracies. It is not, then, to be hoped, that, in our free countries, religion alone can counterbalance human passions and confine them within the limits, in which they subserve the progress of society; or at least, if it can do this in one of the social hemispheres, the family, it will always be insufficient in the other, the state. For this reason, the Middle Ages established a salutary principle, when they separated the temporal power from the spiritual authority, and gave strength and independence to each. From that time, all efforts to confound these two powers, or, which amounts to the same thing, to dispense with one of them, have been completely unsuccessful; they have generally resulted in establishing a tyranny.[DO]
A temporal authority, armed with ample prerogatives, is, then, indispensable at the present day, even in behalf of liberty itself. On the other hand it is impossible to deny that the tendency of civilisation is to strip the throne of its ancient attributes, either in whole or in part. On this head, our age has taken a decided stand. The resistance of kings to the efforts of those who have assailed the throne, has served to exasperate the latter to such a pitch, that a party,—that of the republicans,—has been formed, the sole object of which is the complete and radical abolition of monarchy, and the singular doctrine of the inutility and even the danger of all power has found numerous and warm adherents.
The people are right to desire the kings to lay down or to curtail their old prerogatives; the governments, that are the heirs of conquest, ought to abdicate whatever there is of violence and brutality in their authority. It would be premature to assert that universal peace is about to dawn on the earth; it is not so to affirm that war is henceforth to be a secondary and accidental matter in the history of nations. Industry, that is to say, the art of creating wealth, multiplying the means of happiness, and adorning the globe, the residence of the human family, will henceforth take precedence of the art of slaying and wasting. The sword is ceasing to be the highest emblem of power. But kings are right, in their turn, to prevent their power being reduced to an empty shadow. Independently of all individual ambition, from the lofty height on which they are placed, they see that the preservation of the order of society demands the presence of a power worthy of the name. And what proves the justness of their view is the fact, that men of all parties who have taken part in the government during our revolutionary crisis, have all agreed in this point whatever may have been their former opinions; it is the only point on which they have been unanimous.
The truth is, that while we are taking from governments, we must also be giving to them. War is no longer the principal object of the activity of nations; the employment of brute force becomes less and less necessary to the preservation of society; let us then gradually reduce, with a firm hand, those prerogatives of power which give it an exclusively warlike character, and which leave our lives and liberties at the discretion of its armed creatures! Since industry is occupying a wider and wider space in the existence of the individual and the nation, let us cause it to enter more and more completely into the sphere of government, by including in the attributes of government its three springs, banks, means of communication, and schools; on condition, be it understood, that government shall use the new powers with which it shall be thus invested, for the general good.