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

by Michel Chevalier

ARISTOCRACY.

Philadelphia, Oct. 13, 1835.

No great society can be durable, except in so far as authority is established in it. We may easily imagine a case, however, in which the authority may be temporarily thrown into the shade; when a great nation is in search of political and social forms suited to its wants, when it is obliged to pass from trial to trial, to feel its way, and turn itself successively to different points; when, beside, its separation from the rest of the world guaranties its independence, and frees it from the necessity of organising itself under the apprehension of assaults from abroad, it is then permitted, it is even necessary, that it should provide for the greatest possible freedom of motion, and that it should cast off all unnecessary and unprofitable restraints. But then a society without a fixed order and political ties, is an anomaly, a passing phenomenon. The social bonds of opinion and religion, the only ones which exist here, cannot supply the want of political ties, unless they are straightened to such a degree as to become despotic. Besides, when large towns like New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, have once grown up, and there is a numerous floating population, which opinion and religion cannot watch closely, manners and belief have need of the firm support of the laws.

The serious character and frequent occurrence of disorders in the American Union, at the present time, prove that the period has come, when it will be necessary for authority to be organised. There are interests in the South, for example, which are filled with alarm, and which for want of legal protection, protect themselves, right or wrong, in a brutal manner, and feel the necessity of a power upon which they can rely for safety. In the Middle Class of the cities of the North, there is a population enervated or rather refined by wealth, which is no longer ready to exercise that portion of self-government that consists in the suppression of violence by force, and in the democracy, there is a restless and turbulent element which force alone can hold in check. These two classes, which are peculiar to the North, and whose numbers daily increase, will soon be unable to live with each other, without the intervention of power.

Authority has two bases, upon which, to stand firm, it must be supported, like man upon two feet; these are unity or centralisation, and the distinction of ranks. The corresponding bases of liberty are equality, and independence. The spirit of unity or centralisation is already beginning to appear in several of the United States. (See Letter XXIX.).

It is not strictly correct to say that the Americans have renounced the principle of authority; for they have from the beginning adopted the principle of the sovereignty of the people. It is true that they understood it, at first, negatively; that is as a simple denial of authority in the European sense, or of military power founded on conquest; but when the doctrine of equality had once secured to the democracy the superiority over the Middle Class, the democracy gradually took upon itself the exercise of that sovereignty, for its own interest, well or ill understood, at the dictation of its passions good or bad; here, then, was power in the fullest extent of the word, here was a dictatorate: not indeed permanent and steady, but showing itself by starts and at intervals. For the most of the time it may be said to have slumbered, and left the field free to the spirit of individuality; it has roused itself occasionally only to strike a decisive blow, and to sink back again into its slumbers; but however irregular may have been its action, still here has been power, and power legal in its character and bold in its operations, and gradually extending their sphere.

The New England States, which are the incarnation of the spirit of division and individualism, have advanced little in this direction. The old Southern States, although they have more of the spirit of centralisation, have also shown themselves timid in this matter. The Middle States, and particularly New York, have made the greatest progress; those of the West, and particularly of the Northwest, seem disposed to imitate them.

This centripetal power has operated in two ways; negatively, in setting limits, and sometimes narrow ones, to the independence of personal action, whether exercised singly by individuals or collectively by companies. It has, for example, reduced the privileges of incorporated companies in general, and the railroad and banking companies in particular, or rather it has assumed to itself to be omnipotent in regard to them; at this moment, the democracy in the North is raising the hue and cry after all companies. It has imposed various restrictions upon commerce, such for instance, as the inspection laws relative to exported produce. Positively, it has interfered with the private transactions of individuals, and suspended or annulled them; thus in the West, ex post facto laws have been passed in favour of debtors; or the courts which refused to yield, have been abolished in a body, as in Kentucky; or monopolies have been created and sold for the profit of the State, as in New Jersey. Within a few years other measures of a more fundamental and comprehensive nature have been adopted, and the centralisation of the schools, the means of communication, and the banks, the three institutions of the most vital importance in a society devoted to industry, has already been commenced. Thus the germ of a vigourous central authority, which will embrace all the ruling interests of the country, is already beginning to sprout. In this respect the North and the South, the East and the West, with the exception of New England, which is held back by its spirit of subdivision,[DU] seem to be unanimous.