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

by Michel Chevalier

If any danger is to be feared in the Northern States, during the coming period, it is not the absence, but the excess of power that is to be apprehended. Whilst the democracy in these States retains its jealousy of the military, it appears to be regardless of the accumulation of power in the hands of the legislators. It refuses to appeal to arms, even for the suppression of the most brutal violence; but it is willing to use or abuse the omnipotence of the popular representation, and it would not hesitate, in case it should be provoked by circumstances, to exercise it in the most tyrannical manner. A representative government loses the character of a compromise between the different social interests, and degenerates into an instrument of despotism in the hands of the multitude. In America, it had its origin in the concessions of the Middle Class to the democracy. At present the positions are reversed; the Middle Class now stands in need of concessions and does not seem likely to get them.

Instead of the physical tortures of the Inquisition, this despotism, if it gains strength and stability, would practice the most cruel moral tortures, it would have its Procustes' bed for intellect and wealth; its level for genius. Under pretence of equality it would establish the most fatal uniformity. As it would be successively exercised by the changing favourites of the multitude, it would be eminently fickle and capricious; ever calling in question and unsettling all that was established,[DV] it would end by palsying the spirit of enterprise, which has created the prosperity of the country.

In the Southern States, the white democracy has a pedestal in slavery. In order to realise its own elevation, it is not obliged to be continually engaged in lowering the superiour classes; it exercises its authority on what is beneath, and thinks less of attacking what is over it. In the South, society is divided into masters and slaves; the distinction of higher and lower class is there of secondary importance, particularly at the present time, when the alarming state of their relations with the blacks, obliges all whites to act in concert. In the South, moreover, slavery will soon oblige the local governments to maintain an armed police, which, while it keeps down the slaves, will also serve to prevent the repetition of excesses, by which this section of the union has recently been sullied, and the imitation of those outrages on private property and public order, of which the North has, of late, so frequently been the theatre.

Centralisation is one half of authority; distinction of ranks, the other half, cannot be easily supplied in the United States, particularly in the North, where, however, it is necessary that some institution should give stability and strength to authority. There are two sorts of aristocracy; aristocracy of birth, and aristocracy of talents. I do not now speak of the aristocracy of money, for this has no chance of establishing itself, and can acquire influence only by being merged in one of the two others.

All great societies which have existed up to this time, have established with more or less solidity, one or the other of these aristocracies, or, to speak more correctly, both. An aristocracy of talents existed even in the bosom of the Egyptian and Hindoo castes; but Christianity first distinctly established an order of classification founded on intellect, not only in each nation, but throughout the Catholic Church; the Roman Catholic clergy was organised on this principle. It could not be otherwise; the unity of God and of the human race was an article of faith; for the Christian there was only one God, the father of all men, before whom all distinctions of birth were as nothing.

But by the side of this aristocracy of intellect, all nations which have reached a lofty political elevation, and founded durable empires, have had an aristocracy of birth, a civil and military nobility. Among some not very numerous peoples of antiquity, the nobility was composed of all free citizens, who were inferior in numbers to the slaves. Such were the republics of Greece, whose political superiority, however, was of short duration. Such were the Arabs, among whom there were rayas, Christians, and Jews, below the faithful. The nations which have had most weight in the balance of European civilisation, have been differently constituted; above the free citizens, they had a hereditary privileged class. Such was Rome; such is England; in the same way the empire of Islam was not solidly or firmly fixed, until a handful of Turks was placed over the Arabs, as a privileged class.

It is worthy of notice, that the last of the great societies which have passed over the face of the earth, Christian society, or that in which the aristocracy of intellect was first fully developed, is also that in which aristocracy of birth has been most strongly marked. The sons of Japhet, who gave the impulse and acted as leaders to this movement of civilisation, brought with them from the North, a strong spirit of family, with which their political systems have been deeply impregnated; thus arose the most strictly hereditary nobility which has ever been seen. Till that time the hereditary system had been applied to caste; the Germans extended hereditary distinctions and functions to family, with the additional restriction of primogeniture. What before had been an exception in favour of royal families, they applied to all noble families. This organisation, more or less modified, still prevails in most of the European States. But yesterday, it seemed as vigourous as ever in England. It is true that it has there conformed itself to the spirit of the age, that it has become pliant and elastic, opened its ranks to the aristocracy of intellect, and consecrated its wealth and employed its privileges, not in gratifying its own caprices, nor in satiating its passions, but in spreading all around it, the net-work of a vast and beneficent patronage.

At the present day, there is a violent reaction against hereditary distinctions and aristocracy of birth. On all points of the territory occupied by the Western civilisation, the aristocracy of feudal origin is battered down, here by the democracy, there by the Middle Class, and elsewhere by royalty. In the general league against it, the emperor of Russia gives his hand to the American democracy and the French bourgeoisie, and the British democracy in the person of O'Connell, is allied with the king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria.

Whatever opinion we may entertain of the present value of aristocracy of birth, we are obliged to acknowledge, that, in the past, it has rendered great services to the human race. But for the establishment of the feudal system, the barbarian hordes would have continued to drive over the face of Europe, tribe dashing against tribe, nation hurled against nation. The principal distinction between the Germans or Normans, and the followers of Attila or Genghis Khan, is that the former had the instinct of organisation, as is manifested by their conception of the feudal system, and the latter were destitute of it. England is chiefly indebted to her aristocracy for her brilliant success.[DW] I do not regret the past, for our share of glory is still great, although France has been conquered by her rival in the field and in the cabinet, and in every part of the world, in Europe, America, and Asia. Yet I may be permitted to say, that if the French aristocracy had triumphed in its struggle with Richelieu,[DX] the destinies of the world might have been completely changed; and France, perhaps, would then have played the part which has fallen to the lot of England.

The right of primogeniture, extended beyond the limits of the aristocracy, ought not to be looked upon as a senseless imitation of the customs of the nobility by vain commoners. Although it may be difficult to defend this custom, on the ground of equity, yet it has been one of the causes of the greatness of England. It is clear that it is favourable to the accumulation of capital in few hands; now capital is like man, powerful when united in masses, feeble when divided. England is indebted to the law of primogeniture for an ever swarming army of younger sons, eager to exercise their enterprise in the colonies, and contented with their lot, whether because they readily obtain assistance from the head of the family, or because they are full of energy, and know that by industry they will obtain wealth, or because they do not think that the world can be arranged on a different system. Meanwhile, the elder sons have formed an opulent metropolis, which has given ample aid to its distant possessions in all emergencies, and has gradually gained the supremacy in Europe.