If then we examine the condition of the American multitude, we find it, taken as a whole, to be much superiour to that of the mass in Europe. It is true that it appears to be almost completely destitute of certain faculties, which are possessed by the European populace. There are, for instance, at times, a hundredfold more gleams of taste and poetical genius in the brain of the most beggarly lazzarone of Naples, than in that of the republican mechanic or farmer of the New World. The houseless young vagabonds of Paris have transient flashes of chivalric feeling and greatness of soul, which the American operative never equals. This is because the national character of the Italians is impregnated with a love of art, and that generous sentiments are one of the distinguished traits of the French character, and the very lowest classes of each nation have some portion of the national spirit. But it does not belong to the multitude to be poets and artists, in Italy, or models of chivalry, in France. Their perfection, above all and in every country, consists in knowing and fulfilling their duties to God, to their country, to their families, to themselves, in assiduous and honest industry, in being good citizens, good husbands, and good fathers, in providing for the welfare and guarding the virtue of those dependent upon them. In order to make a fair comparison between the multitude in Europe and the multitude in America, we should consider them in reference to these qualities; for these belong to all varieties of the human race and all forms of civilization, and upon their development and stability in the greatest number, depends the strength of empires. To render the parallel between the two hemispheres perfect, it would be necessary to set against the mechanic and the farmer in the United States, the members of a corresponding class among a people of Teutonic origin, language, and religion, that is, the English operative and farmer. European civilisation, setting aside the Sclavonians, who have recently appeared with brilliant success upon the stage, divides itself into two branches, that of the North, and that of the South, one Teutonic, the other Latin, distinguished by different qualities and tendencies. American society, being a scion of one of these branches, can be more readily compared with it, than with any of the offsets of the other. It is easy, therefore, to determine the superiority of the American mechanic and farmer to those of England, but it is difficult to decide how much inferior or superiour any class of American society is to the corresponding Spanish, Italian, or French class; it is only necessary, however, to open one's eyes to be convinced, that the multitude among these three people are far from having reached, in the direction in which nature points their career, the same degree of progress that the Americans have done in theirs.
The American democracy certainly has its faults, and I do not think that I can be accused of having extenuated them. I have not concealed its rude demands upon the higher classes, nor its haughty airs of superiority to other nations. I will even admit, that, in many respects, it is rather as a class, and in the lump that it recommends itself to favour; for the individuals that compose it, are destitute of those hearty and affectionate qualities, by which our French peasantry would be distinguished, if it were once delivered from the wretchedness which now brutifies it; but it is in the mass and as a whole, that I now judge the American multitude.
The American democracy is imperious and overbearing towards foreign people; but is not a keen sensibility, a good quality rather than a defect in a young nation as in a young man, provided that it is backed by an energetic devotion to a great work? Pride is ridiculous in an enervated and inert people, but in an enterprising, active, vigourous nation, it is consciousness of power, and confidence in its high destiny. The foreign policy of the American democracy is profoundly egoistic, for national ambition is the characteristic of a growing nation. Cosmopolitanism is generally a symptom of decline, as religious tolerance is a sign that faith is on the decay. The pretensions of the United States are unbounded: they aspire to the sovereignty over South America; they covet one by one the provinces of Mexico; but in spite of the rules of morality, it is might which makes right in the relations between people and people. If the United States should wrest the Mexican provinces from the Spanish race, partly by craft and partly by force, they would be responsible to God and to man for the consequences of the robbery; but they would not be alone guilty. If the country which they had seized, flourished in their hands, posterity would pardon the act; but, on the other hand, it would condemn the Mexicans, if, with such neighbours at their doors, they should continue as at present, to stagnate in stupid security and in a miserable lethargy, and the powers of Europe, if they neglected to warn them and to rouse them from their torpor.
The Romans were intolerably arrogant towards other people; they spoke to the all-powerful sovereigns of the monarchical East, and to the heirs of Alexander the Great, that brutal and imperious language, which General Jackson has flung into the face of a monarchy of fourteen centuries. They treated all who stood in the way of the gratification of their insatiable thirst for conquest, as slaves who had revolted against the divine will. That Punic faith, with the charge of which they branded the memory of their rivals, was often the only faith which they practised. Posterity, however, has proclaimed them the greatest people of history, because they were successful; that is, because they formed a durable empire out of conquered nations by the wisdom of their laws. The Anglo-Americans have much resemblance to the Romans whether for good or for evil. I do not say that they are destined to become the masters of the world; I merely mean to affirm that by the side of faults which shock and offend foreign nations, they have great powers and precious qualities which should rather attract our attention. It is by these that posterity will judge them; by these they have become formidable to other people. Let us aim to get the vantage-ground of them, not by denouncing their defects to the world, but by endeavouring to make ourselves masters of their good qualities and their valuable faculties, and by cultivating and developing our own. These are the surest means of maintaining our rank in the world in spite of them and in spite of all.
At the same time that the American democracy conducts itself more and more haughtily abroad, it is jealous of all who fall under the suspicion of seeking to encroach upon its sovereignty at home. In this, it only imitates the most boasted of aristocracies. The system which it has pursued towards the higher classes, is dictated by the instinct of self-preservation, just as that of the European aristocracy and Middle Class toward the classes respectively below them, has been instinctive with them. The democracy is determined to lose none of its conquests, which have been gained, not by plundering its neighbours, not by pillaging provinces, not by robbing travellers, but by the sweat of its brow, by its own resolute industry. Who, then, amongst us will cast the first stone at it? I can readily conceive, that, at first sight, we of the Middle Class in Europe, should be offended by its pretensions, and that we should feel our sympathy excited by the spectacle of our American fellows conquered and bound. But let us, nevertheless, confess, that this democracy has managed the affairs of the New World in such a manner as to justify the supremacy it has won, and to excuse its jealousy towards every thing that might have a tendency to spoil it of its conquest. This is the first time since the origin of society, that the people have fairly enjoyed the fruits of their labours, and have shown themselves worthy of the prerogatives of manhood. Glorious result! Even though it has been obtained by the temporary humiliation of the classes with which our education and habits lead us to sympathise, it is the duty of every good man to rejoice at it, and to thank God for it!
Wo to tyranny by whomsoever exercised! Far be it from me to apologise for the brutal and savage, and sometimes bloody excesses, which have lately been so often repeated in most of the large towns in the United States! Should they be continued, the American democracy will be degraded and will lose forever the high position it now occupies. But criminal as these acts are, it would be unjust to impute them to the American people, and to condemn to ignominy the whole body of these incomparable labourers. Popular excesses in all countries are the work of an imperceptible minority, which the existing system in the United States is sufficient to restrain. That system needs, then, some amendment, which shall suit it to preserve the good qualities of the nation in their purity, and which, indeed, seems already on the point of being introduced, for theories of absolute liberty are evidently losing favour in the United States.
It would be a mistake to infer from what has been said, that the American civilisation is superiour to our own. The multitude in the United States is superiour to the multitude in Europe; but the higher classes in the New World are inferior to those of the Old, although the merits of the latter are rather virtual than real, and belong rather to the past or the future than to the present; for the higher classes in Europe, both aristocracy and bourgeoisie, turn their good qualities to little account, whether on behalf of themselves or the people. The higher classes in the United States, with some exceptions and taken as a whole, have the air and attitude of the vanquished; they bear the mark of defeat on their front. As they have been always and in almost all circumstances much mingled with the crowd, both parties have naturally borrowed many habits and feelings from each other. This exchange has been advantageous to the multitude; but less so the higher classes. The golden buckler of the Trojan has been exchanged for the leather shield of the gallant Diomed. Each of the two is, therefore, superiour in one of the two great elements of society, and inferior in the other. This is the system of compensation.
If, then, from the superiority of the labouring classes in the United States, it were necessary to draw a conclusion as to the relative rank of European and American civilisation in the future, the following would be the only necessary inference: in order that American society should have the advantage of ours, it would be requisite that it should comprise a class, which, intrinsically and in its exterior, should be as much elevated above the people, properly so called, as our higher classes are above the great mass of our population; or, in other words, it depends upon ourselves to give to our social order the advantage over that of the United States, by raising our lower class both of the towns and the country from the ignorance and brutal degradation in which they are plunged, and developing their powers and qualities in conformity with our national disposition and the character of the race to which we belong.