object in the outset, was, to carry them with me faithfully
wheresoever I went: and that task I have discharged.
But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character
of the American people, and the general character of their social
system, as presented to a stranger’s eyes, I desire to express my
own opinions in a few words, before I bring these volumes to a
close.
They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and
affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their
warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of
these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders
an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of
friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded
up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to
them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for
whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.
These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole
people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their
growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which
endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of
their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told.
It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself
mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the
popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable
brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen
plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently
dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce
it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great
sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness
and independence.
‘You carry,’ says the stranger, ‘this jealousy and distrust into
every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from
your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates
for the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your
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Institutions and your people’s choice. It has rendered you so
fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed
into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you
are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this,
because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you
distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately apply
yourselves to find out, either that you have been too bountiful in
your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who
attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may
date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any
notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the
character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust,
and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of
trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved;
but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden
with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you,
or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the
governed, among you?’
The answer is invariably the same: ‘There’s freedom of opinion
here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be
easily overreached. That’s how our people come to be suspicious.’
Another prominent feature is the love of ‘smart’ dealing: which
gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a
defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold
his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter; though it
has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness
has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to
cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash,
could have effected in a century. The merits of a broken
speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not