Michel Chevalier

“ Now credit is the life-blood of the prosperity of the United States; without credit, the populous towns which are springing up on all sides, as if by magic, the opulent States, which, far away from the Atlantic and beyond the Alleghanies, stretch along the Ohio and the Mississippi, would become a solitary wilderness, savage forests or pathless swamps. The city of New York alone has twenty banks, the annual average discounts of which, during the last eight years, have amounted to one hundred millions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the north of the Channel, prevail religion and positive faith; on the south, scepticism, mingled with enthusiasm. There a deep sentiment of order and respect for rank, combined with a haughty feeling of the dignity of man; here, a people eager for equality, excitable, restless, turbulent, yet docile, often even to weakness, confiding, even to credulity, easily cajoled by its flatterers, submitting to be trampled under foot like a carcase, during the period of its lethargy, and at times given over to the most courtier-like obsequiousness. ”

“ The descendants of our fathers in Canada and Louisiana struggle in vain against the British flood that swallows them up; our language is whelmed in the same deluge; even our names for the cities we founded and the regions we discovered, are corrupted in the harsh throats of our fortunate rivals, and are too Saxonised to be any longer recognised. We have ourselves forgotten, that there was ever a time when we could have claimed to rule the New World; we no longer remember the generous men who devoted themselves, that they might secure the dominion to us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here, on the contrary, it is perfectly natural that the democracy should rule the capitalists, merchants, and manufacturers; it possesses at once the physical force and the political power; the middling and upper classes inspire it neither with fear nor with respect. The equilibrium is gone; there is no guarantee against the popular caprice in the United States, but the good sense of the people; it must be allowed that this good sense is quite extraordinary, but it is not infallible. A popular despotism is as easily deluded by flatterers, as any other despotism. ”

“ Now in all countries the multitude are very far from being cosmopolites; their patriotism is more lively and warm, but it is also more brutal, more unjust, and more arrogant, than that of the higher classes. In France, they cry with enthusiasm, Our country before all things! Here the word is, Our country, right or wrong! which is the perfection of national selfishness.
As General Jackson is not, however, a madman or a fool, it is difficult to imagine, that he wishes the United States to pass at once from a close friendship to a state of hostility with France. ”

“ The public festivals and popular ceremonies have become the laughing-stock of the free thinkers. Love of the fine arts is nothing more than a frivolous passion. We make the most desperate efforts to starve the heart and soul, conformably to the prescriptions of our religious and political Sangrados. To strip life of the last vestige of taste and art, we have gone so far as to exchange the majestic elegance of the costume, which we borrowed from the Spaniards when they ruled Europe, for the undress of the English, which may be described in one word, as suited to the climate of Great Britain. ”

“ They have walked through one or two parks, visited the hot-houses where all the plants of the world are collected, braving, behind the glass, the cloudy sky of Great Britain. They have been through the dockyards and military arsenals, when they could get leave, under the escort of a sergeant, seen the young beauties of Almacks and the old curiosities of the Tower, and travelled over England, just as they would make the tour of Italy or Switzerland. If the subject of industry has occupied their attention a moment, it is only in reference to the fashion of some opera decoration. ”

“ But in America, on the contrary, such a coalition means, raise our wages, or we go to the West. Every coalition which does not amount to this in the minds of the associates, is merely the whim of the moment, an affair of little importance. This is the reason why coalitions, which in Europe are often able to shake the firmest fabric, present no real danger to the public peace in this country, where authority is disarmed. This is the reason why European countries, burdened with an excess of population, need for their safety and welfare a West, into which each may overflow after its own manner. ”

“ In this respect, it will not be easy to create American nationality; the American has no past from which to draw inspiration. On quitting the old soil of Europe, on breaking off from England, his fathers left behind them the national chronicles, the traditions, the legends, all that constitutes country, that country which is not carried about on the soles of one's feet. The American, then, has become poor in ideality, in proportion as he has become rich in material wealth. But a democracy always has some resource, so far as imagination is concerned. ”

“ In winter, caught in one of those snow-storms, which are unknown among us, he will construct a sled in the twinkling of an eye, and keep on his way, like an Indian, by watching the bark of the trees. Thus to the genius of business, by means of which he turns to profit whatever the earth yields him, he joins the genius of industry, which makes her prolific, and that of mechanical skill, which fashions her produce to his wants. He is incomparable as a pioneer, unequalled as a settler of the wilderness.
The Yankee has set his mark on the United States during the last half century. ”

“ It cannot be supposed that some red Alexander or Charlemagne from the distant steppes of the West, heading the fierce tribes of the Pawnee braves, and dragging in his victorious train swarms of revolted negroes, can ever become the founder of a military dynasty and aristocracy. If the Union should ever be dissolved, and the hardy sons of the West, pouring down from the Alleghanies, should ever conquer the people of the North, enervated by luxury and enfeebled by anarchy, and those of the South, weakened by servile wars, still no germ of a hereditary aristocracy would exist in such a conquest ”

“ The American concerns himself little about that; violent sensations are necessary to stir his vigourous nerves. Public opinion and the pulpit forbid sensual graduations, wine, women, and the display of a princely luxury; cards and dice are equally prohibited; the American, therefore, has recourse to business for the strong emotions which he requires to make him feel life. He launches with delight into the ever-moving sea of speculation. One day, the wave raises him to the clouds; he enjoys in haste the moment of triumph. ”

“ The American axiom, which forbids the union of the sword and the purse in the same hand, is opposed to the exercise of a controlling influence over the choice of the President of the Bank by the President of the United States; and yet I am persuaded that the democratic party will not be willing to hear of a Bank, in the government of which it could not interfere.
The upper classes (bourgeoisie) are not here what they are in Europe; while in Europe they rule, here they are ruled. Democracy takes its revenge in America for the unjust contempt with which it has been so long treated in Europe. ”

“ It is a settled principle here that all work should stand on the same footing with industrial labour, and be paid in the same manner. Intellectual merchandise and material merchandise, capital and talent, dollars and science, are here placed on the same level; this practice puts every one at his ease, and facilitates, abridges, and simplifies all operations. No one feels the least embarrassment in asking for a service, which he knows will be paid for. Everything is settled plainly and easily, because in an industrious and prosperous society every one has the power to be liberal. ”

“ American society has denied Cæsar. In Europe, it has been necessary that Cæsar should be strong for the security of national independence; for in Europe we are always on the eve of war. The United States, on the contrary, are organised on the principle, that war between the States is an impossibility, and that a foreign war is scarcely probable. The Americans, therefore, can dispense with Cæsar, but we are obliged to cleave to him. Yet it is not to be inferred that they can and will long dispense with authority, or that they are even now free from its control. ”

“ If it is true that commerce is to supplant war in the future, it must be confessed that the Americans are more advanced on the march than we are; for they have applied all their energies and qualities to commerce, whilst we still devote ours to war. They have discovered a new sort of courage which produces and enriches; we shine only by that courage which perishes or destroys.
The merit of this new spirit does not belong exclusively to the Americans; they had the germ in their blood, and have received the gift from the mother country. ”

“ Or are not rather the industrial classes themselves, and particularly those who are at their head, the financial class, yet unconscious of their future destiny, and too slow to shake off the bad habits which they contracted when the sword was law, and work was the lot of slaves and serfs? Do not these Princes of Industry pay too little regard to those lofty and noble sentiments which are well worth letters of nobility, and without which no supremacy could ever be sustained? To engage in public affairs with dignity, the hands must be clean, the public good must be prized above the money bags ”

“ The great bulk of mankind, slaves in fact and in name, were then attached to the glebe, chained to the soil by the difficulty of locomotion.
To improve the means of communication, then, is to promote a real, positive, and practical liberty; it is to extend to all the members of the human family the power of traversing and turning to account the globe, which has been given to them as their patrimony; it is to increase the rights and privileges of the greatest number, as truly and as amply as could be done by electoral laws; I go further, it is to establish equality and democracy. ”

“ Hemmed in by the laborious habits of the country, by political notions, and by religion, a man must either resign himself to the same mode of life with the mass, or seek a soil less unfriendly to his tastes in the great cities of New York, Philadelphia, or New Orleans, or even in Europe. There is, therefore, no such thing in Cincinnati as a class of men of leisure, living without any regular profession on their patrimony, or on the wealth acquired by their own enterprise in early life, although there are many persons of opulence, having one hundred thousand dollars and upwards. ”

“ He loves the institutions of his country, yet he shows with pride his family plate, the arms on which, half effaced by time, attest his descent from the first colonists, and prove that his ancestors were of a good family in England. When his mind has been cultivated by study, and a tour in Europe has polished his manners and refined his imagination, there is no place in the world in which he would not appear to advantage, no destiny too high for him to reach; he is one of those, whom a man is glad to have as a companion, and desires as a friend. ”

“ It must be granted to the honour of the English race, that it is, more deeply than any other, imbued with a feeling of reverence for the law. Until lately, the Americans have shown themselves in this respect, as well as in others, to be double-distilled Englishmen. There are nations, who conceive of law under a living form, that is, only so far as it is personified in a man. They know how to obey a leader, but they cannot learn to respect a dead letter. With them the glory and prosperity of a State depend little on the character of the laws, but much on that of the men who are their organs. ”

“ One might, from an abstract, theoretical point of view, imagine cases, in which this financial colossus, seated in the heart of a country absorbed in business, would press with a crushing weight on the liberties of the people. If it were possible that a new Monk should wish to restore the English rule, or that a new Bonaparte, the saviour of the republic in another Marengo, should attempt to make himself dictator, it would also be possible that a conspiracy between the Bank and this Monk, or this Napoleon, might overthrow the liberties of America. ”

“ In Great Britain, on the contrary, in spite of the wealth and the great privileges of the nobility, the mechanic and the labourer, who can go to the office and get a ticket for the railroad cars, if they have a few shillings in their pockets, and who have the right, if they will pay for it, of sitting in the same vehicle, on the same seat with the baronet or the peer and duke, feel their dignity as men, and touch, as it were, the fact, that there is not an impassable gulf between them and the nobility. ”

“ It takes its revenge, indeed, in furnishing us with most of our statesmen, very much as Ireland has the privilege of giving premiers to England; but like Irish ministers in England, our Southern statesmen, ungrateful sons of a neglected mother, govern wholly in the interest of the North, as if France contained towns only, and had no rural population, as if we were chiefly a manufacturing, and but partially an agricultural people, and, what is worse, as if we were a school of philosophers, and not a nation longing for religious faith and political love. ”

“ If in the Old World, where the old interests had marked every corner of the land with their stamp, the old interests, the military and the law, are thus obliged to come to terms with the new interest of industry, with the power of money, how can it be possible, that, in the New World, where the past has never taken deep root, where all thoughts are turned toward business and wealth, this same power will not force its way into the political scene, in spite of the opposition of its adversaries and its envious rivals? ”

“ It is not impossible that we may be destined to witness a sort of industrial nobility; it is even possible that we may come, by degrees, in the course of time, to entertain the question of a more or less complete monopoly of learning and the press under some form or another. Instead of throwing down the aristocracy, we might give it additional strength and stability, by connecting it with learning and industry, which would then serve as its buttresses, instead of becoming the instruments of its ruin. ”

“ And in a country where universal suffrage prevails, political disputes are of a character to exhaust the patience of an angel. Step by step, then, the stormy propensities of the Tennessee planter were seen returning. The character of the bold, daring, restless, obstinate, fiery, indomitable partisan chief, of the conqueror of the Creeks and Seminoles, gradually broke through the veil of reserve, caution, gravity, and universal good-will which had covered it, and tore in pieces the constitutional mantle in which his friends had taken so much pains to wrap him. ”