American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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The north, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans to all parts
of the world, and brings back the produce of the globe to the Union, is
evidently interested in maintaining the confederation in its present
condition, in order that the number of American producers and consumers
may remain as large as possible. The north is the most natural agent of
communication between the south and the west of the Union on the one
hand, and the rest of the world upon the other; the north is therefore
interested in the union and prosperity of the south and the west, in
order that they may continue to furnish raw materials for its
manufactures, and cargoes for its shipping.

The south and the west, on their side, are still more directly
interested in the preservation of the Union, and the prosperity of the
north. The produce of the south is for the most part exported beyond
seas; the south and the west consequently stand in need of the
commercial resources of the north. They are likewise interested in the
maintenance of a powerful fleet by the Union, to protect them
efficaciously. The south and the west have no vessels, but they cannot
refuse a willing subsidy to defray the expenses of the navy; for if the
fleets of Europe were to blockade the ports of the south and the delta
of the Mississippi, what would become of the rice of the Carolinas, the
tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton which grow in the valley
of the Mississippi? Every portion of the federal budget does therefore
contribute to the maintenance of material interests which are common to
all the confederate states.

Independently of this commercial utility, the south and the west of the
Union derive great political advantages from their connexion with the
north. The south contains an enormous slave population; a population
which is already alarming, and still more formidable for the future. The
states of the west lie in the remoter part of a single valley; and all
the rivers which intersect their territory rise in the Rocky mountains
or in the Alleganies, and fall into the Mississippi, which bears them
onward to the gulf of Mexico. The western states are consequently
entirely cut off, by their position, from the traditions of Europe and
the civilisation of the Old World. The inhabitants of the south, then,
are induced to support the Union in order to avail themselves of its
protection against the blacks; and the inhabitants of the west, in order
not to be excluded from a free communication with the rest of the globe,
and shut up in the wilds of central America. The north cannot but desire
the maintenance of the Union, in order to remain, as it now is, the
connecting link between that vast body and the other parts of the world.

The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union are, then,
intimately connected; and the same assertion holds true respecting those
opinions and sentiments which may be termed the immaterial interests of
men.

The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their
attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not rely upon that
calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest, and which a
change in the interest at stake may obliterate. Nor do I attach much
importance to the language of the Americans, when they manifest in their
daily conversation, the intention of maintaining the federal system
adopted by their forefathers. A government retains its sway over a great
number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational consent of
the multitude, than by that instinctive and, to a certain extent,
involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of feelings and
resemblances of opinion. I will never admit that men constitute a social
body, simply because they obey the same head and the same laws. Society
can only exist when a great number of men consider a great number of
things in the same point of view; when they hold the same opinions upon
many subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest the same thoughts
and impressions to their minds.

The observer who examines the present condition of the United States
upon this principle, will readily discover, that although the citizens
are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they nevertheless
constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led to think that the
state of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a state of society, than
that of certain nations of Europe which live under the same legislation
and the same prince.

Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all
regard religion in the same manner. They are not always agreed upon the
measures which are most conducive to good government, and they vary upon
some of the forms of government which it is expedient to adopt; but they
are unanimous upon the general principles which ought to rule human
society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from Missouri to the Atlantic
ocean, the people is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The
same notions are entertained respecting liberty and equality, the
liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the
responsibility of the agents of government.

If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the moral and
philosophical principles which regulate the daily actions of life, and
govern their conduct, we shall still find the same uniformity. The
Anglo-Americans[263] acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the
reason of the community, as they acknowledge the political authority of
the mass of citizens; and they hold that public opinion is the surest
arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden, true or false. The majority of
them believe that a man will be led to do what is just and good by
following his own interests, rightly understood. They hold that every
man is born in possession of the right of self-government, and that no
one has the right of constraining his fellow-creatures to be happy. They
have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man; they are of
opinion that the effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily
be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all
consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a
changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they
admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be superseded by
something better to-morrow. I do not give all these opinions as true,
but I quote them as characteristic of the Americans.

The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by those common
opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a common
feeling of pride. For the last fifty years, no pains have been spared to
convince the inhabitants of the United States that they constitute the
only religious, enlightened, and free people. They perceive that, for
the present, their own democratic institutions succeed, while those of
other countries fail; hence they conceive an overweening opinion of
their superiority, and they are not very remote from believing
themselves to belong to a distinct race of mankind.

The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in the
diversity of interests or opinions; but in the various characters and
passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit the vast territory of the
United States are almost all the issue of a common stock; but the
effects of the climate, and more especially of slavery, have gradually
introduced very striking differences between the British settler of the
southern states, and the British settler of the north. In Europe it is
generally believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one part
of the Union contrary to those of another part; but I by no means
remarked this to be the case; slavery has not created interests in the
south contrary to those of the north, but it has modified the character
and changed the habits of the natives of the south.

I have already explained the influence which slavery has exerted upon
the commercial ability of the Americans in the south; and this same
influence equally extends to their manners. The slave is a servant who
never remonstrates, and who submits to everything without complaint. He
may sometimes assassinate, but he never withstands, his master. In the
south there are no families so poor as not to have slaves. The citizen
of the southern states of the Union is invested with a sort of domestic
dictatorship from his earliest years; the first notion he acquires in
life is, that he is born to command, and the first habit he contracts is
that of being obeyed without resistance. His education tends, then, to
give him the character of a supercilious and a hasty man; irascible,
violent, and ardent in his desires, impatient of obstacles, but easily
discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his first attempt.

The American of the northern states is surrounded by no slaves in his
childhood; he is even unattended by free servants; and is usually
obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner does he enter the world
than the idea of necessity assails him on every side; he soon learns to
know exactly the natural limits of his authority; he never expects to
subdue those who withstand him, by force; and he knows that the surest
means of obtaining the support of his fellow-creatures, is to win their
favor. He therefore becomes patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow to act,
and persevering in his designs.

In the southern states the more immediate wants of life are always
supplied; the inhabitants of those parts are not busied in the material
cares of life, which are always provided for by others; and their
imagination is diverted to more captivating and less definite objects.
The American of the south is fond of grandeur, luxury, and renown, of
gaiety, of pleasure, and above all, of idleness; nothing obliges him to
exert himself in order to subsist; and as he has no necessary
occupations, he gives way to indolence, and does not even attempt what
would be useful.

But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery in the north,
plunge the inhabitants in those same cares of daily life which are
disdained by the white population of the south. They are taught from
infancy to combat want, and to place comfort above all the pleasures of
the intellect or the heart. The imagination is extinguished by the
trivial details of life; and the ideas become less numerous and less
general, but far more practical and more precise. As prosperity is the
sole aim of exertion, it is excellently well attained; nature and
mankind are turned to the best pecuniary advantage; and society is
dexterously made to contribute to the welfare of each of its members,
while individual egotism is the source of general happiness.

The citizen of the north has not only experience, but knowledge:
nevertheless, he sets but little value upon the pleasures of knowledge;
he esteems it as the means of obtaining a certain end, and he is only
anxious to seize its more lucrative applications. The citizen of the
south is more given to act upon impulse; he is more clever, more frank,
more generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The former, with a
greater degree of activity, of common sense, of information, and of
general aptitude, has the characteristic good and evil qualities of the
middle classes. The latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the
weaknesses, and the magnanimity of all aristocracies.

If two men are united in society, who have the same interests, and to a
certain extent the same opinions, but different characters, different
acquirements, and a different style of civilisation, it is probable that
these men will not agree. The same remark is applicable to a society of
nations.

Slavery then does not attack the American Union directly in its
interests, but indirectly in its manners.

The states which gave their assent to the federal contract in 1790 were
thirteen in number; the Union now consists of twenty-four members. The
population which amounted to nearly four millions in 1790, had more than
tripled in the space of forty years; and in 1830 it amounted to nearly
thirteen millions.[264] Changes of such magnitude cannot take place
without some danger.

A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derive its
principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its members, their
individual weakness, and their limited number. The Americans who quit
the coasts of the Atlantic ocean to plunge into the western wilderness,
are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently
men expelled from the states in which they were born. When they arrive
in the deserts, they are unknown to each other; and they have neither
traditions, family feeling, nor the force of example to check their
excesses. The empire of the laws is feeble among them; that of morality
is still more powerless. The settlers who are constantly peopling the
valley of the Mississippi are, then, in every respect inferior to the
Americans who inhabit the older parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they
already exercise a great influence in its councils; and they arrive at
the government of the commonwealth before they have learned to govern
themselves.[265]

The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting parties,
the greater are the chances of the duration of the contract; for their
safety is then dependant upon their union. When, in 1790, the most
populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000
inhabitants,[266] each of them felt its own insignificance as an
independent people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the
federal authority more easy. But when one of the confederate states
reckons, like the State of New York, two millions of inhabitants, and
covers an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter of
France,[267] it feels its own strength; and although it may continue to
support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer
regards that body as necessary to its existence; and, as it continues to
belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in the
federal assemblies. The probable unanimity of the states is diminished
as their number increases. At present the interests of the different
parts of the Union are not at variance; but who is able to foresee the
multifarious changes of the future, in a country in which towns are
founded from day to day, and states almost from year to year?

Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of
inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no
causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the
Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before that
space of time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and
dependencies of the United States will be covered by more than a hundred
millions of inhabitants, and divided into forty states.[268] I admit
that these hundred millions of men have no hostile interests; I suppose,
on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in the maintenance
of the Union; but I am still of opinion, that where there are a hundred
millions of men, and forty distinct nations unequally strong, the
continuance of the federal government can only be a fortunate accident.

Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man until human
nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to believe
in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together
forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory equal to one-half
of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry, ambition, and struggles,
between them; and to direct their independent activity to the
accomplishment of the same designs.

But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase,
arises from the continual changes which take place in the position of
its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to the gulf of
Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a distance
of more than twelve hundred miles, as the bird flies. The frontier of
the United States winds along the whole of this immense line; sometimes
falling within its limits, but more frequently extending far beyond it,
into the waste. It has been calculated that the whites advance a mean
distance of seventeen miles along the whole of this vast boundary.[269]
Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake, or an Indian nation
unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column
then halts for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves,
and as soon as they are reunited they proceed onward. This gradual and
continuous progress of the European race toward the Rocky mountains, has
the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising
unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of God.

Within this first line of conquering settlers, towns are built, and vast
states founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers
sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present day
these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in the
whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly four
millions.[270] The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very
centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken place,
that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates of the
most remote western states are already obliged to perform a journey as
long as that from Vienna to Paris.[271]

All the states are borne onward at the same time in the path of fortune,
but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the same
proportion. In the north of the Union detached branches of the Allegany
chain, extending as far as the Atlantic ocean, form spacious roads and
ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels of the greatest
burden. But from the Potomac to the mouth of the Mississippi, the coast
is sandy and flat. In this part of the Union the mouths of almost all
the rivers are obstructed; and the few harbors which exist among these
lagunes, afford much shallower water to vessels, and much fewer
commercial advantages than those of the north.

This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another cause
proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that slavery, which is
abolished in the north, still exists in the south; and I have pointed
out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the planter himself.

The north is therefore superior to the south both in commerce[272] and
manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more rapid increase
of population and of wealth within its borders. The states situated upon
the shores of the Atlantic ocean are already half-peopled. Most of the
land is held by an owner; and these districts cannot therefore receive
so many emigrants as the western states, where a boundless field is
still open to their exertions. The valley of the Mississippi is far more
fertile than the coast of the Atlantic ocean. This reason, added to all
the others, contributes to drive the Europeans westward--a fact which
may be rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found that the sum
total of the population of all the United States has about tripled in
the course of forty years. But in the recent states adjacent to the
Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one fold within the
same space of time.[273]

The relative position of the central federal power is continually
displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of the Union was
established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the environs of the spot
upon which Washington now stands; but the great body of the people is
now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty years the
majority will unquestionably be on the western side of the Alleganies.
If the Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the Mississippi is
evidently marked out, by its fertility and its extent, as the future
centre of the federal government. In thirty or forty years, that tract
of country will have assumed the rank which naturally belongs to it. It
is easy to calculate that its population, compared to that of the coast
of the Atlantic, will be, in round numbers, as 40 to 11. In a few years
the states which founded the Union will lose the direction of its
policy, and the population of the valleys of the Mississippi will
preponderate in the federal assemblies.

This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence toward the
northwest, is shown every ten years, when a general census of the
population is made, and the number of delegates which each state sends
to congress is settled afresh.[274] In 1790 Virginia had nineteen
representatives in congress. This number continued to increase until the
year 1813, when it reached to twenty-three: from that time it began to
decrease, and in 1833, Virginia elected only twenty-one
representatives.[275] During the same period the state of New York
advanced in the contrary direction; in 1790, it had ten representatives
in congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and in 1833,
forty. The state of Ohio had only one representative in 1803, and in
1833, it had already nineteen.

It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is rich and
strong, with one which is poor and weak, and if it were proved that the
strength and wealth of the one are not the causes of the weakness and
poverty of the other. But union is still move difficult to maintain at a
time at which one party is losing strength, and the other is gaining it.
This rapid and disproportionate increase of certain states threatens the
independence of the others. New York might, perhaps, succeed with its
two millions of inhabitants and its forty representatives, in dictating
to the other states in congress. But even if the more powerful states
make no attempt to bear down the lesser ones, the danger still exists;
for there is almost as much in the possibility of the act as in the act
itself. The weak generally mistrusts the justice and the reason of the
strong. The states which increase less rapidily than the others, look
upon those which are more favored by fortune, with envy and suspicion.
Hence arise the deep-seated uneasiness and ill-defined agitation which
are observable in the south, and which form so striking a contrast to
the confidence and prosperity which are common to other parts of the
Union. I am inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the
southern provinces upon a recent occasion, are attributable to no other
cause. The inhabitants of the southern states are, of all the Americans,
those who are most interested in the maintenance of the Union; they
would assuredly suffer most from being left to themselves; and yet they
are the only citizens who threaten to break the tie of confederation.
But it is easy to perceive that the south, which has given four
presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, to the Union;
which perceives that it is losing its federal influence, and that the
number of its representatives in congress is diminishing from year to
year while those of the northern and western states are increasing; the
south, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming
more and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their
present position and remember their past influence, with the melancholy
uneasiness of men who suspect oppression: if they discover a law of the
Union which is not unequivocally favorable to their interests, they
protest against it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent
remonstrances are not listened to, they threaten to quit an association
which loads them with burdens while it deprives them of their due
profits. "The tariff," said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832,
"enriches the north, and ruins the south; for if this were not the case,
to what can we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth of
the north, with its inclement skies and arid soil; while the south,
which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly declining."[276]
If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that each
generation at least might have time to disappear with the order of
things under which it had lived, the danger would be less: but the
progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost revolutionary.
The same citizen may have lived to see his state take the lead in the
Union, and afterward become powerless in the federal assemblies; and an
Anglo-American republic has been known to grow as rapidly as a man,
passing from birth and infancy to maturity in the course of thirty
years. It must not be imagined, however, that the states which lose
their preponderance, also lose their population or their riches; no stop
is put to their prosperity, and they even go on to increase more rapidly
than any kingdom in Europe.[277] But they believe themselves to be
impoverished because their wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of
their neighbors; and they think that their power is lost, because they
suddenly come into collision with a power greater than their own.[278]
Thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their passions, than in
their interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the
maintenance of the Union. If kings and peoples had only had their true
interests in view, ever since the beginning of the world, the name of
war would scarcely be known among mankind.