American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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In the United States, 1830, the population of the two races stood as
follows:--

States where slavery is abolished, 6,565,434 whites; 120,520 blacks.
Slave states, 3,960,814 whites; 2,208,112 blacks.

[By the census of 1840, the population of the two races was as follows:
States where slavery is abolished, 9,556,065 whites; 171,854 blacks.
Slave states, 4,633,153 whites; 2,581,688 blacks.]

[252] This opinion is sanctioned by authorities infinitely weightier
than anything that I can say; thus, for instance, it is stated in the
Memoirs of Jefferson (as collected by M. Conseil), "Nothing is more
clearly written in the book of destiny than the emancipation of the
blacks; and it is equally certain that the two races will never live in
a state of equal freedom under the same government, so insurmountable
are the barriers which nature, habit, and opinions, have established
between them."

[253] If the British West India planters had governed themselves, they
would assuredly not have passed the slave emancipation bill which the
mother country has recently imposed upon them.

[254] This society assumed the name "The Society for the Colonization of
the Blacks." See its annual reports; and more particularly the
fifteenth. See also the pamphlet, to which allusion has already been
made, entitled "Letters on the Colonization Society, and on its probable
results," by Mr. Carey, Philadelphia, April, 1833.

[255] This last regulation was laid down by the founders of the
settlement; they apprehended that a state of things might arise in
Africa, similar to that which exists on the frontiers of the United
States, and that if the negroes, like the Indians, were brought into
collision with a people more enlightened than themselves, they would be
destroyed before they could be civilized.

[256] Nor would these be the only difficulties attendant upon the
undertaking; if the Union undertook to buy up the negroes now in
America, in order to transport them to Africa, the price of slaves,
increasing with their scarcity, would soon become enormous.

[257] In the original, "Voulant la servitude, il se sont laissé
entrainer, malgré eux ou à leur insu, vers la liberté."

"Desiring servitude, they have suffered themselves, involuntarily or
ignorantly, to be drawn toward liberty."--_Reviser_.

[258] See the conduct of the northern states in the war of 1812. "During
that war," said Jefferson, in a letter to General Lafayette, "four of
the eastern states were only attached to the Union, like so many
inanimate bodies to living men."

[259] The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for a standing
army; and without a standing army a government is not prepared to profit
by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take the sovereign
power by surprise.

[260] Thus the province of Holland in the republic of the Low Countries,
and the emperor in the Germanic Confederation, have sometimes put
themselves in the place of the Union, and have employed the federal
authority to their own advantage.

[261] See Darby's View of the United States, pp. 64, 79.

[262] See Darby's View of the United States, p. 435.

[In Carey & Lea's Geography of America, the United States are said to
form an area of 2,076,400 square miles.--_Translator's Note._]

[The discrepancy between Darby's estimate of the area of the United
States given by the author, and that stated by the translator, is not
easily accounted for. In Bradford's comprehensive Atlas, a work
generally of great accuracy, it is said that "as claimed by this
country, the territory of the United States extends from 25° to 54°
north latitude, and from 65° 49' to 125° west longitude, over an area of
about 2,200,000 square miles."--_American Editor._]

[263] It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the expression
_Anglo-Americans_, I only mean to designate the great majority of the
nation; for a certain number of isolated individuals are of course to be
met with holding very different opinions.

[264]
Census of 1790........ 3,929,328.
do 1830........12,856,165.
[do. 1840........17,068,666.]

[265] This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt that in
time society will assume as much stability and regularity in the west,
as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic ocean.

[266] Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790.

[267] The area of the state of New York is about 46,000 square miles.
See Carey & Lea's American Geography, p. 142.

[268] If the population continues to double every twenty-two years, as
it has done for the last two hundred years, the number of inhabitants in
the United States in 1852, will be twenty millions: in 1874, forty-eight
millions; and in 1896, ninety-six millions. This may still be the case
even if the lands on the western slope of the Rocky mountains should be
found to be unfit for cultivation. The territory which is already
occupied can easily contain this number of inhabitants. One hundred
millions of men disseminated over the surface of the twenty-four states,
and the three dependencies, which constitute the Union, would give only
702 inhabitants to the square league: this would be far below the mean
population of France, which is 1,003 to the square league; or of
England, which is 1,457; and it would even be below the population of
Switzerland, for that country, notwithstanding its lakes and mountains,
contains 783 inhabitants to the square league. (See Maltebrun, vol. vi.,
p. 92.)

[269] See Legislative Documents, 20th congress, No. 117, p. 105.

[270] 3,672,317; census 1830.

[271] The distance of Jefferson, the capital of the state of Missouri,
to Washington, is 1,018 miles. (American Almanac, 1831, p. 40.)

[272] The following statements will suffice to show the difference which
exists between the commerce of the south and that of the north:--

In 1829, the tonnage of all the merchant-vessels belonging to Virginia,
the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four great southern states),
amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the tonnage of the vessels
of the state of Massachusetts alone amounted to 17,322 tons. (See
Legislative Documents, 21st congress, 2d session, No. 140, p. 244.) Thus
the state of Massachusetts has three times as much shipping as the four
abovementioned states. Nevertheless the area of the state of
Massachusetts is only 7,335 square miles, and its population amounts to
610,014 inhabitants; while the area of the four other states I have
quoted is 210,000 square miles, and their population 3,047,767. Thus the
area of the state of Massachusetts forms only one thirtieth part of the
area of the four states; and its population is five times smaller than
theirs. (See Darby's View of the United States.) Slavery is prejudicial
to the commercial prosperity of the south in several different ways; by
diminishing the spirit of enterprise among the whites, and by preventing
them from meeting with as numerous a class of sailors as they require.
Sailors are generally taken from the lowest ranks of the population. But
in the southern states these lowest ranks are composed of slaves, and it
is very difficult to employ them at sea. They are unable to serve as
well as a white crew, and apprehensions would always be entertained of
their mutinying in the middle of the ocean, or of their escaping in the
foreign countries at which they might touch.

[273] Darby's view of the United States, p. 444.

[274] It may be seen that in the course of the last ten years (1820-'30)
the population of one district, as for instance, the state of Delaware,
has increased in the proportion of 5 per cent.; while that of another,
as the territory of Michigan, has increased 250 per cent. Thus the
population of Virginia has augmented 13 per cent., and that of the
border state of Ohio 61 per cent., in the same space of time. The
general table of these changes, which is given in the National Calendar,
displays a striking picture of the unequal fortunes of the different
states.

[275] It has just been said that in the course of the last term the
population of Virginia has increased 13 per cent.; and it is necessary
to explain how the number of representatives of a state may decrease,
when the population of that state, far from diminishing, is actually
upon the increase. I take the state of Virginia, to which I have already
alluded, as my term of comparison. The number of representatives of
Virginia in 1823 was proportionate to the total number of the
representatives of the Union, and to the relation which its population
bore to that of the whole Union; in 1833, the number of representatives
of Virginia was likewise proportionate to the total number of the
representatives of the Union, and to the relation which its population,
augmented in the course of ten years, bore to the augmented population
of the Union in the same space of time. The new number of Virginian
representatives will then be to the old number, on the one hand, as the
new number of all the representatives is to the old number; and, on the
other hand, as the augmentation of the population of Virginia is to that
of the whole population of the country. Thus, if the increase of the
population of the lesser country be to that of the greater in an exact
inverse ratio of the proportion between the new and the old numbers of
all the representatives, the number of representatives of Virginia will
remain stationary; and if the increase of the Virginian population be to
that of the whole Union in a feebler ratio than the new number of
representatives of the Union to the old number, the number of the
representatives of Virginia must decrease.

[276] See the report of its committees to the convention, which
proclaimed the nullification of the tariff in South Carolina.

[277] The population of a country assuredly constitutes the first
element of its wealth. In the ten years (1820-'30) during which Virginia
lost two of its representatives in congress, its population increased in
the proportion of 13-7 per cent.; that of Carolina in the proportion of
15 per cent.; and that of Georgia 51-5 per cent. (See the American
Almanac, 1832, p. 162.) But the population of Russia, which increases
more rapidly than that of any other European country, only augments in
ten years at the rate of 9-5 per cent.; of France at the rate of 7 per
cent.; and of Europe in general at the rate of 4-7 per cent. (See
Maltebrun, vol. vi., p. 95.)

[278] It must be admitted, however, that the depreciation which has
taken place in the value of tobacco, during the last fifty years, has
notably diminished the opulence of the southern planters; but this
circumstance is as independent of the will of their northern brethren,
as it is of their own.

[279] In 1832, the district of Michigan, which only contains 31,639
inhabitants, and is still an almost unexplored wilderness, possessed 940
miles of mail-roads. The territory of Arkansas, which is still more
uncultivated, was already intersected by 1,938 miles of mail-roads. (See
report of the general post-office, 30th November, 1833.) The postage of
newspapers alone in the whole Union amounted to $254,796.

[280] In the course of ten years, from 1821 to 1831, 271 steamboats have
been launched upon the rivers which water the valley of the Mississippi
alone. In 1829, 259 steamboats existed in the United States. (See
Legislative Documents, No. 140, p. 274.)

[281] See in the legislative documents already quoted in speaking of the
Indians, the letter of the President of the United States to the
Cherokees, his correspondence on this subject with his agents, and his
messages to Congress.

[282] The first act of cession was made by the state of New York in
1780; Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South and North Carolina,
followed this example at different times, and lastly, the act of cession
of Georgia was made as recently as 1802.

[283] It is true that the president refused his assent to this law; but
he completely adopted it in principle. See message of 8th December,
1833.

[284] The present bank of the United States was established in 1816,
with a capital of 35,000,000 dollars; its charter expires in 1836. Last
year congress passed a law to renew it, but the president put his veto
upon the bill. The struggle is still going on with great violence on
either side, and the speedy fall of the bank may easily be foreseen.

[285] See principally for the details of this affair, the legislative
documents, 22d congress, 2d session, No 3.

[286] That is to say, the majority of the people; for the opposite
party, called the Union party, always formed a very strong and active
minority. Carolina may contain about 47,000 electors; 30,000 were in
favor of nullification, and 17,000 opposed to it.

[287] This decree was preceded by a report of the committee by which it
was framed, containing the explanation of the motives and object of the
law. The following passage occurs in it, p. 34: "When the rights
reserved by the constitution to the different states are deliberately
violated, it is the duty and the right of those states to interfere, in
order to check the progress of the evil, to resist usurpation, and to
maintain, within their respective limits, those powers and privileges
which belong to them as _independent sovereign states_. If they were
destitute of this right, they would not be sovereign. South Carolina
declares that she acknowledges no tribunal upon earth above her
authority. She has indeed entered into a solemn compact of union with
the other states: but she demands, and will exercise, the right of
putting her own construction upon it; and when this compact is violated
by her sister states, and by the government which they have created, she
is determined to avail herself of the unquestionable right of judging
what is the extent of the infraction, and what are the measures best
fitted to obtain justice."

[288] Congress was finally decided to take this step by the conduct of
the powerful state of Virginia, whose legislature offered to serve as a
mediator between the Union and South Carolina. Hitherto the latter state
had appeared to be entirely abandoned even by the states which had
joined her in her remonstrances.

[289] This law was passed on the 2d March, 1833.

[290] This bill was brought in by Mr. Clay, and it passed in four days
through both houses of Congress, by an immense majority.

[291] The total value of goods imported during the year which ended on
the 30th September, 1832, was 101,129,266 dollars. The value of the
cargoes of foreign vessels did not amount to 10,731,039 dollars, or
about one-tenth of the entire sum.

[292] The value of goods exported during the same year amounted to
87,176,943 dollars; the value of goods exported by foreign vessels
amounted to 21,036,183 dollars, or about one quarter of the whole sum.
(Williams's Register, 1833, p. 398.)

[293] The tonnage of the vessels which entered all the ports of the
Union in the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, amounted to 3,307,719 tons, of
which 544,571 tons were foreign vessels; they stood therefore to the
American vessels in a ratio of about 16 to 100. (National Calendar,
1833, p. 304.) The tonnage of the English vessels which entered the
ports of London, Liverpool and Hull, in the years 1820, 1826, and 1831,
amounted to 443,800 tons. The foreign vessels which entered the same
ports during the same years, amounted to 159,431 tons. The ratio between
them was therefore about 36 to 100. (Companion to the Almanac, 1834, p.
169.) In the year 1832 the ratio between the foreign and British ships
which entered the ports of Great Britain was 29 to 100.

[294] Materials are, generally speaking, less expensive in America than
in Europe, but the price of labor is much higher.

[295] It must not be supposed that English vessels are exclusively
employed in transporting foreign produce into England, or British
produce to foreign countries; at the present day the merchant shipping
of England may be regarded in the light of a vast system of public
conveyances ready to serve all the producers of the world, and to open
communications between all peoples. The maritime genius of the Americans
prompts them to enter into competition with the English.

[296] Part of the commerce of the Mediterranean is already carried on by
American vessels.

CONCLUSION.

I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry. Hitherto, in speaking
of the future destiny of the United States, I have endeavored to divide
my subject into distinct portions, in order to study each of them with
more attention. My present object is to embrace the whole from one
single point; the remarks I shall make will be less detailed, but they
will be more sure. I shall perceive each object less distinctly, but I
shall descry the principal facts with more certainty. A traveller, who
has just left the walls of an immense city, climbs the neighboring hill;
as he goes farther off, he loses sight of the men whom he has so
recently quitted; their dwellings are confused in a dense mass; he can
no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can scarcely trace out
the great thoroughfares; but his eye has less difficulty in following
the boundaries of the city, and for the first time he sees the shape of
the vast whole. Such is the future destiny of the British race in North
America to my eye; the details of the stupendous picture are overhung
with shade, but I conceive a clear idea of the entire subject.

The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States of America,
forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable earth. But extensive as
these confines are, it must not be supposed that the Anglo-American race
will always remain within them; indeed, it has already far overstepped
them.

There was once a time at which we also might have created a great French
nation in the American wilds, to counter-balance the influence of the
English upon the destinies of the New World. France formerly possessed a
territory in North America, scarcely less extensive than the whole of
Europe. The three greatest rivers of that continent then flowed within
her dominions. The Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of the
St. Lawrence and the delta of the Mississippi were unaccustomed to any
tongue but ours; and all the European settlements scattered over that
immense region recalled the traditions of our country. Louisburg,
Montmorency, Duquesne, Saint-Louis, Vincennes, New Orleans (for such
were the names they bore), are words dear to France and familiar to our
ears.

But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious to
enumerate,[297] have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance.
Wherever the French settlers were numerically weak and partially
established, they have disappeared; those who remain are collected on a
small extent of country, and are now subject to other laws. The 400,000
French inhabitants of Lower Canada constitute, at the present time, the
remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a new people. A foreign
population is increasing around them unceasingly, and on all sides,
which already penetrates among the ancient masters of the country,
predominates in their cities, and corrupts their language. This
population is identical with that of the United States; it is therefore
with truth that I asserted that the British race is not confined within
the frontiers of the Union, since it already extends to the northeast.

To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few insignificant
Russian settlements; but to the southwest, Mexico presents a barrier to
the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards and the Anglo-Americans are,
properly speaking, the only two races which divide the possession of the
New World. The limits of separation between them have been settled by a
treaty; but although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly
favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will shortly
infringe this arrangement. Vast provinces, extending beyond the
frontiers of the Union toward Mexico, are still destitute of
inhabitants. The natives of the United States will forestall the
rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They will take possession
of the soil, and establish social institutions, so that when the legal
owner arrives at length, he will find the wilderness under cultivation,
and strangers quietly settled in the midst of his inheritance.

The lands of the New World belong to the first occupants and they are
the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the countries which are
already peopled will have some difficulty in securing themselves from
this invasion. I have already alluded to what is taking place in the
province of Texas. The inhabitants of the United States are perpetually
migrating to Texas, where they purchase land, and although they conform
to the laws of the country, they are gradually founding the empire of
their own language and their own manners. The province of Texas is still
part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain no Mexicans: the
same thing has occurred whenever the Anglo-Americans have come into
contact with populations of a different origin.

[The prophetic accuracy of the author, in relation to the present actual
condition of Texas, exhibits the sound and clear perception with which
he surveyed our institutions and character.--_American Editor_.]

It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing
preponderance over all the other European races in the New World; and
that it is very superior to them in civilisation, in industry, and in
power. As long as it is only surrounded by desert or thinly-peopled
countries, as long as it encounters no dense populations upon its route,
through which it cannot work its way, it will assuredly continue to
spread. The lines marked out by treaties will not stop it; but it will
everywhere transgress these imaginary barriers.

The geographical position of the British race in the New World is
peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its northern frontiers
the icy regions of the pole extend; and a few degrees below its southern
confines lies the burning climate of the equator. The Anglo-Americans
are therefore placed in the most temperate and habitable zone of the
continent.

It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of population in
the United States is posterior to their declaration of independence. But
this is an error: the population increased as rapidly under the colonial
system as it does at the present day; that is to say, it doubled in
about twenty-two years. But this proportion, which is now applied to
millions, was then applied to thousands, of inhabitants; and the same
fact which was scarcely noticeable a century ago, is now evident to
every observer.

The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king, augment and
spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of the United States,
who live under a republican government. During the war of independence,
which lasted eight years, the population continued to increase without
intermission in the same ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied
with the English existed, at that time, upon the western frontiers, the
emigration westward was never checked. While the enemy laid waste the
shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western parts of Pennsylvania, and
the states of Vermont and of Maine were filling with inhabitants. Nor
did the unsettled state of the constitution, which succeeded the war,
prevent the increase of the population, or stop its progress across the
wilds. Thus, the difference of laws, the various conditions of peace and
war, of order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible influence
upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This may be readily
understood: for the fact is, that no causes are sufficiently general to
exercise a simultaneous influence over the whole of so extensive a
territory. One portion of the country always offers a sure retreat from
the calamities which afflict another part; and however great may be the
evil, the remedy which is at hand is greater still.

It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British race in
the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment of the Union, and the
hostilities which might ensue, the abolition of republican institutions,
and the tyrannical government which might succeed it, may retard this
impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the
destinies to which that race is reserved. No power upon earth can close
upon the emigrants that fertile wilderness which offers resources to all
industry and a refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever nature
they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their climate or of their
inland seas, of their great rivers or of their exuberant soil. Nor will
bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy, be able to obliterate that love of
prosperity and that spirit of enterprise which seem to be the
distinctive characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that
knowledge which guides them on their way.