Section 6: The Civilizing Current in American Society

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Section 6
The Civilizing Current In American Society

[42: 212–13] It has been my object thus far to call back attention to the historic development of certain peculiar forms of barbaric force in America in order that those which operate at present in our affairs may [723]be traced back to their parentage and thus more surely recognized. I now propose to attempt to show by a somewhat parallel course of illustration how the special forces of civilization which are struggling with those of barbarism have originated and gained the power they also possess in our affairs.

[42: 161–68] It is difficult to realize in how great a degree the civilization of Europe has depended hitherto on a few persons and how utterly incapable of living in a civilized way by themselves the great body of the people in every so called civilized nation have been. Most peasants still regard all the arrangements of government not as something which is maintained in the slightest regard to their welfare but as something existing chiefly in order to secure service from them to a superior class. This is probably least the case in England & is much less in England now than fifty years ago, but even in England the majority of the people have as yet acquired but very confused and misty ideas of the advantages they derive from all the apparatus of legislation, courts, constables & tax-gatherers, the constraints, costs and inconvenience of which to themselves they clearly understand. The popular opposition which was made to the improvement of roads in England in the last century is only one evidence of the complete indisposition which then prevailed to take part in a civilized system of reciprocal services by facilitating the exchange of commodities between persons living apart. Hundreds of lives were lost in the suppression of the riots to which they gave rise and men of some ability as writers were found on the side of the rioters. One wrote, “Good roads are the glory of papist and slave,” and another charged them with making women unchaste and inconstant. Universally the farmers and the laboring class hated them and so strongly that many refused to make use of them and would take three days to go to market by the old roads when by the new they could go in one. They were believed to have been made by the gentry for their own benefit and it was taken for granted that this benefit could only occur at the cost in some way of the common people. If active resistance to the improvements of civilization is seldom made at the present day, a passive, ungrateful acceptance of them, as if they had cost no study or labor and demanded none in return, is still general.

In this respect people have advanced much more rapidly in America. A lively sense of the personal interest and the personal property of every man in those things which benefit communities is much more generally diffused in America as well as a correspondingly greater readiness and a better fitness to bear a fair part in the study and labor upon which they depend. It is easy to see how this has occurred and how pioneer circumstances have been favorable to it. Even the lawlessness of [724]the frontier has its advantages in this respect. Men are obliged to unlearn the habit of trusting for protection against men of barbarous disposition to some mysterious power originating far away from & above them, under no obligation to them but simply condescending to benefit them. They are slowly trained also to engage in a more active personal antagonism with that which is antagonistic to the general interests. This is perceptible to me under all the lawlessness of my neighbors and it goes far to relieve the very dark picture of them which I have thus far presented the reader. Men representing many degrees of civilization are constantly thrown intimately together and in such a way that while the superiority of the more civilized cannot be altogether lost sight of, a seperation into classes according to degrees of advancement in civilization is impossible. Consequently the relation, such as it is, of every man to every other with whom he has to deal remains in a great degree direct and his sense of the reciprocity of advantages of peace & fair dealing is clear and simple.

[42: 128] The condition of emigrants arriving in U.S. indicates that their civilization is a forced, artificial habit; that it rests but in slight degree upon interior character, depends on police, on municipal regulations; on metropolitan conveniences. These left behind, or by any unusual occurrence overcome, whether in the Old World or here, we see the savage propensities. They need to grow without such supports to gain strength and self supporting vigor and that is what frontier freedom with free institutions does for them.

[42: 242] [The change in the character and habits of men which occurs in America may be divided into (5) stages, as follows:]

1 The first is characterized by barbaric impetuousness, improvidence & caprice.

2 The second by the development of self respect and domestic virtues.

3 The third by development of communistic virtues, local public spirit and respect for law.

4th The fourth by nationalism & a commercial enlargement of ideas & plans, the benevolent propensities being still satisfied in a narrow way, domestic & local.

5th The fifth by a general enlargement of benevolent propensities and Christian catholicism.

[42: 244] It is not of course to be supposed that there is a regular, distinct and complete development in each stage before another is entered [725]or that there are no backslidings or irregular and unsound advances. Special circumstances will at times call out the higher qualities in every man, however torpid they may ordinarily seem to be in him. On the other hand under special temptations, the most advanced are apt to appear selfish, narrow minded, mean and heathenish.

Nor is [it] to be supposed that in any given period of time, or in any given number of generations, an individual, family or community will necessarily have advanced from one stage to another.

As a general rule, however, it may be laid down [42: 127] that the longer the period in which men have been subject to that class of influences which are peculiarly active in America, and the less they have been subject to that class of influences which are more active in Europe, that is to say the more purely American the circumstances have been which have influenced the formation of character, the more [42: 246] nearly will they be fitted and inclined to live in communities in which every individual on the whole during his life is of service to and is served by every other therein, in which consequently all the intelligence and other forces of those who constitute them are employed with the least waste and to the highest ends.

(This then is American.

The other things are remnants of European decivilization.)

If I am right in my statement of the stages by which men & communities advance in America, it may be possible by an examination of various institutions and other phenomena to determine according to the preponderance of certain elements whether they are representative of one or another of the stages between the decivilization of Europe & the civilization which is all that is creditable, or valuable to the world, in America.

[41: 602–10] A population of considerable density is often found at points on the frontier, the individuals composing which seem to have nothing in common of which they are conscious, and to which they at all systematically pay attention. Every man is looking out for himself, expects to look out for himself, to be sufficient for himself; cannot spare time to look after what concerns others more than himself, and does not expect or think of asking others to look after anything but their own private concerns. The first step out of this state of things is made for commercial considerations by associated labor, in raisings, huskings, loggings and bees, then by combinations of capital, in partnerships and joint stock associations of a few individuals who put their labor & capital together to provide a mill, a ferry boat, a ditch or a trading post. The exercise of the social impulses is often for a long time limited within a short range, even [726]with those most humanely disposed. Two men “chum” together for economy and mutual convenience and it is expected that if one gets sick, the other shall take care of him. But the necessity for a more extended arrangement is after a time so evident that from merely selfish considerations, the fear that each man has that if he should fall sick or meet with a disabling accident he will not be cared for, there comes a demand for some mutual insurance against neglect. Formerly in New England, churches did this, but New England was settled generally more compactly, was more civilized from the start. Commonly at the present day some individuals who have been members of cooperative societies in older communities see this, see also the opportunity of making themselves of some consequence, and thus gratifying their love of personal distinction, and at the same time of gratifying their benevolent propensities and romantic tastes. They are thus impelled to lead off in the organization of a Masonic or Odd Fellows’ lodge, or some other of the various societies of this kind. These, at least in California, and generally wherever emigrants gather at all closely, are for a time the leading institutions of civilization. With their members they serve a good purpose, leading to social recreation and benevolent actions without encouraging sottish ness or debauchery. They thus serve so good a purpose that most men whose character is not very debased or who are not peculiarly unsocial, self-contained, stupid or shy, become members of them, and their leaders are generally for a time, the most respectable men in the community. Many evils unquestionably result from them. First it is evident that the men who most need to be educated in social enjoyments and social duties not only gain nothing directly from them but are thrown further out than they otherwise would be from the influence of those more advanced in civilization than themselves. Secondly, while they lead to an interchange of good offices among the members and thus doubtless draw out benevolence, the range of this benevolence being limited in a great degree to those who are bound upon occasion to return good offices for it, they tend to confuse benevolent purposes and actions with selfish purposes and actions, and at least to restrict benevolence so much that the impulses of humanity—the disposition to fellow feeling with all mankind—suffers, and thus they tend to aggravate and prolong one of the most marked and peculiar evils of frontier life. These organizations seem also generally to be taken advantage of by politicians, who make use of them for personal purposes, and by thus introducing an element of power into politics which is extraneous to free discussion and calculated to interfere with the unbiassed exercise of individual judgment with regard to the principles and measures at issue, they are not favorable to good government. I am aware that these statements will be objected to. I speak however, from a personal experience which is perfectly conclusive to my own mind.

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The next centres of civilization in our frontier towns are the Fire Companies, and for a time, these often are of considerable value, the originators and leading members being often men of character & habits so much superior to many of the members that their influence upon them has somewhat of a paternal character. There is always too an element of manliness, hardihood, philanthropy and courage in these associations, mutual encouragement in the exercise and cultivation of which is the nearest approach to religious communion ever experienced by many of the members, and although they often become schools of licentiousness, riot and drunkenness, the means of education they offer in these respects is not as low as the members would otherwise find for themselves. The Cooperative Societies and the Fire Companies of San Francisco, and other frontier towns, were for a time very important agencies of civilization. At present it may perhaps be not unreasonably doubted if the good they accomplish is sufficient to compensate for the evil that results from them, chiefly through causing delay and obstruction to larger, more comprehensive and more catholic means of civilization, and in cultivating and prolonging essentially selfish, contracted and provincial ideas of the duties of citizenship, and of social and benevolent enjoyments.

Ecclesiastical organizations come next, the good and evil effects of which are matters involving too much hot prejudice to be discussed or even suggested with any advantage in this place. I will only say that in all their varied forms their importance as means of extending the highest sentiments of civilized society, of cultivating self constraint and benevolent impulses with certain portions of the population is greater than any other form of club institutions, while their power of educating men in prejudice against each other, in cultivating spiritual & intellectual personal pride, the temptations they offer to hypocricy, concealment, cant and fictitious sentiment, and the prejudice to which they may thus give rise in minds of the least education, against their ostensible purposes, their power of evil in these respects is parallel with their power of good. These remarks apply to some more than to others, but in some degree to all. The danger of bad influence is greatest of course, where there is the least apprehension of it and least where there is the least confidence in the perfection of the means of good employed.

[42: 139–60] The curse of England has been and is that the great mass desire not, hope not, try not to improve themselves, therefore do not grow in civilization.

According to the degree in which a man is encumbered by this Feudal curse must be the strength of the medication necessary to relieve [728]him of it. Many die under it, or cease to propagate the breed. Weakness that will not endure acclimating process. South, Irish. Those who live through it with good constitutions are emancipated. Observations at Bear Valley.

So far as the masses of England are civilized, it is with a more passive civilization; civilization is not a growing thing within them, or if it is, its growingness is as yet much feebler than it is in those of their kindred who have been transplanted. It is in this quality of the lower classes in England that we chiefly see the incompleteness of the triumph of the modern over the feudal stage of civilized progress. The passivity of the poor Englishman is the inheritance which has come down to him from that era when all poor men with their lineage were held to be bondsmen and subordinates in perpetuity to the richer. Unquestionably the interests of the poor as well as the rich then required a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of individuals, required that the leaders of the people should have a motive for continual watchfulness and study of the means of defence for them such as was afforded by the prospect of perpetuating wealth & power with their offspring & therefore it was then well that the poor man should be schooled in accepting for himself & his offspring a condition which involved dependence from day to day upon the will of his & their leaders & head protectors and the suppression of the natural impulse to provide by the exercise of his own judgment, ingenuity, bravery, patience & virtue for a permanently improved condition of himself & offspring. The motive power thus sacrificed, however judiciously for the time, by England, was immense and that the same sacrifice continues to be made in so great a degree as it does when the need for it no longer exists is a great drawback upon the prosperity of the more prosperous classes in England today. It is a great advantage to every citizen of the United States that Englishmen have here more completely emancipated themselves from this mental hamper of the feudal system.

The first law of nature under the feudal system was in a great degree executed for each individual of the common sort through a delegation of [the] function of fore-thought (of active conservatism of the mind) to others of a superior & clearly separated class. Defence was required mainly from the power, the stratagems, the arms of invaders led by men more advanced personally in civilization than those who required leadership in defence. Thus the helplessness of the mass of Englishmen to look out far ahead for themselves was established. Here the instinct of self-defence acts more directly and constantly and induces men neither to subordinate nor superordinate but to coordinate themselves in the exercise of their judgments.

I am sure that no one depends in the least for safety of life or property on the religious or moral conservatism of his neighbors. There are hundreds of men almost within my daily range who I believe would [729]have no more compunction of conscience in regard to stabbing me from behind than they would in landing a fish or crushing a scorpion. I have before shown the administration of the law is exceedingly lax and uncertain. Yet there is felt to be in some way a greater security for life & property with the more civilized part of the people than there often seems to be in many parts of the oldest civilized countries of Europe. Aside from the dangers which grow temporarily out [of] the fact that many men here are of Southern birth, and feel themselves to be in a position of warlike antagonism to those who are loyal, I believe that the better educated part of the community think less of and take less precautions against the danger of robbery than the gentlemen whose residencies look into Hyde Park and those who have occasion to cross Hyde Park after night-fall. One half the men probably are accustomed to carry arms with them, the other and richer and better educated part is not, and is not simply because it is not thought by them that there is enough danger of their ever being needed to make it worth their trouble to carry them, not because they trust to the power of the law.

The portable property under my charge amounts in value to several hundred thousand dollars. It is scattered in and about various buildings, forming nearly a dozen clusters over a region of country 70 square miles in area. The losses of this property by larceny or robbery during the last year have amounted to less than two hundred dollars in value and more than two thirds of all the property stolen has been returned. The women and children of my family ride or walk out daily, no man attending them, with greater comfort and sense of security than they could do anywhere in England. They often extend their walks for miles, they climb mountains, they penetrate deep and lonely glens in search of fossils, and botanize in the densest chapparal. They never have been addressed except with a purpose of kindness & with respect but once—then by an Indian, helplessly intoxicated. Yet there are within half a mile of my house, at least a dozen bar-rooms and dram shops, and a night seldom passes that I do not hear the shouts of Mexican & Indian savages engaged in gambling.

There was a period as I have before shown when this was not the case. When every man went armed and each seemed to carry his life in his own hands. When personal assaults with deadly weapons were of daily occurrence and men who had committed murder in the sight of hundreds continued to go about among them without experiencing any inconvenience on that account but rather the contrary. The inconvenience of merely personal defence against the more murderous, the common suffering from their tyranny, led first to partnerships of defence (“chummings” they were called) and gradually to larger alliances, until among a considerable number of people the deadly quarrel of one man was always made the deadly quarrel of many. To murder one man or to steal from [730]one man was to incur the hostility of many, the vigilance of many, was to brave the revolvers and the aim of many. This state of things was before law. Law came in as the more formal organization of it, and law is felt to be of value here to this day chiefly as it gives efficiency and convenient means of cooperation to a tacit alliance of one portion of the community against another. To this day men who have visable means of support which are considered honest and consistent with the general good may kill those who have not, and the latter may kill each other, as they frequently do, with very slight apprehension of inconvenience arising therefrom to themselves through the action of the law. An important part of all the people here have already learned from experience first that every man must defend himself, second that it is a convenient way of defending himself to make a partnership with his neighbors, third it is still more convenient for this partnership to be in alliance with partnerships of other neighborhoods, finally that it is still more convenient for the partnerships and for the alliance to employ servants to do a part of the work which they have in common and for each member who gives his attention chiefly to his private affairs to pay a certain fair share of what is required to employ such servants & render them efficient.

Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, Chinese receive but little invitation to come into these arrangements. They are not trusted. They contribute little & receive little. Irish, Italians and Secessionists are as a rule but little more cordially incorporated. But even with them, the education goes on. They vote and they pay taxes and if they want help from the law, however halfheartedly given them, it is not absolutely denied. And in all the business of society, in all the talk about it, a very direct reference to the first principles of the social organization is almost always to be observed. I have noticed this with men who emigrated not many years back from Cornwall and who could not read or write, and with Irishmen and Italians as well as with Americans born in the East.

This then is the first gain and it is, I think, great gain. If it does not come to all and all at once and fully, it does generally come and fully come to those who are the natural leaders of public opinion in our younger and cruder communities. However ignorant, however selfish & tricky our rural politicians may be, they at least are well-educated as a general rule in the fundamental principles of social order of civilized goverment, of Christian laws. Better far than many members of the British Parliament appear to be.

[42: 260] Although the immediate result of emigration is lapse toward barbarism, the release from European restrictions upon the exercise of certain impulses gradually establishes a more healthy & vigorous [731]moral condition, which, in the majority of cases after a few generations, results in a higher civilization. These especially are love of order & respect & conviction of advantage in law, & development of family affection & home virtues, with the neighborhood virtues which grow therefrom. Spencer shows the evil results from the restrictions in Europe. His passions are at first strengthd, his sympathies debilitated; gradually this is reversed. See Social Statics, p 210. As men acquire an understanding of their own rights, to use them & their faculties, they acquire sympathy with and respect for the rights of others.

[42: 46–52] In towns and manufacturing villages, most newcomers naturally become intimate most readily with those portions of the older population with whom they have the most in common. The controlling circumstance may be a relationship of kindred, of birth place, of language, of handicraft, of ecclesiastical seperation from others, or of several such conditions together. An Irish Catholic falls at once among Irish Catholics; stone cutters from whatever quarter of the world they come are apt to be together every day after as well as during work hours; Cornish miners form a clan by themselves, and in all our large towns there are localities respectively occupied by Italians, Portuguese, Alsatians, South Germans, North Germans, German Swiss & French Swiss, and Negroes; also in the Northwestern States, of Southerners, French Canadians and Norwegians; in some of the Atlantic seaports, of Cubans and South Americans; in some [of] the Pacific towns, of Chinese, Mexicans, Kanakas, Chilanos and Indian half breeds, and in some of the Southern towns, of Quadroons and other mixed races. To one of these localities most newcomers are carried on their arrival and in them, if they remain, they find friends, employment, homes, a supply for all their wants, a field for all their energy, skill and industry, for their vices and their benevolence. They generally also find in them religious teachers, political leaders, sometimes magistrates, and teachers for their children with whom they can confer in their own language. The process of change under these circumstances is very different from what it is in rural communities even if the ultimate tendency is similar.

If the population of our larger towns and manufacturing and mining villages be considered under the division of American born & foreign born, it will be found that a very large majority of the former are country bred and in their character represent the result of conditions acting upon emigrants and the descendants of emigrants who have been rural pioneers; while of those who are foreign born, so large a proportion are recent emigrants and have as a class so little direct intercourse with Americans born whether in town or country, that no distinct change of [732]character as the result of residence under new conditions can be satisfactorily distinguished. It will be thus evident that it is in the circumstances of rural life that we must look for the conditions under which emigrants and their offspring take on that which is common and distinguishing in American habits and character. It will not be long from present indications before our towns will govern the country; even then, the proportion of healthy children is so much larger in a rural than an urban population, that the same rule will hold good, namely that the character of our townspeople, so far as it is American at all, is chiefly the result not of urban but of rural circumstances.

To determine then the nature of the change which occurs to our race in America, our study should be directed to a determination of the conditions which act upon rural settlers, and which are most peculiar, or novel, to those coming from Europe. For this purpose we must go to the frontier farmer in the first place because men and women while in the condition of laborers in the employment of others hardly ever become parents, consequently whatever change occurs with them is valueless with reference to the ultimate national character.

It is true that the agricultural emigrants from any locality are apt to follow one another and settle in the same neighborhood where this is practicable, but often it is not practicable and as a rule those who have any capital are controlled in their choice of a place of residence by consideration of the relative fertility and cheapness of land in different localities much more than of ease and pleasure of social or commercial intercourse with their neighbors, while those who seek employment as laborers, go from house to house for it without the least regard for the nativity of those upon whom they call.

On the frontier and especially on prairie ground, where the difference in the value of land for farms is but slight over large areas, neighborhoods and even considerable districts will be found distinguished by the large proportion in the population of those who have come from one country or state. Thus neighborhoods of Norwegians, of Vermonters, of Carolinians &c are common in the prairie states, but as land becomes valuable, especially if the neighborhood is a thriving one, the emigrants to it are controlled in their choice of a residence less and less by regard for their neighbors. Very rarely by the time the children of an agricultural settler begin to go to school or to choose a sweetheart, will he fail to have neighbors on one side or the other of a very different origin from himself. The diversity which frequently exists in this respect is illustrated on a certain line of road in a Western state where to my knowledge the farms are occupied in succession by natives respectively as follows—the first of Alabama, the second of Norway, the third of Italy, the fourth & fifth of New Jersey, the sixth of Maine, the seventh of Virginia, the eighth of New York, the ninth of Germany, the tenth and eleventh of New York, [733]the twelfth of England, the thirteenth of Georgia, the fourteenth of Ireland and the fifteenth of Massachusetts. I have often seen representatives of three nations, each able to speak a different language, working in the same field, one being the employer of the other two. The nativity of the nearest mechanics and traders of the vicinity with whom the farmers must have dealings, even if they should not with each other, is equally varied. In most localities a larger proportion of Americans born and especially of natives of the second or third tier of states from the Northern seaboard would be found, and the majority of farmers now in the United States who have been born in Europe have neighbors whose fathers were American born, employ American born physicians, lawyers and teachers and when they go off their farm for business or pleasure generally are brought into conversation with Americans born. The large majority of European born laborers also are employed by Americans born with whom in most cases they live under the same roof and eat at the same table.

The pioneer farmers who become the fathers as well as the founders of prosperous rural communities are usually men of more than usual native intelligence and of more than usually strong constitutions, men who have had hard lessons and who are in consequence stern and unsociable in disposition.

Come from what state of society they may, by whatever circumstances they may have been influenced in the first place, the pioneer farmers, with the exception of those who have been under the influence of slavery, as a rule are in all the most essential elements of adaptation to civilization superior men and women to the great majority of emigrants. They may be solitary, they may be extremely coarse, rude and simple in their wants and therefore demand little of other men; they may have a deep hatred of refinement and conventional ornament and courtesy, but they must have the quality of self control, of temperance, of industry, they must be provident, or as our American phrase is, forehanded, in their habits; all this they must be for otherwise the necessary conditions of success in frontier agriculture would have no attraction for them.

[42: 453–54] In pioneer state a conservative and a destructive (Bohemian) tendency is seen.

One or the other prevails with each individual according to circumstances.

Moderate prosperity, circumstances favorable to the healthful exercise of his special talents, and to accumulation of real estate & improvement of value of real estate otherwise than speculatively, social responsibilities, demands upon his prudence, forethought, patience & good temper with prospect of greater success & social consideration for [734]the exercise of these virtues, are the chief elements of conservatism or improvement of character. Men yield to these and help to make them predominate according to certain preexisting qualities & circumstances. It may be that the order from which they have fled [or] which has cast them out, was a very unhealthy one, as the tyranny of a harsh & unwise father, of a church, state or corporation, or a stiff and bigoted & conceited society, which has without just cause sent them to Coventry, &c, &c. The prevailing Bohemianism, the immorality attending the freedom of the pioneer society is hateful to them, they react from it, the conservative elements of their character are called into self respect &c. And especially opportunity of gaining wealth and of being prudent & conservative without being mean & false and sycophantic is offered them & under these circumstances they embrace it gladly. Men become leaders of conservatism & virtue on the frontier, who would have been leaders of dissipation in old & hard-screwed communities. And they become respecters of conservatism & cultivate & develop the conservative virtues in themselves. Thus with some it comes earlier & easier than with others. Marriage [is] especially favorable to it. Married men commit few crimes.

Men who are more thoroughly & essentially radical or dissipated, spendthrift & careless—(Bohemian)—more thoroughly enjoy the opportunity for & the community of carelessness & incompleteness, unthoroughness which they find in pioneer life, less readily yield to temptation to prudence etc.

These die off more rapidly, less frequently marry.

Sooner or later the conservative influence usually predominates. If it does not, there is failure & discontent & further movement & depopulation. So on the whole conservatism rapidly gains after a time.

[42: 169–88] [How is it that out of the dark pioneer period communities could have come prepared for an advance in civilization?] This is to be first considered; that a large majority of the pioneer emigrants have died childless, and that of those who became parents, the least civilized, while perhaps they were moved by equally affectionate impulses toward their offspring, were the least capable of constant, prudent and sagacious care of them. The children of the latter in much greater proportion inherited weak constitutions or positive diseases, the result of previous reckless dissipation. From these two circumstances it has followed that a larger proportion of them have succumbed at an early age under the hardships of the frontier, while of those who have lived to maturity a larger proportion have been feeble, have fallen into reckless ways and have died childless.

But there is another process of winnowing the settlements. The [735]choice of a place of settlement to a pioneer is mainly influenced by a consideration of the ease with which certain simple necessities can be at once provided for, and land made productive. If he thinks of neighborhood, it is rather of one to gather around him than of one to which he shall himself be added. In many cases he has previously been either a debtor, a tenant or a hired laborer and has grudged the share of his labor which he has had to give to another man and the greater pleasure he has in his change of circumstances comes from what he probably calls his independence. For these reasons the pioneer settlers are greatly scattered and lead solitary lives, very unaccordant with the habits of excitement, the good fellowship and the gambling disposition of the great body of emigrants. Many of those also who attempt settlement, while they are too indolent, improvident and unmethodical to succeed even moderately well in following the dull round of a husbandman’s labors, but are nevertheless very ready to believe that their want of success is due to a bad “location” and to hope that by moveing on again they stand a chance of doing better. Consequently of those termed “early settlers” in any district not many often prove to be really settlers. The more volatile, capricious and vagabond sort, one after another float away and the real fathers of new communities are in considerable number picked men. We cannot say men of very estimable character as a rule, but at least strong men and of much more steadiness of habit than is found among emigrants on an average.

When a man of this sort has been placed on a farm in a district of average healthfulness and fertility, a result which he himself is likely to regard as highly successful has hitherto been almost certain to be reached before his old age. (Advance in land; churches and schools, stores, mills come to him.) The qualities which were originally prime conditions of success are further strengthened by the education of circumstances. They are held in high respect. They are transmitted in the constitution of children, are further strengthened in the latter by the education of circumstances and the result is a body of men and women whose powers of renunciation are not less extraordinary than the patience & stability with which they labor to improve their condition. If this is rightly understood, it will be seen that the education of the settlements, while it does not civilize, does make an excellent preparation for civilization. For the cloud which rests on all civilized communities comes from the fact that while each man’s demands upon others increase and become imperative, his will and ability to supply wants of others does not correspondingly advance. To cut down the measure of wants to the measure of service or to enlarge the measure of service to the measure of wants is what civilization demands of every man, and the higher the civilization the harder the “misfortunes” are found to be by which the demand is enforced. It is this demand which a man is educated to meet by the necessities of success as [736]a pioneer settler and it is the one evidence of greater strength thus far seen in Americans that they bear losses better and respect neglect of service less than the English who have remained at home.

In many Americans we see this result of the pioneer-life absolutely attended by no evidence of an advance in civilization—pure civilization. They are more intelligent than savages or than their emigrant fathers, and their ostentation takes civilized forms, their wigwams being painted white and green, their ear-rings being of gold, their tobacco fine cut and their clouts made of satin or broad cloth, but their tastes really are no more refined, their personal wants aside from fashion, really no more elaborate, their minds no more cultured, their handicraft skill no more delicate, and what is worse, while their ability for falsehood and stratagem is if anything greater, their respect for truth and honesty is no greater than that of the average savage or the pickpocket. But for all this they are in a more hopeful condition with reference to a high civilization than their fathers were, because civilized habits would tax their capacities less; their wants are more controllable, they are better prepared to yield a loyal allegiance to the requirements of civilization. They need to be educated in civilization, they need to be educated out of the habits of thought, out of the opinions, out of the low savage morality of the old peasant class of Europe, of the emigrant and the pioneer of the wilderness.

I have said that such men were to be found in America. They are however, few in number. With the great body of settlers and their descendants, not only has the foundation of civilization been enlarged but a strong structure of civilization has been commenced. This is the case as most intelligent Americans have long been aware, even where European travellers have utterly failed to see it, where they have seen nothing but the old peasant barbarism aggravated and made more offensive by the unconsciousness of inferiority with which it is displayed to them. We have now to see how this has been brought about by the education of the settlements. (Isolation, women, children, schools, communities, conveniences.)

Consequently the really permanent settlers, those who remain and whose children after them when the pioneer period has passed, generally possess great capacities for civilization.

In other respects they may be sadly wanting. They may be conceited, self sufficient, cunning and rowdy. They may be in the strongest possible degree bigoted and prejudiced. They may have the pride of a savage in the simplicity and coarseness of their demands on other human beings; the poverty of the resources they possess to give pleasure to others may be correspondingly noteable. Their intellectual speculations may be as crude as a child’s, their tastes equally undeveloped, and all true refinement and culture may seem to them unmanly, contemptible and even [737]positively hateful, but they all have as a rule two very great advantages over all savages and over the average emigrant from Europe, namely, first, their wants are much more under discipline, consequently the temptations to dishonesty are less constant and imperative; and second, their faith in the value of persistent labor directed to distant ends is greatly enlarged.

[42: 189–95] If the white population of the United States is at this time in a higher & more respectable moral and intellectual condition than the peasantry of the European countries from which it has been transplanted, it is in spite of most formidable decivilizing influences necessarily attending a struggle for existence in company with savages in a wilderness. To what is it due? Mainly in my judgment to the fact that there has been on the whole greater strength, constancy and permanence of the influences of family affection and interest with it than with the peasantry which has remained in those countries. In these cases a house is too much confounded with a home.

That there has been such an improvement in the United States, cannot be doubted, it appears to me, by anyone who has closely studied the matter on both continents, nor has any such student expressed dissent to the proposition that I am aware of. But if admitted there are very few English writers who would seem prepared to admit the reasonableness of the explanation which I advance to account for this fact. The opinion seems to prevail in England and to some extent in America that the family influences which I assume to be stronger are far weaker here than in Europe, especially than in England_ This is shown, for instance, by the pitying expressions often used with reference to the shifting, emigrating habits of Americans.

To the independence & security of a home and the permanency of its interest with the family possessing it, its mere shelter or permanence of site is of less consequence than a continued and abiding consciousness of freedom from the control of human wills having no part in the common family interests in its arrangements, which its members enjoy. To this end, the consciousness that an influence extends from it, upon even the making & the enforcement of the common laws of the whole population with which it is associated and that thus obedience to the laws & the executives of the laws is not subordination to an independent authority, is strongly favorable. Next to this, a circumstance of consequence to the same end, is security against pauperism, which is loss of dependence of individuals upon themselves or upon members of their family upon whose assistance they have a special natural claim, for the means of supporting life. Nothing contributes so much to secure this in strong [738]degree, (as an educational influence upon the members of a family), as the permanent possession of the most obvious & direct necessities of family association and of common matters of continual use. Of this sort, besides every family’s own common table and its furnishings, the mechanic’s own tools, the husbandman’s own land and cattle, the seaman’s own vessel, the scholar’s own books are examples.

Because this is so, and because it is felt & has been felt in the experience, of those who are most influential in giving character to public opinion, and those who are the law-makers in the United States, the acquisition of property of this sort has been for many years peculiarly facilitated, and its possession regarded and enacted to have a peculiar sacredness, so much so that in many states it has been secured against misfortune even at the hazard of giving opportunities which would not otherwise exist to carelessness or fraud. The laws for this purpose, however, are less distinguished from those of European nations, than the public opinion & sentiment of which they are but in part the manifestation, and which may be expressed in the phrase: “We must give the man a chance to do better.”

This which is often mistaken for an agrarian disposition, I think is really a courageous and far-seeing conservatism—conservatism not of the rights of private property but of the conditions of society without which no amount of legislative enactments and governmental protection can make the hope of acquiring property an inducement to providence or sustained habits of industry & virtue. And I think it is the result of a personal experience of its influence, as it exists, without law in a rude pioneer society, together with the greater boldness which men acquire in pioneer life, that has established this disposition & sentiment as a strong, distinguishing, ruling influence in the customs & laws of the United States.

The common opinion of intelligent Englishmen is again shown in the eager, hasty way in which they seize upon illustrations of what they call the great hotel life of Americans, considering it as peculiarly & radically characteristic of the people while it is most repulsive to English ideas. Whatever offers opportunities & inducements to keep the idea and hope of an independent home in a man’s or woman’s or boy’s or girl’s mind, has a good influence. Hotel life in America is not pleasant. In itself it can be regarded as pleasant by no healthy minds but even the prospect of living for a year or two at hotels after marriage, is better than self-condemnation to celibacy and what generally goes therewith among young men in Europe. I have heard an Englishman speak with horror of this alledged generally American custom, who himself maintained a mistress of vulgar education, because at forty years of age, he could not afford to marry in the rank of society wherein he aspired to move.

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[42:114–19] Family Affection &c.

In one of our local Indian hunting expeditions a party of volunteers, scouting where white men had never been before, passed through a very beautiful and fertile valley. One of the party was so much pleased with it, that, as soon as the Indian troubles were over, he returned to it, built a cabin, fenced in fields and began to make a farm. He lived there six years before he had a white neighbor within forty miles, and there is not a waggon road yet within that distance, though several men have settled at various points within a day’s journey. I have visited this man and have been much struck with the completeness with which, having once made up his mind to secure what he saw to be desireable in the situation, he had schooled himself to accept cheerfully and to accommodate his wants & habits to its necessary privations. Of course the process was in a great degree an education in barbarism, but he neither took an Indian “wife” nor did he become a drunkard, as most men that I have found in similar positions have done. He has several times passed a period of six months without seeing a white face. He has gradually subdued much of the wilderness about him, and only needs access to markets to possess a very valuable farm. Lacking other companions, he has a few books, which he reads, as a prisoner reads, very thoroughly. Like Robinson Crusoe, he makes friends, also of his domestic animals, and in his treatment of them, and in their docility and familiarity, I see evidence of strong impulses of family affection.

Imagine that a man of this character, who has lived for years in this way, is at length suitably mated, and that, still far from neighbors, he has the comfort of a wife in his heretofore lonely cabin. It is easy to see why he prizes her, why he attends upon her wants, relieves her of labor, and finds his happiness in her much more than the same man would if he had been living all his life in a community where the society of civilized women, and social pleasures of many kinds had been constantly at hand. Suppose that his wife, having lived for a year at the lone cabin, and having passed the greater part of every day alone, her husband being out on the farm at work, and sometimes gone for several days, looking for strayed cattle, or driving stock to market, or on other business at the settlements, at length is blessed with a child. What a relief and comfort it must be to her. To what activity must it call many faculties which have been growing dull. And as the family enlarges and grows up, whatever habits of taciturnity and independence of society, and rudeness and gracelessness of manner there will naturally be, under the circumstances, it is quite certain that within the family there will have been a deeper affection, a greater dependence one upon another, a greater regard for [740]feminine weaknesses and disabilities, and a more complete family companionship, than is usual in families the members of which have never passed a day without meeting persons not of their own household.

To completely realize this, the reader must of course imagine all the peculiar trials which come to a family living far from pastors, physicians, shops; liable to peculiar accidents, to sicknesses and deaths, and each member looking for assistance, for compassion, for sympathy, for encouragement, caution and instruction to no human being beyond the little family circle. To this add again the common case, that the nearest white neighbors are people of a foreign country, speaking a foreign tongue, of different religion, different morals, different manners and customs from those in which either of the parents have been educated. Consider further that though the extreme conditions which I have imagined are comparatively rare, similar conditions more or less modified have always distinguished a large majority of the rural white inhabitants of the United States from those of Europe. Fairly regarding these facts, no one need doubt that those travellers are right who say that in America women are treated with a greater real deference than in Europe, that children are excessively indulged and are made companions and thus allowed and encouraged to be “forward” in manner and in the expression of their opinions to a degree which is ludicrous to European observers, that habits prevail of extreme confidence and frankness, of mutual dependence and helpfulness among the members of a family and among known friends, associated with habits of taciturnity and disregard of the minor comforts of others, such as are rare in Europe.

[41: 590–91] Sparsity of population increases importance of any individual, young and old, increases effort for companionship, leads to early marriages and early propagation; hence characteristics of childhood found in men & women who have assumed duties & relations of maturity, & a tendency to late maturity & toward imperfect maturity is propagated, being thus less distinctly seperated in experience. Manliness is not expected, childhood not definitely put away, but indulged in by individuals with themselves and by society in all. Hence Americans have less mature manliness—more childlike, impulsive, heedless, direct and hobbletihoyishness than Europeans, but children in certain respects show more of the assurance of manhood. Reason, as individuals they are more important, opinions are listened to; are encouraged & expected to take part in conversation; so that where an English boy would give answer learned by rote, or quote his teacher, or his father or mother, the American would speak for himself, “I think,” or would hang his head diffidently. But in other respects children are longer & more completely children in [741]America than in Europe. The boy is early learned to take care of his clothes; to dress on the principles of a man in Engld than in America, and contrary to prevalent opinion, boys more frequently cling to and are dependent on parents late in boyhood, than in Engd. The same in all countries where early marriages prevail—tropical—whole character of people more (sensuous?), childlike, impulsive, passionate, unmethodical. (Query is there not a law of contraries in society, by which where the mass have certain characteristics, exceptions are frequent, where the opposite characteristic appears—unmethodical people produce methodizers—simple, natural people people, metaphysicians by inclination of mental activity developed by necessity for exercise in that direction?) (Scotch & German)

[41: 593] Prof Bache says that Arnold, defending the public school institution, said there was but one general formidable misfortune among his boys and that was the weakness of the domestic tie. With the majority there was little domestic companionship with their fathers; they did not feel themselves a part of their homes. He traced this evil to the influence of primo-geniture on family customs & fashions and in his sermons it was a chief purpose to counteract it.

The intermediate stage between childhood & manhood much more distinctly marked in England than America. Public school develops rapidly the brute quality of mature manhood. Under certain strict limitations of walls and bolts, the school boy fights his way year after year up to the priveledges of a big tyrant, and when he comes out is able to take care of himself. (Vaux’s finger cut) In what is he more youthful than the American at same age? in deference to bigger tyrants

[41: 707–8] Men who are educated subject to the usual constraints of penury, hardship and low social position, quite in proportion as they are influenced by these constraints to be more civil in their manners than they otherwise would be to their superiors, that is to say those whose favor they think may be desireable to them, are influenced and educated to be uncivil, inconsiderate and uncharitable to those whom they do not regard in this way. There is rio characteristic of that low-bred English society the evils of which it is Mr Dickens’s chief purpose to portray in striking and strong-lighted studies, which has been oftener and more truthfully dramatized by him than this. Through all his volumes men and women appear who are alternately insolent and obsequious as they are by turns acted upon by the contact of those whom their interests induce [742]them to desire to please, and those of whose favor they feel themselves independent. It is indifferent whether they are neglected outcasts or trained and disciplined servants, whether the lowest or the sub middle classes, vagrant or beadle, Provis or Pumblechook, Latimer or Heep. They all wear two dresses, one of servile obsequiousness, the other and under one of insolent self regard.

When men of this class emigrate to a flourishing colony, the most satisfactory part of the change to them is found in their freedom from the necessity of wearing the old overcoat of forced civility. It is a pleasure to them to feel and to show that they feel that they are free from it. Consequently they are more than ever habitually surly, ill-natured and selfish in their manners, and especially so when addressed by men who by their language and manners remind them of their former condition. Much in proportion as they have before been habitually obsequious they are now insolent.

It does not follow that under this coat of manners they are as a class essentially more ill-natured than before. This will for a time be a question of individuals & of special circumstances.

One of the most marked characteristics that I have observed of the mass of the people of California is a manner of extreme indifference to strangers, but when I have had occasion for a small service, as advice about the roads, I have found men much more prompt to render it in a painstaking and truthful way, though with a perfectly independent and perhaps surly manner, than in any other part of the world. I have been assured by laboring men that this was their experience and that it was exceedingly agreeable to them.

[42: 199–200] In England there are a number of persons whose expressions and manners are influenced by a careful application to them of judgment and taste, whose expressions and manners are more or less artisticly studied. A standard is established by these, which to a considerable extent is adopted by others of much less originality or ability, and to a certain extent is transmitted to all classes of society. Thus under any given circumstances considerations of propriety or fitness, not of an original character but of the nature of fashion, affect the expression of ideas of people in England much more than in U.S. This secondhand wear of well fitting manners and expressions makes it exceedingly difficult to estimate the real essential quality of men underlying consideration for the good opinion of others, and the habits formed upon this consideration. A knowledge of the dependence of every man upon all others in civilized society and the small degree in which a civilized community can be dependent upon the doings of any individual tends to make thoughtful [743]men avoid expressions implying a belief that what they feel, think or do is of great interest and importance to others. Thus it becomes fitting that men should avoid forcing their pains or fears upon others by loud or hearty expressions, as by much groaning or crying. The recognition of this rule in the upper classes tends to make the refraining from such expressions more common in all classes than it would otherwise be. It is consequently to be expected that a backwoodsman whose mind has not been trained to think of niceties, of fitness in all things, and who is far removed from any community in which there are people so trained, should be readier to groan or talk of his pains, or show his fears under circumstances inclining him to do so than an Englishman under similar circumstances, supposing both to be equally patient, modest & brave.

This fact makes the question of comparative patience, endurance, selfishness, modesty and long suffering much more difficult than would otherwise be the case. That Englishmen of all classes are more querulous and impatient of small annoyances is generally understood. Englishmen of the lower class find it necessary to be habitually deferential in their manners toward their employers and customers and this trains them to control the expression of impatience and discontent. Nevertheless it is equally well understood that excepting among Irish emigrants, blows and kicks and brutally violent tyranny in the family are much less commonly heard of in U.S. than in England. My opinion is that taking all classes and conditions of both countries into consideration there is less self importance, less passionate self indulgence and though there is a more delicate nervous organization, there is more power of enduring pain and hardship among Americans than Englishmen, whatever may be the fact with regard to habits of expressing suffering.

During the war I was much in the hospitals both of the battlefield and of the rear and met in them several persons who had served in those of the allied armies and of Russia. Their testimony was quite decided that the Americans bore up better under pain and whatever they might say of themselves, were essentially more cheerful and held their pluck longer under pain and in the presence of death than Europeans. My own observation and that of our surgeons & nurses generally confirmed this, so far as the comparison could be fairly made by observation within our own hospitals. Upon this point I wrote while engaged in superintending arrangements for the transportation of the wounded of the battles on the peninsula in 186_. See Hospital Transports

[42: 273] “There are no gentlemen in America.”

Like the rest, an extravagant or mistaken statement of some fact. What is it.

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The word gentlemen as thus used refers to an ideal of breeding. Put the highest sense upon it (still distinguishing it from Christian): a refined and highly cultivated man, very nice and accomplished but thoroughly sincere & true in social qualities, and of a type which of course cannot exist in England without a knowledge of and power of accommodation to customs which are fashions of a generation. It is little short of— it is, an artist of ordinary human intercourse.

Few perfect in England—must be thoroughly “good men” —but enough in England to have been generally seen and recognized and to establish a standard of manners and customs, to which all men of a certain rank pay reverence. Few men can be thorough gentlemen in this sense for what is meant includes character congenital in part, and that of a modern type; but the manner of gentlemen can be imitated, and their actions can be in part reduced to rules. Thus it is common for men in England to deceive themselves and to deceive others by wearing the clothes of gentlemen—by great attention to fashions of manner, of words, of dress, of methods of intercourse. And men in all society in England cover most adroitly and successfully, a soul or character which is as far as possible from that of a gentlemen, by this clothing of manner and fashion of gentlemen—successfully—they are agreeable for ordinary purposes. But this is deceit and known to be. The man who in the drawing room is a gentleman, in the mess-room may be an undisguised brute, the man who is polite, who is chivalrously kind & protecting, almost worshipful toward women—the same is a seducer, a licentious beast. respects church, stands by it, wouldn’t offend a person by a profane word, but keeps not his word with his tailor, is profane, tyrannical and unjust to his servant—his inferior & dependent. This horrible type of man is common in England—commoner very much than in America. The mass of men in America are nearer the true type of gentlemen in character, very much, though they know nothing of the clothing & manner, than the mass in Engld—with reference to this standard, we stand higher.

[42: 253–54] Carlyle said Americans greatest bores ever existed— what led him to say this? He was pestered to death with the calls of men from America who came to gratify themselves & men evidently perfectly unaware that it could be otherwise than agreeable to him to satisfy their curiosity. They wanted to take from him. They had nothing to give him in return and he hated them, and no wonder.

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Suppose C lived out of sight of wood or another house than his own on an Illinois prairie, that he tilled his farm with the aid of men hired by the year, that the mail brought the news within ten miles of him once a week and that absolute strangers came upon him not a dozen in a year. Let them ask as much as and offer no more than his American visitors in London, yet he would not find them bores, I dare say. Put him in the same manner on the plains of Hungary or in the forests of Russia and the fact of their living under a monarch would not prevent his forming a different standard in the scale of bores.

Thus this difference is partly accounted for. The greater essential good nature of the American has something to do with it—Knapp introducing everybody—quite unable to appreciate the fact that you are not as glad to be “bored” as he is.

Time not so valuable in America—wants and occupations increase in Europe.

[41: 567–68] By lineage, I am an Englishman and proud of it. The English queen [as representative of English law is my queen. I kneel to her. Victoria as rightful heir of the throne of England] is entitled not to my obedience as a subject, but [to my affectionate and loyal reverence] as representative of historical English law and of English valor and of English reverence, she commands my English loyalty, reverence and affection as much as she does that of any Englishman. Shakespeare and Hamden and Sydney are blood relations of mine, and countrymen beside, but Scott & Wellington & Wilberforce are not countrymen of mine. But all things in England common property to Englishmen which existed before 1632, are mine as much as any Englishmen’s. I am an Englishman of old England. But I am still more an Englishman. I am very largely an Englishman by education, not merely academic education, but education of infancy & childhood. Mother Goose, Robin Hood, Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth were quite as much in my nursery as in any Englishman’s. No Englishman loves England as I do. I mean exactly what I say, no Englishman loves or can love old England or what is characteristic of England as I do.

And old England loves me and loves helpingly to me, cherishes my love as she does with no native Englishman. It is so. Send one of your boys to school far away for a long time, when he comes home, if he is a sound hearted boy, does he not love home more than the one you have kept by you, and do you not love him the more for the absence and make more of him? So old England treats any sound hearted American. I will give the story of my return, as I told it years ago, on my first appearance in public: [746]

. . . We were at a supper party, after some old English ballads and songs had been sung, when one of the company apologized for it, saying, “We forget our American friends. It is selfish in us to sing only these national songs in which we are peculiarly interested. Have you nothing American, now?” “Excuse me, sir,” I replied, “those are our national songs as much as yours. You forget that we are also countrymen of Will Shakspeare, and Robin Hood, and Richard the Lionhearted. Our mothers danced with your fathers under that same ’greenwood,’ and around the ’May-pole.’ Our fathers fought for their right in this land against Turk, Frenchman, Spaniard, and Pretender. We have as much pride in Old England, gentlemen, as any of you. We claim the right to make ourselves at home on that ground with you. You must not treat us as strangers.” “You are right; you are welcome. Give us your hand. The old blood will telll” And the whole table rose with a hurrah, shaking our hands with a warmth that only patriotic pride will excuse among Englishmen.

Often have I since been told by Americans that they have had the same experience. I have been three times to England, always this has been repeated, & never in six months’ residence in London did I go to the fields without something of it.

I love England: I respect England. I am sensitive to English opinion and I am not ashamed but proud that I am & must be so. But I hate injustice & especially I hate injustice in our English blood.

I love the land of England. I love the landscape of England, better than that of the land where I first saw light, more than any Englishman born does. There is much of today’s England which I like, in which I think England better than America, much in America which I hate & detest, much in the social condition of Americans, but I believe the American idea of government is juster, wiser, better, more respectable; that it favors more than the government of England goodness & happiness with the people, that it favors justice, gentleness, fair dealing, peace and all Christian virtue more.

Are we Americans superior to Englishmen then in all things—better off? I do not think so by any means. England stands fairer in some respects today than America. [There is especially less meanness in trade on an average in England—though far too much there.] For many purposes of life an average Englishman is a better friend and neighbor than the average American, for many purposes, not for all, or the most important, perhaps, but for many and you may think for all. But this proves nothing of government. There are other elements in the case.

[41: 680] The greatest dangers of states comes from governors and governed having different interests. The greatest—greater than from incompetency of governors.

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Our system is intended to guard against the greater danger. It does so not with entire success but better than any other. It guards less than any other against the danger of incompetence. As we get on & educate our people & understand ourselves, we gain on both parts on the whole, the wisdom of the people constantly mending the defects of their agents.

[41: 681–82] The essential political difference between the U.S. and England, perhaps any European people, is that the govt is really expected in U.S. to follow the mass of the people; in Europe it is expected & intended & designed that the people shall follow after & be led in civilization by the govt. Englishmen seldom comprehend this. They assume that the government men are the leaders. They are not, whether they should be or not.

Consequently—in the habit of supposing the people far below the govt restrained from evil & coaxed to good (civilization) by govt they see those composing the govt of U.S. & judge from them very unjustly of people of U.S.

[41: 649–53] The question to which the observations of English travellers in America and the comments of the English orators, editors & pamphleteers upon American affairs have reference, is: whether it is best that some persons of every community should have by reason of the circumstances of their birth, a certain superiority or priveledge before the law to which the rest of the community are obliged to submit and in which they are bound to protect them. A special facility or directness of action, for over ruling the law, that is to say repealing it or amending it in parts, or for the exercise of discretion in its construction or administration, constitutes such a priveledge or superiority. If one man acquires a right to this by reason simply of his birth and not by special selection on account of his supposed qualifications, and another does not, it is plain that the latter is not equal before the law with the former, the former is protected in the exercise of his will against the latter, and at the expense of the freedom of will of the latter. The former is more free than the latter. The latter is, by reason of birth, subject to and the subordinate of the former And that this should be the condition of a large part of every community, the Englishmen in question believe to be established by facts which they observe in America, where such a construction of society by the law of the land has not been attempted.

The question is not whether there should be natural classes of [748]society, resulting from individual choice and force of competition of trade and other circumstances. No one contends that there should not. The question is not whether there should be what is sometimes (rightly or wrongly) called an aristocracy, i.e. (confusion of social, natural & legal aristocracy) a portion of society superior in wealth, education, taste or otherwise to the mass, and from convenience, especially associated. No one who is not an agrarian—no American so far as I know Americans—contends that there should not be. The question is not whether the wisest and best men of the land should make and administer the laws. No one contends that they should not. The central question is merely that which I have stated, and as far as I comprehend it, the argument is, that without such protection of the law, a satisfactory classification and order of society does not occur, or cannot be conveniently maintained, certain good qualities and conditions of men & of society languish, certain bad, inconvenient, unpleasant & unwholesome qualities & conditions flourish rampantly. Evidence of this is found in the fact that these are found in America oppressive and offensive to travellers in much greater degree than in England, while the reverse, the aristocratic or higher conditions fail to be found & the lack of them is painful. What are the phenomena which they cite? What is the real cause of them? (How far governmental, how far pioneer circumstances.)

Civilization is fraternity. Fraternity is Union. Civilization (in its [. . .]? ) is a state of dependence and assistance or of mutual offices (civil) in distinction from savage or self dependent life.

Pioneers are men and women who have not found satisfactory place in civilized society.

They are in great part non-accordant elements of civilized society. But communities sometimes emigrate in effect, en masse, of whom this is not true—in some cases these seperating communities are divided from the mass by reason of their having more of the civilized disposition than the mass. It is then the society from which they seperate that has withdrawn from them. This was partly true of the New England pilgrims from whose disposition to constitutional government (government in which all had established rights & parts), the cavaliers and hierarchs violently seperated themselves, forcing off the pilgrims. They sought the wilderness not for persona’l independence so much as for regard for one another. The same was in less degree true of various other communities. The habit & love of mutual dependence is always developed where and while men are banded together for self-protection & preservation; the cavalier emigrants to Virginia were to some considerable extent thus banded, hence with their descendents the republic was more readily adopted than it otherwise would have been. But the ordinary emigrant has little care for others than himself or his family.

The bases of the European governments were all established [749]when Europe was in its pioneer age. Conservatism of itself is a notable quality of monarchichal & class government. The self interest of the hereditary governing class resists the progress of civilization in government and opposes the demand of the people. Civilization is highest with the rich, money being representative of the power and disposition to secure exchange of service, and the rich in Europe generally have [a] share in government, become part of the governing class; thus the governments of Europe do not represent the civilization of the people of Europe, and thus the seeming anomaly is explained that the least civilized part of the people of Europe may be disposed to demand a more civilized or mutually serving form of government than the more civilized part are disposed to concede them. So the same less civilized part having to choose a government for themselves untrammeled by considerations for the interests or the pride or the prejudices of a distinct superior class, not unnaturally would fall into a more civilized form of government than that which had been inherited & preserved from a people living in a state of society, in all respects much more uncivilized, than their own, for instance the skin clothed Britains, Quaker, Catholic & cavalier communities. The civilizing or mutualizing influence of the old leagues for self defence of the Puritan in America is to be added to this, and the positive advance of the original Puritans in civilized disposition beyond the body of the people of England had not been wholly dissipated in the commonwealths which they founded. In the transplanted stock from which the present people of America has grown, was there notwithstanding the fact of its adopting a republican form of government, a less civilized stock than that which was and is left behind. And so far as it is still being transplanted, it still is so. On an average every Irish or German emigrant who comes to America, leaves Europe a more purely civilized community.

The uncivil quality in men which leads to and establishes the pioneer class, tends always to be developed and increased in the ordinary circumstances of pioneer life. The pioneer is one who lives either by himself or with a family, removed from the advantages shared by men who live and work in combination. He is free to indulge in his personal individual disposition; he cannot indulge except to a very limited extent in his disposition to mutual or civilized life. He must satisfy this disposition almost wholly with his family, sometimes with his dog. With a frontier community (as in a savage tribe) the virtue most prized in a man is disposition to help himself. Hence service, except in the family and purely for love, is hateful in a pioneer community. This characteristic commonly ascribed to republicanism in America is really a characteristic simply of a pioneer community. It is also hateful from association with the servility of Slavery.

But in a republic, voluntary service one to another is more natural and agreeable than in a society of fixed and involuntary classes, so far as [750]the republican influence simply is concerned. “What can we do to the best advantage for each other?” is the question asked by every man of every other in a civilized community, and in the government of a republic. [The true theory of service is that every man serves the commonwealth] the wages which a man receives would (except for knavery and bad government) represent the value of the service which each man is able to render the commonwealth. These wages are paid by the commonwealth; the man who receives large wages for a certain kind of service of a comprehensive character, must be relieved of the necessity of spending his time upon matters of detail, such as the cleaning of his horses, the cooking of his dinner; others therefore are paid for doing this for him, and are paid through him; one advantage of giving him larger wages is to enable him to pay others for these duties. Setting his time free for other work, by blacking his boots is no more degrading to the blacker than, setting his time free for other work, by fighting his battles, dyeing and spinning & weaving his wool, painting his pictures, or preparing reflections for him upon biblical texts. All is service to him and for all he must pay wages; either in the form of imposts or taxes, that is directly through the government of the commonwealth, or in the form of wages or of purchase money that is indirectly for the general benefit of the commonwealth in commerce.

The pioneer, however, must be independent in a great degree of either direct personal service except within his immediate family, or service rendered indirectly through tradesmen. He serves his wife & children by getting certain raw material for them and they serve him by preparing a share of this raw material for his use and pleasure. This interchange of service is more direct but is much more limited than that common in dense communities; it develops less therefore of the disposition or habit of mutual dependence of men on each other, and consequently of the sentiment of fraternity or love of extended union.

The founders of the United States, were wise enough to see the disadvantages under which the people of Europe suffered from their inheritance of governments & governing classes in their origin essentially savage or self-seeking and self-sufficient, and to make an attempt to found a government resting upon a recognition of the duty [of] mutual helpfulness, of the right of free interchange of services among all the people, whether performing the comprehensive or the detailed functions of the members of the commonwealth. This attempt was to be made with a people less civilized in personal constitution than those remaining in Europe, and under influences in all other respects than that of a form of government inherited from savage ancestors, less favorable to progress in civilization than those operating upon the people of Europe.

The end of government is not the civilization of the people, but [751]the individual good of the men subject to government, to civilization only as civilization is the way to this end.

A valuation in money of the property of a man, is but a method of measuring and stating the measurement of certain means of comfort which he possesses, in other words of certain means of his individual good. Considering how few rich men and how many very poor men, vagabonds and outcasts, have come to America from Europe, it will be doubted by no one that in the United States, the individual good of men subject to its government has been increased, and is increasing, more rapidly and generally than in Europe, so far as those means of individual good are concerned which are to be estimated by money. (desolate men of the prairies less desolate than starving cottagers, than agricultural laborers, than farmers & mechanics unable to pay rent, than the emigrating class on an average of Europe). In family affection and its offices we are richer than the people of Europe. This is recognized by travellers so far as considered by them and is proved by our customs (proved by Social & Sanitary Statistics).

Virtues of bravery, of endurance, of patriotism, of patience, individual long suffering, etc proved by the history of the war—no falling off in this respect from Europe—no degeneracy.

Vices and shortcomings of civilization reported by travellers, so far as true, can all be traced to frontierism—vehement partisanship & the converse vehement personal prejudices, readiness of and vehemency of jealousy; ready resort to violence, wilfulness, (mercurialness), enthusiasms or excitements (& other vices to be enumerated) (especially want of administration & of confidence in administration) reported by travellers & evinced in conduct of war, are traceable to the savage or uncivilizing influences of pioneer condition; not to government. As men are removed from this they disappear, though often cropping up. Canada, Australia.

Mob-spirit belongs to class governments: common in America among men educated in class governments, as well as to pioneer life. Republican education all opposed and controlling of this spirit. Mob spirit as understood by English writers, unknown in America except where European influences prevail. Republic constantly counteracts this spirit as in New York. New York would be desolated by mobs if not republican. So the country in this formative age would be changing rulers at frequent intervals by violence, suppression of trade (i.e. of mutual offices on large scale) if not for outlet to ignorant prejudices and vehement partisanship.

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[42: 223–24] Our chief political misfortunes—local & special legislation, inefficient executives, peculation and direct bribery, log-rolling and demagoguism, are either experienced in a greater degree in all the British Colonies & in all new countries, or exemption from them is had at the expense of enterprise, industry, loyalty & virtue of the people. In the Australian colonies there is a constant swinging of government toward and from the American standards as the evils of one or the other systems become alternately remarkable. The general tendency is toward our system, as the need to induce the people to cooperate with government, on the one hand and to help themselves on the other, is seen to be the most important of the controllable conditions of the permanent prosperity of the colonies, and as the impossibility of coping with the great dangers of the colony, except by encouraging the personally independent and socially republican tendencies of the colonists is realized. There is no special misfortune of the Australian colonies for instance at this time greater than the inefficiency of their governments in dealing with vagrants, outcasts and outlaws.

It is obvious from these statements that the mass of the people have not lost their old world habit of depending on a kind of government exterior to and independent of themselves and toward which they have never been conscious of any relation except one disagreeable to them, and have not gained the habit of feeling themselves a part of government and government a part of themselves, that what is the duty or interest of government is their duty & interest.

Nor has this change been fully & perfectly & harmoniously accomplished with the people of the United States. How could it be, when it is yearly recruited by hundreds of thousands of persons of precisely the same character & under the same difficulties & necessities with those of the Australian Colonies? But it is much better in the United States & in all parts of the United States.

The change here more rapid.

Because our system is more complete and consistent & more nearly perfectly adapted to the circumstances of the case.

[42: 252] A comparison of the governments of the United States with the government of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland is not easily made, because the circumstances of these countries are so different. It would be much easier to compare our Northern States with Canada, our Western states with the Cape Colony, Australia, and India. Such a comparison cannot be made by any intelligent Englishmen—it never has been [753]made to my knowledge—without an acknowledgment that the advantage is greatly in favor of the republic. The government of San Francisco at its worst was not as bad as that of Melbourne. The government of Virginia City, imbecile and corrupt as it appears to be, is certainly no worse in any respect than that of many English towns in Australia has been, and it has many advantages which they never possessed.

[42: 241] (If what are charged upon the U.S. as the bad qualities of its people are really qualities belonging especially to those recently coming into the U.S. from monarchical countries, and these qualities appear less and less common in different communities in proportion as those who make them up are established and have been long subject to purely American influences, then the charge that [they] are the results of republicanism is at least disproved.)

[42: 203–10] The Irish is the least satisfactory element of our population and there is a common impression that the influence of American conditions acts less favorably upon Irish character than any other. But if we take a general view [of] the character of the emigrating class of the Irish as it has existed in Ireland and as it exists here, we shall see that its characteristic vices here have long been its characteristic vices—that they are not a production of the United States. The worst that can be said of the influence of the United States is that it has not eradicated them.

We have never had an exhibition of them, for instance in connection with our political canvasses, nearly as horrible as the exhibitions which has [been] frequently made of them in Ireland itself. Mr Lever gives a truthful though imaginary picture of the manner in which Irishmen have been accustomed to make choice of their legislative agents.

The strongest evidence of the slight hold which civilization has upon our Irish born population which we have ever seen was afforded in the New York riots of 186_. Though these were chargeable principally to the leaders of the Democratic party, some of them of English blood & American birth, their more barbarous and disgusting atrocities were all executed by recent Irish emigrants. But even these riots exhibited no more of brutal bloodthirstiness and savage love of the exercise of tyranny and cruelty than has been often seen in the dealings of Irish with Irish upon their native soil. And though the Irish may yield more slowly than [754]others oweing partly to the peculiarly perverse inconsequent habits of mind in which it is their nature to indulge, and to their clannishness and fondness for being led without knowing whither or why, there is no good reason for doubting (however aggravated certain savage propensities many sometimes seem to be for a time under the stimulus of unwonted freedom & plenty) that after a few generations unless under very unfavorable circumstances even the Irish may generally adopt the habits of a progressive civilization.

It is plain then that two strong currents contend for control in American life. There are perhaps a few points in which we can see but one of them; and in which everything seems to be drifting toward barbarism; there are others where everything may seem drifting as distinctly the other way. But the conditions which make distinctness in these cases are temporary, and such points are unimportant except for the clearer illustrations they offer of the character of conditions the operation of which is general. The rule is that the two forces may everywhere be found acting with an intensity which is unknown in Europe, in direct contention. It is a great embarrassment to us that they are so thoroughly intermingled in all our affairs that the results of one are constantly mistaken for the results of the other and in consequence that which is mainly barbarous is often glorified and set before us for our instruction at the expense of truth and of our gain in civilization.

Section 6 The Civilizing Current In American Society

Section 6
The Civilizing Current In American Society