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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derniire page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE ". le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en u;i seul cliche, il est filmd d partir de I'angle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. Tfata o aelure, 1 d H 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 A THE PRESENT AMERICAN REVUI,UTION. TlfE INTERNAL CONDITION i)i' riiK AMERICAN DEMOCRA(]Y CONSIDERED, IN A LETTEE I'UOM THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE, M,r. I'nKSIDEXT OF Till-; EXECUTIVE (OUNCII. 'M' THE l'!ar, tlif faculty, the older c()ll(\is cul(t(lt% and jesting on the circumstance in his speech. How differont was the standard of manners, when Gover- nor Hancock, of Massaclmsetts, declined to receive (leneral \Vashin<,'ton for three days together on a nice point of otticial precedeiice, and wlien Washing- ton himself drove to open the ../st Congress under the Constitution of 178D, in a coach and six, with outri«lers and footmen in buff and blue ! Of the recent Presidents, seven of whom we have seen, and four or five of whom are still living, it is hardly permissible to speak freely. Able and amiable men they undoubtedly were; but with the excojUion of Mr. Van Buren, and, i)crhaps, Mr. Buchanan, there was nothing strikingly superior in any of them. Kxjilain it as they will, it is cer- tainly a national misfortune when a succession of chief magistrates, raised electorally to the head of a great state, fail to inspire those who approach them with some degree of veneration. General Jackson, with all his levelling tendencies, did this by virtue of his headlong courage and decision ; but he was the last President of whom this could be said. Some of the great senators who failed to reach the Presidency attained to the better dominion in the hearts of their friends ; yet it was commonly n^marked of them, that the sterling qualities which endeared them to their friends — that their very superiority was the main cause of defeating them as Presidential candidates. I cannot but think also that a fatal inroad on the distinctions upheld by manners among Americans was made by the much-lauded Common School system of the Free States. It is a system mainly 10 tlie work of this gonoration, and this veneration is niainlv its work. Oriiiinatin^- in Massachusetts some tliirtv years aijo, it has heen extended by the ])ower of |)u(Iing; and the fear of beinf*- thoufrht retrojrrade over the whoU? of the North and West. It proceeds on the dangerous assumption tliat the children beloufj to the State ; tliat mere school learning in youtli will lead to punishment-savings in afterlife; that the public teacher may forestall the constable, and lighten the criminal calendar of half lis horrors. The Common Scbool, thus constituted, is the DeTuocracy of boys, and ditiiises an equality of manner!-', of whicli the averaoc level in towns and cities, t -jiri one set of causes, and in rural dis- tricts fror'i another, must needs be low. The parental onice — the only magistracy cog-nisable to the youthful mind — is eliminated from the most im- portant processes in the formation of character, and an inbred insensibility to the special claims of age and authority is the result produced by the agency, and at the cost of the State. You and I have been always advocates for cheapening the means and aids of education, and for recognizing intelligence as a pri- vileged estate of the realm ; but it does not follow that because we hold the State bound to aid and encourage ]'^ducation, that therefore we concede to her the rights and duties of the aggregate parentafre, or the establishment of one uniform svstem of menial and moral training, to the exclusion of every competitive system. On this subject Adam Smith is not yet obsolete ; and he, you remember, was as zeal- ous for freedom of public teaching, as he was for free- dom of commerce. The American economists and educationitits have, however, long ago gone beyond his authority, though I do not think they have yet answered all his arguments. Where the preliminary education is in common — whether the pupils be in- tended for the jmlpif, the exchange, the bar, or the 11 il sen— it is impossihlf that the first stratilic'atioiis of chaiactei' should not bo hiid on a hnv U'vol. liy such a ))n)('ess a forced uniformity of national cha- I'acter niav be produced out of the most foreign materials; l)nt the fine ])oints of the individual must be all filed down; the original conce])tion of a destined ]>rofessi()ii or calling' can barely be enter- tained ; and though the average ability of six-tenths of the oeiieration niav be drawn out bv undergoing such an education, the highest ability of any one of them will rarely recover from the iron ])ressure of uniformity. From such undistinguishable asso- ciations and general confusion, the future merchant must catch something of the tone of the embryo preacher, and the coming sailor imbibe many of tlu; mental traits of the prospective lawyer. In a merely artistic jioint of view the result will be a gallery of human daguerreotypes, all taken in the same attitude, by the same camera, and set out in frames of the like pattern and workmanshij). That this sketch of the social results of unclassi- fied schooling' in America is not merely fanciful, we have had recently an illustration in the pettifogging of the caj)tor of ATessrs. Mason and Slidell. That the lower arts of mercantile success have i)enetrated even to the [)ulpit, one need only consult the ad- vertising and editorial columns of the New York newsj)apers. The theatre is not more absolutely under the direction of managers and joint-stock directors than the popular ])ulpit in that and other large cities. In the selection of their topics the new school divines are not at all behind Mr. Barnum himself in their greedy appetite for novelties and monstrosities. A wreck at sea, a tire in the city, the sentimental suicide of a pair of guilty lovers, are texts more taking than any contained in the Pentateuch or the Holy Gospels. The jam at a " fashionable church " is quite e(}ual to the jam at ■1 t 12 « tlie opera," and tlic sensation newspaper of Mon- day morning cannot go to press withont a report of the sensation sermon of the day before. By this alliance the demagogue of the Lord's day contrives to divide the empire of the demagogue of the laity. The puff preliminary of Saturday, the performance of Sunday, and the' jmblished report of INIonday, enable him to halve the week with the worldlings and self-seekers, whom he has forgotten to combat, and can no longer ])retend to condemn. Among the many influences Mhich, in the absence of customary safeguards, have been working a radi- cal change hi the cLaracter of the Americans — taking as their standard, Washington and his co- temporaries — we must not overlook the steam-press, with its morning, noonday, and evening issues. The steam-])ress is largely an American invention, and, in its present wonderfully improved form, an in- vention of the last twenty years. In no country in the world has it had such absolute freedom and so universal a patronage as in the North American States and cities. Some curious statist estimated a few vears aso that there were issued in New York alone each morning, newspaper sheets enough to cover twenty-seven superficial acres ! Editions of 50,000 copies per day, and u|)wards, have been claimed by the better known penny and twopenny journals. Imagine the vast inflation of ideas wdiich must have follo\ved from such production and such consumption ! Imagine what a power for evil an able man, without a conscience, may derive by sitting behind an untaxed penny ]>ress, driven by steam ! Neither the Athenian nor Roman orators, nor the popular preachers during the Crusades nor at tile Reformation, ever wielded so tremendous an engine. If American ])ublic opinion often betrays a childish petulance, a sad indiffererce to life and character, and a barbarian relish for mere sjiecta- 1 1) lings riilnr oxoitoment, to tlio Anioriran ponny press, nll- ])ovv('rt"iil a« it Ijas l)een in tlio formation of that opinion for tl)e last twenty or thirty years, we may fairly trace the principal cause of such deplorable and dat.oerous caprices. If anywhere, most assuredly in tliat state of society where it was ])ractically exempt from all other law, the popular press oi!i»'ht to have tried to he " a law unto itself."* If anywhere, its members ono-lit there to have striven to raise their calling- to the dignity of a profession, by surrounding them- selves with some of those safeguards whicli tiie bar and faculty still retain as essential to professional res|)ectability. Association might have resnedied M hat the law could not well reach. I am not, as you may supjH)se, abtait to discuss the relative merits or demerits of avowed and anonymous writing, or ajiy other modification of the Press — that wouhl take us cpiite too far out of our proper ])ath. 1 will only invite you, in order to aid your estimate of the revolution in ideas and in manners, to consider for a moment the mental contrast be- tween an average American of the year 17G0, whose favourite readin*"- was the IMble and l^unvan, and Fox's " Martvrs," with an average American of these days, whose ruf/e mvcuni is the Rowdy Journal, or some novelette weekiy, filled with maudlin love stories and exploits of pirates and burglars. A3 if to confirm tlie foolish pride whicli almost all Americans took in the moral and social revolution at work within their country, its material condition from the Peace of Ghent (1818) to the election of Mr. Lincoln was one (»f unexampled and ap])arently unlimited prosperity. Those radical changes in the character of the population to which I have referred must be for good, else how did commerce increase? — why was money abundant ?— how came population to advance so rapidly ( The NO were the arguments i * I i 14 and assurances with wliirli the more tliouo-lirfiil minds ninon^* that people were satisfied or silenced, A\lienever an unquiet apprehension arose within them, least, peradventure, in makin^- their society as indcjiendent and as unlike Europe as possible, they mi^jht not be strij)pinir themselves too bare of ancient usages and ancestral prejudices. Nor have I lately seen any marked indications that such a susi)ici()u has been revived or confirmed bv the calamities of the Civil War. If it exists amona- the better educated minds, it has not as yet found anv very emphatic jiuMic expression ; though it is pos- sible it mav do so, even while this letter is on its way to you, in Australi;^ With the common run of North Americans, on the contrary, it has been the invariable assuni])tion that, as a people, t/iejj have not radically chanoed. They seem to receive as ^i:ospcl every comnioni)lace compliment on their fidelity to the examj)le of their " revolutionarv fathers." In the maintenance of the broad sim])Ie theorv of their institutions — that thev shall be democratic and electoral, ratlier than mon- archical or subordinated into classes — I believe they do hold with the niore advanced revolutionists of 177G, and even o-o beyond them. JUit in most of their other notions, as to the constitution and ad- ministration f»f the Government — as to the Execu- tive office, the settlement of nev/ territories, the reserved rights of the States, the management of the finances, the apj)ointment and prerogatives of the Supreme Court — as to the elective judgeship, the dignity and duty of ambassadors, the limits of con- sular authority, and the whole of their views in re- lation to po))ular education and popular interference with the constituted authorities — I think it might easily be demonstrated that they are much farther removed from the example of their ancestors of 177(> than that cautious and ceremonious generation 15 were from that ol" llicir ancestors, who took |»art in the English revolution of 1088. Do I argue from this, simply bi-causo they have so far departed from the ways of their fathers, that therefore this genera- tion of Americans must //t'cv'.v.sY?;'//// be in all respects in the wrong? By no means. But I do contend, having socl'.auged, and yet being so ignorant of their change, that they have not yet attained to that luininHdii of self-knowledge which is essential to a sustained and stable national character. I do con- tend that, in the i)ursuit of an un-Eur()i)ean unifor- mity of manners and maxims, they have really abandoned a very precious part of the inheritance bequeathed them by their colonial ancestors ; and I point this moraf for the benefit of our fellow colonists in your country and in my own, who have not yet learned to blush for being the Old World's offspring, in whose throats the words " Fatherland," " Mother Country," do not stick as a confession of inferiority or a declaration of base dependence. It is not the least striking of the many strange characteristics of all American States which have sei)arated by force from their original parentage, that their present prejudices are precisely in the inverse ratio of their former intimacy. Thus the most unpopular man (or the man against whom sus- picion is most easily roused) in the United States, is the Englishman ; as in Mexico it is the Spaniard, and in Brazil the Portuguese. But while there exists this antipathy, this irritability against the Englishman in the Northern States (and, I believe, in the Southern also), let me assure you that neither Cockney nor Yorkshireman is regarded with con- tempt. That sentiment is reserved almost in- variably for "the Irish and Dutch'' — as the Germans generally are called. Some of our old friends in Ireland are, I see, falling into the error so often repeated, and so bitterly repented in the 1 10 |)ast history of our fatliorlajid, of fancying tlioy liavo a sure ally abroad, whore in truth tliey have no such reliance. Very sincere friends and well-wishers among Americans, the Irisli people, no doubt, have ; but that there is, or ever was, any such thing as a national American sentiment, more friendly to Ireland tlian to Italy, or Egypt, or Russia, or Japan, I do not believe. Our friends " at home," however unpleasant may be the truth in this particular, cannot learn it, for their own sakes, too soon. Hut to return to our main business. I have not touched, as you may observe, on the actual conflict between the Slave and Free States — the South and the North — nor do I intend to do so. Whatever I have felt free to say or to write on the merits of that deplorable quarrel, with a proper consideration for Canrdian interests, has already reached you in print. J sympathized from the first, and do still (though in a less degree) sympathize with the legiti- mate Government at Washington in its death-grapple with a most unjustifiable rebellion. But this sym- ])athy did not lead me the length of inviting an invasion of Canada ; nor does it lead me the length of desiring peaceable annexation. It does not blind me to the follies and bigotries of the cotemporary American character; it does not reconcile me to their ravenous " manifest destiny ; '^ nor has it utterly extinguished all recollection of the merciless social war which I have seen waged on our emigrant countrymen, seven short years ago, throughout the length and breadth of that then united and pros- perous land. When the clouds were darkest over Washington I scorned to listen to the promptings of retaliation ; but when these clouds have passed away in peace (as I trust they may soon pass) the States will owe a deep debt of compensation, for recent services and previous sufferings, to their Irish iidiabitants. Will thev i)av that debt » 1 » ,i .. Iiavo |<) such 'isliers liavo ; ling as )iiy to apaii, iwever cannot 17 wiicM peace unsiies ? 1 trust so ; l)iit I liavo my doubts. Notliinpf could jj^lvc me (I know you will uuder- stand this feeling) greater satisfaction than to see tlie American people couio out of this agony of civil war discij)lined, moderated, liberalised, and recollected. It is as absurd to deny their great energy as to under- rate their great resources. Jiut their character as a people is still to be made, and they will have reason to be thankful for the searching ordeal which has fallen upon them, if it can only teach them that national reputation cannot be made (as individual reputation too often is made among them) by sheer force of j)retension and puffery. If the Civil War teaches them to pitch their tone somewhat lower i»^ Uie councils of Christendom than was done at Ostend — to estimate Europe less arrogantly — to remember the presence of other Powers in the Pacific and the Atlantic — to look on Spanish America and British America more modestly and less avari- ciously — they will not have been the lirst people to whom a great calamity has turned out a great blessing in disguise. If, also, it subdues that ex- treme ])ride of natlvism, which led those born on the soil oi' the Union to despise all foreign-born persons coming amongst tliem, even while inviting them to come, it will have been still further a blessing to the myriads of our original countrymen, who are, while I write, in the front of the battle, and who will not, we must hope, be left in the rear of the national remembrance when all the fighting is over. But, however the ])coj)le of the States may choose to read the lesson of their late experience, I sincerely trust, my dear Duffy, you will agree with me when I say that to Irish settlers in British colonies, and other Irishmen about to emigrate, it ought not to be an example and a warning given in vain. I well remember how, in y«>ur excellent i In letter to tlie Kev. Dr. Laiiy', of Sydney, soon al'ter your jirriyjil in An>trMli:i, yon slio\ye(l it to l)e tlu» )>;irt of \yis(loni, tor colonies like yonrs and ours, to Ayork ont, |)atiently and in good luitli, their existino- free institutions. In that spirit I have acted since I transferred inv liousehohl mxls to the vaUev of the St. Laurence. This letter, with which I now trouble you, is a i)ion)j>ting of tliat same sjtirit. For, thouiiii no one res|)ects less tliose who are capable of (h"0])ping or |)ickingup their ])rinci|)Ies in a time of panic, I do believe this American houlc' veo'scviott should teach us to cherish our Kuroj)ean connexion as a blessing second in value oidy to s of the adjoining Uni >n, and in these jxirallel provinces, it is that the colonial condition of society, thouoh not without follies, exaggeiations, and inherent weaknesses of its own, has yet compensating advan- tages under the present system of locally responsible government, wliich far outweigh all its inconve- niences and deficiencies. I have learned, not from books merely, but on the spot, and often against the grain, that the Republican States, though gainiuiif immediately and immensely by the establishment of their independence, starting into existence with a ])opulation of three millions to half a continent, have yet bled internally, and suffered most severe social losses by their too early, too angry, and too complete severance from the common body of Christendom, and common stock of Old World ideas, traditions, and usages. They have gone on their way, however, and are now beyond remedy as to the forfeited deposit of their civilization. 1 know the more sanguine among them maintain that it is their mission to establish a " new civilization," the tripod of which shall fling its creative and fructifying light from Boston over all the new regions of the "% .•irtcr ' tll(» irs, to istlno- 1 If) earth, Arctic and Antarctic. How far rccont events may have chastised tliis folly out of the Lyceuni- l)red imagination, \ do not pretend to say ; but I assure you it is seriously upheld by all " the Hundred Hoston Orators,"' not to sj)eak of the professors, " poets," and paragraphists. For us, free colonists, speaking the English speech, the most valuable in- struction they can afford us, in my poor opinion, they have already given. Their vain proclamations, rin:htlv \\(MO'hed, are words of warninof. Their social discoveries are often fatal secrets, over which our wiser ancestors would have made the Sign of the Cross. Their irreverent youth and independent matronage are not moral improvements to be desired. Their inbred contempt for "foreigners' is fit onlv for the latitude of Pekin. Their State school sy. tem seems to me false in its basis, and fatal in its effects. While, last of all, the examples set by their recent political men are examples for the most part devoutly to be avoided. But of this enough. Believe me, My dear Duffy, Always very faithfully yours, Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee. J cox AND WYMAN, I'RINTKRS, GREAT QUEKN STREET, LONDON,