K»~ '1'. f&M-- Mi 
 
 
 
 Democracy in America 
 
 by
 
 . 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 6W-C 
 
 at vf'/AZtfrtr, 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA: 
 
 
 B V 
 
 GEORGE W. BURNAP.
 
 ORIGIN AND CAUSES 
 
 O F 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
 
 ORIGIN AND CAUSES 
 
 o? 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA: 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 B V 
 
 GEORGE W. BURNAP 
 
 t $$h 
 
 DELIVERED IN BALTIMORE, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 OX ITS 
 
 EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION; 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 1-
 
 JOH\ I). TOY, PRIMER.
 
 JK39 
 
 ORIGIN AND CAUSES 
 
 OF 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: 
 
 The subject which I have chosen for 
 your entertainment this evening, is The Origin and Causes 
 of Democracy in America. The United States have 
 now taken rank among the most powerful nations of the 
 globe. As such, we have begun to exert a wide influence 
 in the affairs of nations, and to act no mean part in influenc- 
 ing the future destiny of the human race. It is evident, 
 that that influence will be exerted in favor of popular liberty, 
 the natural rights of man, in short, the universal government 
 of the people. 
 
 Right or wrong, for good or for evil, this is the influence 
 which we are destined to exert. We have a right to judge 
 so from past experience. The impulse has already been felt 
 throughout Europe, and throughout the world. Although in 
 Europe it has suffered a temporary check, in the subjugation 
 of Hungary, and the retrograde revolution in France, in the 
 defeat of the Republican movement in Germany, and the 
 suppression of the democratic demonstration in Italy, it may- 
 be emphatically said, that the cause, even there, is not dead 
 2 
 
 LIB SETS
 
 6 
 
 but slumbering, to be revived at some future day with new 
 energy, a profounder wisdom, and a more complete success, 
 The existence and wonderful prosperity of this nation, are 
 fixed facts, and the lesson they read is not likely to be lost 
 upon the world. 
 
 Nations, like individuals, have their peculiar organic type, 
 by which they are distinguished from each other. It is early 
 manifested, and when once fixed, has the power of perpetu- 
 ating itself through countless generations. Nationality seems 
 to have a mysterious, creative, and transforming power. Like 
 that vital energy, which determines the species of the trees of 
 the forest, it has the power of assimilating all things to itself. 
 The oak and the pine spring up, side by side, out of a com- 
 mon soil, and draw nourishment from the same elements, yet 
 one converts those elements into the peculiar wood and foli- 
 age of the straight and lofty pine, the other into the low and 
 gnarled oak. So nationality, operating upon the elements of 
 a common humanity, assimilates it to its own type, transmits 
 that type from age to age, and transforms to its own liken 
 whatever foreign element is thrown into it. What can be 
 more different from each other, than the two nations which 
 the British Channel separates? The Alps and the Pyrenees 
 divide nations no less diverse from each other. It is not soil, 
 it is not climate, for what more different than the ancient 
 Roman and the modern Italian? What more dissimilar than 
 the magnanimous soldiers of Alexander, and the cowering 
 slaves who have so long kissed the footstool of the Ottoman 
 throne ? 
 
 We have existed long enough to develop and to exhibit our 
 national characteristics. The most prominent of these, as I 
 have already said, is Democracy. I mean, of course, in no 
 sectarian or parly sense. I mean a government constituted 
 and administered by the people themselves. I mean a 
 Democracy, in contradistinction to a Despotism, a Monai. 
 an Aristocracy; and as equally distinguished from Anari 
 Agrarianism, and Socialism. 
 
 The formation of this great Republic in the western hemi- 
 sphere, was a result wholly unforeseen and unpremeditated.
 
 It was projected by no individual mind, nor was it the pro- 
 duct of the consentaneous action of any number of minds, 
 workino- together for a common object. The members of our 
 confederacy had not a common origin. They were formed by 
 different circumstances, yet when they at last came together 
 to form a body politic, they were found completely homoge- 
 neous, they bore one type, and like the members of the human 
 frame, they were found to coalesce into one consistent and 
 symmetrical whole. 
 
 What were the origin and causes of this homogeneousness, 
 this common element of Democracy, which pervaded each 
 and all, and made their union into one nation so easy, so 
 natural, and so perfect. 
 
 At the time of the discovery of America in 1492, nothing 
 was more improbable than the formation of a vast Republic in 
 North America, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 and from either coast, sweeping the commerce of both oceans. 
 There were then, in the nations of Europe, from which Amer- 
 ica was to be colonized, absolutely no materials from which 
 such a product could be expected to spring. The Demo- 
 cratic element was no where developed ; the government of 
 the people was an idea which did not even enter the human 
 mind. The nations were just emerging from the darkness 
 and barbarism of the Middle Ages. So far from governing, 
 in any part of Europe, the people were scarcely emancipated 
 from slavery. They had been for ages bought and sold with 
 the land they cultivated. There was but one nation, and that 
 was England, in which they enjoyed representation in the 
 national legislature, and there they had a voice merely to 
 authorize and legalize taxation. There had been, in that 
 countrv, a long and bloody struggle for power, but it had been 
 between the kings and the feudal aristocracy, in which the 
 people, who did the fighting, and endured the destruction of 
 the wars, had no other interest than a change of tyrants. No 
 one thought of vindicating their liberties, or improving their 
 condition. They were the mere pawns upon the chess- 
 board of political and national ambition ; and they were used 
 with no more feeling or sympathy than the ivory figures,
 
 8 
 
 ■which are stained red or left white, that they may not be con- 
 founded in the fight. 
 
 Spain had just been consolidated into one nation, under 
 the government of Ferdinand and Isabella ; and every ene 
 had been strained to the utmost, in the struggle for the expul- 
 sion of the Moors. In the new monarchy which was estab- 
 lished, the only representation which the people had in the 
 government, was in the deputations from the cities ; and in 
 those deputations it was the wealth of cities, not the popula- 
 tion, that was represented. Cities were tolerated in the 
 States General from no respect for popular rights, but because 
 the wheels of government could not move without money, 
 and the mercantile wealth of cities alone could furnish this. 
 
 The people of Spain were then without education, without 
 wealth, without power, without the knowledge even of their 
 political rights. And, had the winds of heaven driven 
 Columbus upon the coast of the United States, instead of the 
 island of San Salvador, and North America been peopled 
 from Spain instead of South, the territory we occupy would 
 now have been what South America and Mexico are. So far 
 from originating and enjoying a Republican government, 
 inhabitants would, like them, have been incapable of imitat- 
 
 g one, when they had the model before their eyes. 
 
 The state of things was no better in France. There, at 
 the period of which we speak, both king and nobles united 
 to depress the people. Tiny did not dare to trust them with 
 arms, and chose rather to depend on i mercenaries for 
 
 military defence, than to suffer the people to ham the secret 
 of their strength. There was no effectual enfranchisement of 
 the people in France, previous to the revolution of 1 7 * J 2 , two 
 hundred years after the discovery of America. 
 
 Louis the Fourteenth, with the rack of the inquisitor, and 
 the soldier's sword, in the destruction of the Huguenots, had 
 quenched out in blood, the first sparks of popular liberh 
 mce, before they kindled to a flame. 
 
 But France, just as she then was, tried her hand at Co 
 ing the new world. Her ships, fortunately . wandered 
 
 -_r to the North as those of Spain had dune to the Suuth.
 
 They sailed up the St. Lawrence, and laid the foundations of 
 Montreal and Quebec. And there her colonies remain to the 
 present day, unchanged and unimproved; a petrified speci- 
 men of what France was two centuries ago. So far are they 
 from Republicanism, that few of them have intelligence enough 
 to know the meaning of the word. 
 
 Venice and the Netherlands, were the only countries in 
 Europe, in which there was even the shadow of popular lib- 
 erty, and they were too happy, and too busy, in the enjoy- 
 ment of the fruits of their trade and industry, to covet the 
 possession of a howling wilderness. 
 
 And what was England herself, at that period, from which 
 liberty finally went forth conquering and to conquer? Rather 
 behind the rest of Europe than in advance of it. Her civili- 
 zation had been arrested and delayed by a series of political 
 calamities. Her energies had been exhausted in the ruinous 
 endeavor to retain her continental possessions. Her best 
 blood had flowed in the civil wars; her wealth had been 
 wasted, and her soil almost depopulated, by the endless 
 quarrel of a disputed succession. It was not until the claims 
 of the rival houses of York and Lancaster were peacefully- 
 united in the Seventh and Eighth Henry, that England took 
 her place in the march of nations towards the goal of 
 freedom and happiness. 
 
 It was in the year 1497 that the continent of North Amer- 
 ica was first looked upon by English eyes. Henry the Sev- 
 enth was then upon the throne. Had these shores been col- 
 onized then, even by Englishmen, what would have been the 
 result? A little better, perhaps, than what took place in the 
 Gulf of Mexico and on the banks of the St. Lawrence, but 
 not much. The people of England then had no political 
 existence. The only recognized symbol of their being, as 
 well as the germ of their future power, appeared in the House 
 of Commons. But so overwhelming was the landed interest, 
 and so small was the mercantile and mechanical wealth of the 
 country, that both king and nobility, so far from regarding it 
 as a co-ordinate power, looked upon it as a convenient instru- 
 ment of draining from the people their proportion of the pub-
 
 10 
 
 lie burdens; and of so little account was it as late as the 
 reign of Henry the Eighth, that when that body hesitated to 
 pass a bill at his order, he sent for the Speaker, and drawing 
 his finger round his neck, declared, "If my bill i*; not passed 
 to-morrow, this must come off." Queen Elizabeth, his 
 daughter, reigned with a prerogative scarcely less despotic ; 
 and we may say, that during the dynasty of the house of 
 Tudor, terminating in 1G02, tour years before the Virginia col- 
 ony landed at Jamestown, the idea of a popular government, 
 a government based on population and not on property or 
 hereditary right, scarcely entered the mind of an Englishman, 
 as within the bounds of possibility. And yet, from this very 
 people, within a little more than a century and a half, sprang 
 our glorious Republic, in perfect symmetry and beauty, like 
 Minerva from the br<.in of Jove. 
 
 How was this wonderful result brought about? To devel- 
 op this process is the theme of the present addn 
 
 From what I have already said, it will be readily inferred, 
 that there was no design in the people of England, of found- 
 ing a great Republic in this western world, nor did it enter 
 into the minds of the Colonists themselves. Wilh the excep- 
 tion of the Puritans, it was the height of their ambition to 
 reproduce England and her institutions in America, just as 
 she then was. They knew of nothing better; they could con- 
 ceive of nothing more perfect. And after they arrived, they 
 long continued to be Englishmen, though transplanted to a 
 new world. Their idea of a perfect government was of a 
 king, a nobility, and commons; but that the third estate was 
 competent to subsist by itself, and discharge all the functions 
 of government better by itself than in partnership wilh the 
 others, never entered their conceptions, and was the slow 
 revelation of experience. 
 
 The first Colonial Charter to Virginia, which dates in 1606, 
 contained not a particle of the popular element. It was 
 granted to two companies, one composed "of noblen 
 gentlemen, and merchants of London;' the other, "of 
 knights, gentlemen, and merchants, in the West." They 
 were to have no representation in Parliament, and not even
 
 11 
 
 the power to make their own laws. They were to be gov- 
 erned, not by themselves, but by a " resident Council, 
 appointed by the king, and removable at his pleasure." 
 Legislation, even in the minutest affairs, was reserved to be 
 exercised by the sovereign. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had a settlement been made on the 
 banks of the James, when a revolution took place, symbolic 
 of the future destiny of British colonization in the West. 
 The government manufactured by royal hands in England, it 
 was found, would not work in America. The Council, the 
 offspring of European privilege and aristocracy, was found too 
 feeble, spiritless, and inefficient for its new and untried posi- 
 tion, and was compelled to give place to plain John Smith, 
 one of nature's noblemen, who took command of the Colony 
 by an authority more authentic and indisputable than earthly 
 monarch could ever bestow, the authority of a commanding 
 intellect, and an indomitable will. 
 
 The whole territory of Maryland was originally given away 
 to a single nobleman. In providing for its government, Lord 
 Baltimore took such views, and indulged such anticipations, 
 as were natural to a nobleman of that age. The Charter, 
 which was drawn up at Irs instance, and it is supposed accord- 
 ing to his wishes, contemplates the transfer to America, 
 whole and unchanged, of the feudal system, as it had existed 
 in Europe ever since the overthrow of the Roman Empire. 
 He secured to himself palatine, or royal jurisdiction, the 
 highest privilege of the nobility in feudal times. The tenth 
 section of his Charter confers on him the power of creating a 
 titled aristocracy. In the language of the Charter, " We do 
 give free and plenary power to the aforesaid, now baron of 
 Baltimore, and to his heirs and assigns, to confer favors, 
 rewards and honors upon such subjects, inhabiting within the 
 province aforesaid, as shall be well deserving, and to adorn 
 them with whatever titles and dignities they shall appoint, so 
 that they be not such as are used in England." 
 
 The lands in Europe had then been held for ages, not by 
 the people in fee simple, but by immense landed proprietors, 
 and by them leased out to tenants from time to time. The-
 
 12 
 
 same tenure of land was contemplated here. With these vast 
 domains of the European aristocracy, certain rights of terri- 
 torial jurisdiction were connected. The baron had power to 
 organize and hold a court of his own, not subject to the con- 
 trol of the courts established by the nation at large. This 
 independent jurisdiction was one of the greatest grievances 
 of the feudal system. It was obnoxious to both king and 
 people, but it was one which the feudal aristocracy retained 
 with the greatest tenacity. This was to be conferred on the 
 newly created American aristocracy. By the nineteenth sec- 
 tion of the Charter, it is provided, " We also, by these pre- 
 sents, do give and grant license to the same baron of Balti- 
 more, and to his heirs, to erect any parcels of land within the 
 province aforesaid into manors, and in every of these manors, 
 to have and to hold a court baron, and all things which to a 
 court baron do belong." 
 
 It is needless to say, that these provisions remained a dead 
 letter upon the parchment. Feudalism was found to be inca- 
 pable of transportation across the Atlantic. It could not live 
 for a day in the free atmosphere of America. The nobleman 
 never came, himself, to give it effect. Emancipated from the 
 prejudices, as well as the institutions of the old world, the 
 emigrants to the new, resumed the original rights of man, and 
 demanded the natural privileges of property and legislation. 
 
 In North Carolina, nearly the same experiment was tried 
 over agnin. A Charter was there granted to eight noblemen 
 instead of one. They were to be the proprietors of the soil. 
 The dignity was to be hereditary, and in default of heirs, the 
 deficiency was to be made up by the choice of the survivors. 
 The territory was to be divided into counties. Two orders 
 of nobility were to be created ; one Earl and two Barons for 
 each county. Legislation vested in the proprietors of the soil, 
 and jurisdiction, or the distribution of justice, was handed 
 over, likewise, to the hereditary nobility. To make the bur- 
 den of legislation light, one of the greatest minds of that, or 
 any other age, John Locke, was called in to exercise the 
 function of lawgiver to the future oligarchy of Carolina.
 
 13 
 
 These transactions date more than half a century after the 
 Charier to Lord Baltimore. The insurrection of popular lib- 
 erty, in England, had intervened, which was begun by the 
 Puritans, and consummated by Cromwell and his Round 
 Heads, and it is surprising that no greater progress was mani- 
 fested in the appreciation of the rights and capabilities of the 
 people. But Shaftsbury and Locke, the leading minds of that 
 period, were neither of them enthusiasts in any thing, and 
 they seem to have shared in the disappointment which was 
 felt by the nation in the results of the so-called Common- 
 wealth of England. 
 
 The Charter of Pennsylvania bears the date of 1681. 
 And it shows the same features of feudalism with the Charter 
 of Maryland. The whole State was made the property of 
 one man, and powers nearly regal were conferred on the plain 
 Quaker, William Penn. In fact, the whole State was made 
 over to Penn, in discharge of a debt, owed to his father, by 
 Charles the Second. In exercise of his regal rights, Penn 
 proceeded to frame a government, and promulgate a code of 
 laws, of his own device. But the principles of civil, as well 
 as religious, freedom, which had been arrived at and promul- 
 gated by George Fox, here began to tell upon the world, and 
 to be made practical in laying the foundations of a great Com- 
 monwealth. Penn, though bred up among the aristocracy of 
 England, never sympathised with his associates, and was 
 more at home in the ultra democracy of a Quaker meeting, 
 than in the court of his Sovereign. The consequence was, 
 that the Pennsylvania Colony soon took on the type of the 
 new world. The power passed from the hands of the pro- 
 prietors, and they finally were compelled to content them- 
 selves with a pecuniary compensation for the surrender of all 
 feudal and royal prerogatives. 
 
 The first colonization of New York was nearly as aristo- 
 cratic as that of the other States. The Hanse Towns, which 
 first cast their eyes towards the magnificent country which now 
 composes the Empire State, though in advance of the rest of 
 Europe in the principles of civil freedom, knew as yet abso- 
 lutely nothing of the government of the people. Grotius 
 3
 
 14 
 
 and Barnevelt, though the lights of their age, and finally the 
 victims to their convictions as to the natural rights of man, 
 never entertained the idea that a popular government was 
 practicable. 
 
 In the Netherlands, power had long since passed from the 
 hands of the feudal aristocracy, but it had not come into the 
 hands of the people. It had been grasped and intercepted by 
 the merchants, and the destinies of that land of industry and 
 commerce, were in the hands of a moneyed, instead of landed, 
 aristocracy. 
 
 The Colonies which were first sent out from the Nether- 
 lands, had for their object, not so much the establishment of 
 a permanent settlement, as the immediate acquisition of 
 wealth, which was to be gathered from the western wilder- 
 ness, and enjoyed at home, amidst the luxury and repose of 
 the Fatherland. The acquisition of territory was a secon- 
 dary object. But though feudalism was become nearly obso- 
 lete at home, provision was made for its revival here. 
 A Charter was obtained from the States General for the rising 
 Colonies of the New World. In it, there is no trace of popu- 
 lar government. He, who within five years, should plant a 
 Colony of fifty souls, became Lord of the Manor, or Patron, 
 possessing, in absolute property, the lands he might colonize. 
 Those lands <; might extend sixteen miles in length, or if on 
 a river, they might extend eight miles on each side, and so 
 far into the interior as might be convenient." Such was the 
 solid foundation laid by the freest people in Europe for a 
 landed aristocracy, on the soil now constituting a most impor- 
 tant part of the United States. Such was the beginning of a 
 people who are now charged with being a democracy run 
 mad. But it ought to be added that the traces of this landed 
 aristocracy were not immediately obliterated. They remain 
 to the present day, to be a cause of political uneasiness and 
 discontent. 
 
 Thus it may be said, that every Colony South and West of 
 the Hudson river, was aristocratic in its origin, and in the 
 whole structure of its contemplated institutions. The fact 
 was, that no other institutions were conceived of as possible.
 
 15 
 
 No other idea was entertained, but of making America a 
 repetition of Europe, as she then was; and had the intentions 
 of the first projectors of the colonies taken effect, North 
 America would have resembled England and the Netherlands 
 as closely as Mexico and South America now resemble old 
 Spain. 
 
 There was one exception to all this ; the Puritans. The 
 Colony of Plymouth was democratic from the beginning. 
 The people who landed in 1620 in Massachusetts Bay, amid 
 the cold and snows of December, had been exiles from Eng- 
 land before they were emigrants to America. They left their 
 country without her motherly blessing, and the latest recol- 
 lections of their native home were associated with the 
 bitterest and most relentless persecution. Monarchy, prelacy 
 and aristocracy, were equally abominations in their sight. 
 They came not therefore, forth like the other Colonies, under 
 the patronage of titled wealth or noble families. They were 
 the people themselves, going forth with strong hearts and 
 toil worn hands, to fell the forest and create a world of their 
 own. Their Democracy was organized on board the May- 
 flower, before a Pilgrim had set foot upon the shore. The 
 little Republic began to be, when forty-one signatures were 
 affixed to the following document : 
 
 " In the name of God, amen. We whose names are under- 
 written, the loval subjects of our dread sovereign, King 
 James, having undertaken, for the glory of God and the 
 advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our king 
 and country, a voyage to plant a Colony in the northern parts 
 of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in 
 the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and 
 combine ourselves together, into a civil body politic, for our 
 better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends 
 aforesaid, and by virtue hereof to create, constitute and frame 
 such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and 
 offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most conve- 
 nient for the general good of the Colony. Unto which we 
 promise all due submission and obedience."
 
 16 
 
 Here, in this short document, is the essence, the substance, 
 and almost the form, "of all subsequent distinctive American 
 institutions and legislation. It is a recurrence to first princi- 
 ples. It places the new society on the original ground of 
 contract. It institutes a pure Democracy, the government of 
 the people, for the people, and by the people. 
 
 The Puritans had been trained for more than half a century 
 in the school of Dejnocracy. During the struggle with King 
 James, the Church and the Cavaliers, they had discovered 
 and adopted the principle of congregational independence. 
 They had maintained, lhat this was not only the original 
 organization of the Church, but was in itself, the mode of 
 administering Christianity most consistent with national 
 justice, and the inalienable rights of man. This mode of 
 government made every Church a little Republic by itself, 
 and a seminary of Democracy. Here, too, men learned not 
 only the theory, but the practice of self-government. They 
 learned that a simple form of government was not only the 
 best, but the cheapest; and that the immense sums which had 
 been lavished on a splendid establishment, both in Church 
 and State, was money worse than thrown away. James, 
 with the true instinct of despotism, was not long in discover- 
 ing the tendency of all these things, and he exclaimed, u No 
 bishop, no king," and the Puritans, seeing the true issue, 
 took up the challenge, and answered, "No bishop and no 
 king." 
 
 But in carrying out their principles in their native land, 
 they encountered obstacles absolutely insurmountable. . There 
 was the force of prescription, running against them wiih the 
 accumulated strength of centuries; there was the feudal tenure 
 of property ; there was an hereditary aristocracy, to which 
 the masses were accustomed to bow down, wiih a subser- 
 viency more mechanical and slavish, lhan that paid by the 
 Spartan Helots to their masters. There was the Church 
 establishment, which had grown up to such a massive 
 strength as an outward institution, that it might live on as a 
 body politic, long after the soul of religion had become 
 utterly extinct.
 
 17 
 
 Still worse was it for them, when they removed to the 
 con'inent. There they found themselves foreigners, in the 
 midst of a dense population, more than ordinarily obstinate 
 in their prejudices, and fixed in their habits. Their hopes of 
 propagating and perpetuating their principles in Holland, were 
 about as desperate as to undertake to color the ocean with a 
 single drop. They would not only have failed to propagate 
 their principles, but have lost their nationality, and become 
 absorbed and lost in the surrounding population. Their 
 emigration to this country, desperate as might seem the 
 undertaking, was the only salvation of themselves and their 
 principles. 
 
 But Providence had reserved in North America a spot 
 unoccupied, for the trial of the last great experiment of 
 humanity. By crossing the ocean and landing on these des- 
 olate shores, they freed themselves, at one bound, of all the 
 embarrassments which forbade the development of their 
 principles in the Old World. The germ of popular liberty 
 had room to expand itself in its simplicity, purity and perfec- 
 tion, until it has become a tree, overspreading a mighty conti- 
 nent, and the exiles and the oppressed of all nations, seek a 
 refuse under the shadow of it. 
 
 But, as I have already said, New England was an excep- 
 tion. It was colonized by the people; and (he people had 
 sufficient resource in themselves, in their intelligence and 
 moral control, to govern themselves. How was it that the 
 same result followed every where else, under circumstances 
 so different? How was it, that at the end of a century and a 
 half, the more southern Colonies, beginning their existence 
 under aristocratic auspices, and having a strong oligarchic 
 bias at first, were found nearly abreast of Massachusetts in 
 the career of democracy ; and all the members of this vast 
 Confederacy were found to be moulded, like the members of 
 a human body, after one type, and ready to coalesce into one 
 grand homogeneous nation? 
 
 The first cause, I shall mention, as having necessitated the 
 universal establishment of Democracy in America, was the 
 cheapness of land and the dearness of labor. A new country
 
 18 
 
 is the poor man's paradise. In crossing the Atlantic, the 
 relations of capital and labor were completely reversed. The 
 poor man's labor is his all. His consequence rises or sinks 
 in precise proportion to the demand which exists for the only 
 thing which he has to bring to market. In old and thickly 
 peopled countries, like England and Holland, where labor 
 of course was cheap and land was dear, the chance for a 
 laborer to become a freeholder, was next to hopeless. He 
 could not even emigrate without selling himself for a term of 
 years into bondage. And it was in this way, that quite a 
 large proportion of the first emigrants came over. When 
 they arrived here, they found a totally different state of things. 
 Here was a vast continent of land, but it was worth nothing 
 until it was cleared and cultivated. The physical energies of 
 the laborer alone could do this. The land owner became 
 the dependent man, and the laborer dictated his own terms. 
 When as yet there was no capital but land, the land owner 
 was compelled to pay his laborer in land, and thus the 
 laborer became a freeholder, as well as himself. The 
 laborer too, was a capitalist, in the ownership of his own 
 bones and sinews ; and on the strength of his real conse- 
 quence in the community, he demanded and obtained the 
 right of suffrage; and when labor is represented, there is 
 necessarily a Democracy. 
 
 In Europe, the recognition of popular rights was delayed 
 for many ages by the universal prevalence of the feudal 
 system. At the breaking up of the Roman Empire, the soil 
 of Europe was appropriated, in large tracts, by military chief- 
 tains, who seized on every thing by right of conquest. Each 
 landed proprietor built his castle in the midst of his domain, 
 and reigned there with an absoluteness equalled only by Ori- 
 ental despotism. There were no people, in our modern 
 sense of the term. The population was divided into masters 
 and slaves. The right of the one was to command, and the 
 duty of the other was to obey. This system was hardly 
 shaken when America began to be colonized. Neither party, 
 the land holders nor tenants, conceived of any other state of 
 things as possible.
 
 19 
 
 A landed aristocracy, fortified by the usage of primogeni- 
 ture, is one of the most lasting of all human institutions. 
 Other property easily passes from hand to hand, and nothing 
 is more shifting: than mercantile wealth. During the Middle 
 Ages, there was nothing to oppose to the power of the landed 
 aristocracy. Mercantile wealth, the first power that made 
 any stand against it, was almost unknown. That is the crea- 
 tion of civilization. In a state of barbarism, there are no 
 manufactures ; there is no consumption of luxuries ; there is 
 nothing to pay for luxuries ; there is no commerce ; no trade ; 
 nothing to buy or sell. There are no cities ; for cities are 
 merely the marts of exchange. A growing civilization 
 created cities, and cities reacted on the progress of civiliza- 
 tion. Cities and commerce transferred the sceptre from land 
 to money, and the lordly castle became subordinated to the 
 neighboring city. The last and final transition of power, is 
 from property to persons, and city and castle become subor- 
 dinated to the people, that great multitude whose power is 
 irresistible, and their voice as the sound of many waters. 
 
 In Europe, at the time of the settlement of North America, 
 this process of the transfer of power was going on. But 
 every where its progress was gradual, tedious and unsteady. 
 The first impulse was given by the Crusades. To win back 
 the Holy Land and sepulchre of Christ from the Infidel, was 
 the passion of Christendom for more than two centuries. 
 Every thing w T as disturbed by this universal enthusiasm, and 
 society was moved from its ancient foundations. Vast quan- 
 tities of property changed owners. The nobles of Europe, 
 in order to engage in those distant and expensive enterprizes, 
 were obliged to have money. They had no ready money, 
 and they were compelled to alienate their lands to procure it.. 
 The cities through which the Crusaders travelled, were 
 enriched by their expenditures, or the fleets which bore them 
 across the sea, brought large gains to their owners ; and the 
 wealth thus accumulated, laid the foundation of modern com- 
 merce, that most powerful agent in all the revolutions of the 
 last five centuries. It was one of the steps towards the
 
 20 
 
 emancipation of the people, and their preparation to discharge 
 the duties, as well as enjoy the privileges, of citizenship. 
 
 But, when the emigration to North America took place, all 
 these intermediate steps were overleaped. The people came 
 themselves, and unembarrassed by feudal rights and aristo- 
 cratic usages, took the power into their own hands. 
 
 This leads me to speak of the next cause of the Democracy 
 of the North American Colonies, which I shall mention — 
 their isolation. Three thousand miles of ocean intervened 
 between '.hem and the old world. This circumstance was 
 not without the most decisive and important effects. The 
 people had their own way, because they could not be con- 
 trolled by their old masters at the distance of three thousand 
 miles. Nubility never emigrated. There was nothing to 
 tempt it to quit its ancient home. It was a plant of such a 
 peculiar structure, that it would not bear translation to another 
 soil. Here it would have withered and died, amidst the 
 rugged forests and stern climate of America. A nobleman 
 is the creation of a local conventionalism. He nourishes 
 only in an artificial atmosphere. He must be seen by gas 
 light. He is at home only in courts and palaces. 
 
 The pomp of courts, and the splendor of palaces, are the 
 contrivances, not more of human pride than of far-sighted 
 policy. They are intended to impose on the i in agin ition of 
 the multitude; to lead them to associate with the condition of 
 their superiors the ideas of providential and unattainable 
 superiority, to which it is their destiny and their duty to 
 submit. Take them away from the stage on which they 
 choose to exhibit themselves ; strip them of their dramatic 
 costume ; take away the overhanging chandelier and the glare 
 of the fool lights, and let them mingle in the common crowd, 
 and they become as other men, and the crowd begin to won- 
 der how they could ever have looked up to them with so 
 much reverence. 
 
 They gained likewise advantages from assochting together. 
 An English nobleman had a hereditary right to a seat in the 
 House of Lords. He mad" a part of the national legislature. 
 This privilege was independent of the popular will. It was
 
 21 
 
 real power, a possession so flattering to the pride of man. 
 There was no reason therefore, why such a man should wish 
 to leave his country. What could he find here congenial to 
 his taste, or flattering to his pride, or tolerable to his habits of 
 luxury and self-indulgence? 
 
 A rude village on the shore of the ocean, or on the banks of 
 a stream, of a few log cabins, scattered here and there in the 
 wilderness, was all the New World had to offer for many 
 generations. Not many would emigrate to such a country, 
 who had any thing to leave behind. Much less was it to be 
 expected, that those would come here, who had drawn the 
 highest prizes in life at home. They could not seek a new 
 organization of the social condition, in which they had 
 nothing to gain and every thing to lose. Here and there, 
 there might be an adventurer of condition, who came to this 
 country to improve his broken fortunes ; but then it was, as 
 in all new countries, with a hope of returning to enjoy his 
 gains in a country and a state of society, where refined 
 enjoyment was possible. 
 
 And after all, beyond a limited circle, America was, at that 
 time, very little known and very little regarded by the people 
 of England. And it is very much so to the present hour. 
 The best informed people, strange as it may seem, know 
 little more of the Geography of this country than they do of 
 the interior of Africa; and thousands and thousands who 
 move in respectable society, are ignorant whether we are 
 white or copper colored, speak the English language or 
 Choctaw. 
 
 America, then, grew up in neglect and by stealth. Unat- 
 tractive to the higher classes, she drew to herself the people. 
 Here came the people, the hard-handed and stout-hearted, 
 and carved out a New World for themselves. They adapted 
 their institutions to their w T ants, and before the Old World 
 was aware, there had sprung up on this broad continent a 
 gigantic Republic, ready to take her position among the 
 nations of the earth. 
 
 The third cause of Democracy in America was the progress 
 and establishment of civil liberty in England, contemporane- 
 4
 
 22 
 
 ously with the colonization of this country and formation of 
 its institutions. 
 
 The seventeenth century, from the year 1603, when the 
 House of Stuart ascended the throne of England, three years 
 before the settlement of Virginia, till the revolution in 16S8, 
 six years after the arrival of Penn in Pennsylvania, was the 
 period when the people of England were emancipated from 
 political vassalage, and obtained their just weight in the 
 British Constitution. The main organ of this stupendous 
 revolution, was the English House of Commons. It was 
 there that popular liberty, after struggling in the world for 
 ages almost in vain, made her first successful stand, obtained 
 a hearing for her cause, and found a voice to address herself 
 to the nations. 
 
 After the suppression of the Roman Republic by Julius 
 Caesar, forty-three years before the Christian era, there had 
 been nothing in Europe for more than fifteen hundred years, 
 which could be denominated a government of the people. 
 He, himself, in his Gallic Wars, gives a description of the 
 condition of the people of Gaul and Britain at that period. 
 "Over all Gaul," says he, "there are only two orders of men 
 in any degree of honor and esteem, for the common people 
 are little better than slaves, attempt nothing of themseh 
 and have no share in public deliberations. As they are 
 generally oppressed with debt, heavy tributes, or the exac- 
 tions of their superiors, they make themselves vassals to the 
 great, who exercise over them the same species of jurisdic- 
 tion as masters do over slaves. The two orders of men with 
 whom, as we have said, all authority and distinction are 
 lodged, are the druids and nobles." 
 
 When these northern nations overran the Roman Empire, 
 and were converted to Christianity, the only political change 
 that took place, seems to have been the substitution of the 
 Christian ecclesiastics in the place of the Pagan druids. 
 The people remained just where they were before. Hence it 
 is that the Bishops sit in the British House of Lords to the 
 present hour.
 
 23 
 
 The first dawn of modern freedom was in the establish- 
 ment, as a permanent body, of the House of Commons in 
 England. Besides the king, the nobility and clergy, as arts, 
 commerce and industry revived, there was seen gradually to 
 spring up, a third estate, the people. They acquired wealth, 
 and consequently power. At any rate, it was necessary that 
 they should bear a part of the public burdens. They were 
 first summoned to take a part in legislation, merely to legiti- 
 mate their own taxation, and so it continued for some 
 generations. 
 
 But it was found, that the same hands which could grant, 
 could withhold supplies, and both the monarch and the aris- 
 tocracy discovered that the new power which they had called 
 into existence, had already grown to an importance which 
 could neither be dispensed with, nor controlled. With the 
 acquisition of wealth, came as a natural consequence, educa- 
 tion, intellectual development, literary culture. On these 
 followed, as an inevitable result, social influence. 
 
 After a long struggle, the House of Commons obtained the 
 liberty of free discussion, and then the principles of civil 
 liberty grew apace. Words were spoken on the floor of the 
 House of Commons, by Hampden and Prynne and their 
 patriotic associates, w r hich vibrated through the nation. 
 Great principles of right, of law and humanity, which had 
 had no articulate expression for more than fifteen hundred 
 years, received a clear exposition and an able defence. In 
 the meantime, literature was not idle. Milton, the sublimest 
 genius that ever wore the vestments of mortality, took up the 
 cause of mental freedom and civil liberty, with a force and an 
 eloquence never surpassed. No right of man, no principle 
 nor form of popular government, was left undiscussed. 
 
 The spread and growth of these principles were resisted by 
 king and nobility, with the most obstinate perseverance. Inch 
 by inch, the ground was contested. At every successive Par- 
 liament, the Commons rose in their demands, and required new 
 guaranties for the rights of the people. The king became 
 desperate, and for thirteen years attempted to govern without 
 a Parliament. Failing in this, and yielding at last to the
 
 24 
 
 necessities of his condition, he again summoned the repre- 
 sentatives of the people only to discover that the balance of 
 power had passed over to the people, and the sceptre of abso- 
 lute dominion had fallen forever from his hands. But so 
 great a question as this, the balance of the British Constitu- 
 tion, could not be settled without the trial by battle. The 
 sword was drawn, and Monarchy and Democracy fought 
 hand to hand through many a bloody year. 
 
 This struggle was no common contest. It was not like the 
 war of the roses, a matter of personality and partizanship — 
 whether this or that branch of royalty should sit upon the 
 throne; but whether Monarchy or Democracy should have 
 the ascendency in the British Constitution ; whether the king 
 should govern, according to the will of the people, expressed 
 by law, or after his own arbitrary will and pleasure. 
 
 Victory at length declared for the people, and monarchy 
 and aristocracy were driven into banishment. And had 
 Cromwell been thirty years old instead of fifty, they might 
 never have returned, and England been at this time a repre- 
 sentative Republic. 
 
 But the old obstacles were still in the way. The heredi- 
 tary reverence for monarchy and aristocracy was still strong 
 in the minds of the people, and the violent measures which 
 Democracy was compelled to take, in order to establish and 
 maintain its ascendency, became almost as odious to the 
 nation as the ancient regime of legitimacy itself. The tree 
 was too old to be bent into a new shape, and as soon as the 
 pressure was taken off, it recoiled with violence into its 
 ancient position. 
 
 All this took place in the presence of the civilized world ; 
 its bearings were considered and its merits discussed. The 
 interest felt in it was intense. No where was it so deep as 
 in the American Colonies, whose fathers and brothers were 
 engaged in the great war of principles and opinions. And it 
 is not difficult to conjecture on which side their sympathies 
 would be most likely to be enlisted. 
 
 The people, for it was the people who had emigrated, 
 would sympathize with the people's cause. The people at
 
 25 
 
 home were struggling for that which their American brethren 
 possessed without a struggle, by virtue of their position, the 
 right to govern themselves. 
 
 This grand lesson, at least, was taught them, that king and 
 aristocracy were at all events a superfluity; that England 
 flourished quite as well as a Commonwealth as it had done as 
 akinsfdom. And though Englishmen restored their monarch 
 and House of Lords for old acquaintance sake, to a young 
 community it seemed quite unnecessary to import or manu- 
 facture so expensive a luxury. 
 
 At any rate, the charm of Divine right was forever broken. 
 It was shown by experiment, that a king is the executive of 
 a nation's will, their chief magistrate, and nothing more. 
 His authority comes up from the people, but does not come 
 down from his ancestors by hereditary right. An elective 
 magistracy then, if clothed with the power of the people, 
 might be just as efficient, far more convenient, and far less 
 dangerous, than royalty. They had seen the royal power too, 
 gradually waning, and the will of the people becoming 
 supreme, even under the forms of monarchy. A new power 
 rose up, unknown in former ages, the power of public opin- 
 ion, the mind of the nation came forth and declared itself 
 supreme. 
 
 Such were the changes which took place in the political 
 condition of England, during the seventeenth century ; the 
 period during which that portion of North America which 
 now constitutes the United States, was colonized, and took 
 on its political type and complexion. It is easy to see what 
 influences from the mother country were predominant, and 
 what were most congenial to a young and growing country, 
 standing apart from the monarchical and aristocratic institu- 
 tions of the Old World. 
 
 The last cause to which I shall advert of the rise of demo- 
 cratic institutions in America, was the general diffusion of 
 knowledge and education, and the great improvement of the 
 condition of the laboring classes. The materials for a Repub- 
 lic are educated mind and personal independence. The price 
 of labor determines whether these shall pervade all classes.
 
 26 
 
 A high price of labor gives the poor man the means of edu- 
 cating his children and himself, and gives him a sense of 
 personal independence. But low wages condemn the masses 
 to ignorance, dependence and degradation. A starving 
 population will always be deaf to the voice of reason, and its 
 stern necessities will drive it beyond all other control than 
 that of an iron despotism. It throws off monarchy, only to 
 fall back again under the more stringent constraint of the 
 bayonet. The suffrages of an ignorant multitude are worth 
 nothing, and the direction of the course of public affairs 
 might as well be decided by the cast of a die. 
 
 If the question were asked, why the government of the 
 people did not come sooner in modern times, it must be 
 answered in all honesty, that the people were not sooner 
 prepared to govern. An Italian ecclesiastic has lately told 
 the American people, that in that part of Italy where he was 
 first called to minister, only one person out of five thousand 
 could read. How is such a people as that prepared to be 
 governed by universal suffrage? The people of France 
 lately elected an absolute Emperor for life, and voluntarily 
 surrendered the fruits of the struggles, the bloodshed and the 
 sufferings of the last sixty years. Political power will always 
 follow intelligence, for knowledge is power. From the sixth 
 to the sixteenth century, the Church shared largely in the 
 government of the world. And it is customary, in modern 
 times, to censure her as an usurper, and to attribute the part 
 she acted in civil affairs, to worldly ambition. Much of this 
 censure is unjust. The Church governed the world, because 
 she was the only educated body of men then extant. 
 
 It is in vain that you put political power into hands too 
 ignorant to wield it. Mexico, in emulation of our happy 
 experiment of Republican institutions, attempted the same. 
 But it was only to demonstrate that she was wholly unprepared 
 for the experiment. The right of suffrage was established 
 with comparative ease. A President was chosen by the 
 voice of the people, but there was not sufficient intelligence to 
 perceive the necessity of performing the duty corresponding 
 to the right of suffrage — that of submitting to the will of the
 
 27 
 
 majority, when expressed through the ballot box. The 
 defeated candidate raised a civil war, and overturned the 
 Constitution before it could be carried into effect. Our expe- 
 riment would have ended in the same way, had not education 
 been universally diffused. 
 
 In this country, from the very first, the people of the 
 different Colonies were sufficiently intelligent to make and 
 administer their own laws. A large proportion of them were 
 capable of the duties of magistracy, and their constituency 
 knew when their public functionaries served them with 
 wisdom and fidelity. The art of printing had been in full 
 exercise more than a century before the first Colony was 
 planted. Not only was the power to read very generally 
 diffused, but books were multiplied, and they went with the 
 primitive settlers into the remotest forests, and the literary 
 luminaries which rose one after another upon the Old World, 
 sent their rays across the Atlantic, and trained up a new born 
 people to intelligence, freedom and virtue. 
 
 The different Colonies* had not been long established, 
 before a certain national feeling began to spring up on this 
 side the Atlantic, and young America began to have a litera- 
 ture of her own. Her Provincial Legislative Assemblies, 
 allowing the largest liberty of speech, became the seminaries 
 of democratic principles. Liberal education began to enlarge 
 the minds of the rising generation, and no where, since the 
 suppression of the ancient Republics, had the classics of 
 Greece and Rome met a warmer welcome, or awakened a 
 more congenial feeling, than in the young men of the New- 
 World. No where had men been placed in a situation so 
 analogous to that of the great patriots and scholars of anti- 
 quity. As early as 1704, the newspaper press began its 
 operations in the Metropolis of New England, by sending 
 forth the "Boston News Letter;" and then and there was 
 laid one of the corner stones of our nationality. Then and 
 there the great American soul, already incarnate, began to 
 breathe forth its inspiration, and carry vitality to the remotest 
 members. Then and there American mind began to react 
 upon itself, and fuse into one mass the various materials of
 
 28 
 
 which the Colonies were composed. The progeny of this 
 patriarch of newspapers, who shall number; and what finite 
 intellect shall calculate the influence they have exerted on the 
 institutions and the destiny of the country! 
 
 It was they which helped to form and discipline and 
 nationalize those great men who prompted, directed and 
 carried through, the struggle of the Revolution, which gave 
 us a being and a name among the nations of the earth. 
 
 That great struggle, with its blood and tears and toils and 
 treasure, cemented and consolidated our nationality forever. 
 The boldness of the undertaking, the doubtfulness of the 
 issue, and the immediate sacrifices which it demanded, 
 consecrated to the service of their country the true, the pure, 
 the patriotic and the brave, while it appalled and kept aloof, 
 the timid, the time-serving and the false. The very length 
 and severity of the contest only made the object for which 
 they fought so long and so desperately, the more dear to all 
 hearts. 
 
 The labor and patience, the heroism and sacrifices, of that 
 martyr age, set apart the most conspicuous actors in the 
 scene, to an elevation in the estimation of mankind far above 
 the level of ordinary humanity. It made them, as it were, 
 the Apostles of modern Liberty, and sanctified their pre- 
 cious words as a sort of sacred testament to all posterity. 
 Every American feels himself enriched by the share he 
 inherits of their glorious memories, and to forfeit that inheri- 
 tance by treason or secession, he would feel as the blackest 
 disgrace, the sorest bereavement and the most dreadful 
 calamity. 
 
 Their noble deeds, their glorious words, their wise admo- 
 nitions, their far-sighted wisdom, have set the tone of Ameri- 
 can patriotism, and they remain to guard, as it were with a 
 sword of flame, the institutions they founded. The young 
 are taught to repeat them with their earliest breath, the 
 middle aged catch anew their inspiration, and the old weep 
 tears of joy, that their eyes are permitted to see, and their 
 ears to hear, the glory which has burst in noon-tide radiance
 
 29 
 
 upon their country, but which the early confessors and mar- 
 tyrs were permitted to see but dimly and afar off. 
 
 Under the guidance of Providence, our patriot sires may 
 be said to have fixed the type of our nationality forever. 
 The impediments which once existed to the permanency of a 
 vast Republic, are now happily done away. The national 
 roads of the Roman Empire continued for ages to bind its 
 distant members together, when there was no other real tie 
 than a central government, despotic in form and rapacious in 
 administration. Here, separate States and local municipali- 
 ties, are a guaranty against a dangerous consolidation, and 
 the rapidity of communication which modern science has 
 achieved, has almost annihilated distance, and made our vast 
 Republic vital in every part. 
 
 We have been tried to the very verge of disunion and 
 disorganization, only to see patriotism rise triumphant over 
 every interest and every passion; and the sad eclipse which 
 has come over the brightest names 'as soon as they have 
 ceased to be Americans and to go for their country and their 
 whole country, will appal the heart of every recreant states- 
 man, who shall for generations, conceive the profane idea of 
 dividing what God has so manifestly joined together. 
 
 What changes may take place, when this continent shall 
 become as thickly peopled as China, whether a democracy 
 like ours will then be practicable, no finite mind can foresee. 
 
 But till that time, there is every reason to believe, that the 
 type of our national character will be preserved; we shall go 
 on as we have begun, the great example of the possibility, of 
 the power, and of the happiness of democratic institutions.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA T."TOARY 
 
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