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extended to the nation, it becomes the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.

Thus, in the United States the fundamental principle of the republic is the same which governs the greater part of human actions; republican notions insinuate themselves into all the ideas, opinions, and ha. bits of the Americans, while they are formally recognised by the legis lation and before this legislation can be altered, the whole community must undergo very serious changes. In the United States, even the religion of most of the citizens is republican, since it submits the truths of the other world to private judgment: as in politics the care of its temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense of the people. Thus every man is allowed freely to take that road which he thinks will lead him to heaven; just as the law permits every citizen to have the right of choosing his government.

It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all having the same tendency, can substitute for this combination of laws, opinions, and manners, a mass of opposite opinions, manners, and laws.

If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only yield after a laborious social process, often interrupted, and as often resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will not be come totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have succeeded to that which now exists. Now, it must be admitted that there is no symptom or presage of the approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that a people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within a short space of time, a completely new form of government. Such apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability which affects political institutions is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded the first, which modifies secondary laws, is not incompati ble with a very settled state of society; the other shakes the very foundations of the Constitution, and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation; this species of instability is always followed by troubles and revolutions, and the nation which suffers under it, is in a state of violent transition.

Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability have no necessary connexion; for they have been found united or separate, according to times and circumstances. The first is common in the United States, but not the second: the Americans often change their laws, but the foundation of the Constitution is respected.

In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The French of that period were not only friends of the monarchy, but they thought it impossible to put anything in its place; they received it as we receive the rays of the sun and the return of the seasons. Among them the royal power had neither advocates nor opponents. In like manner does the republican Government exist in America, without contention or opposition; without proofs and arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort of consensus universalis. It is, however, my opinion, that by changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the future stability of their Go

vernment.

It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their designs by the mutability of legislation, will learn to look upon republican institutions as an inconvenient form of society; the evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments, might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the fundamental principles of the Constitu. tion, and indirectly bring about a revolution; but this epoch is still very remote.

[It has been objected by an American review, that our author is mistaken in charging our laws with instability, and in answer to the charge, the permanence of our fundamental political institutions has been contrasted with the revolutions in France. But the objection proceeds upon a mistake of the author's meaning, which at this page is very clearly expressed. He refers to the instability which modifies secondary laws, and not to that which shakes the foundations of the Constitution. The distinction is equally sound and philosophic, and those in the least acquainted with the history of our legislation, must bear witness to the truth of the author's remarks. The frequent revisions of the Statutes of the States, rendered necessary by the multitude, variety, and often the contradiction of the enactments, furnish abundant evidence of this instability.—American Editor.]

It may, however, be foreseen, even now, that when the Americans lose their republican institutions, they will speedily arrive at a despotic Government, without a long interval of limited monarchy. Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more absolute than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers which had fearlessly been entrusted, to an elected magistrate are then transferred to a hereditary sovereign. This is true in general, but it is more peculiarly applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, the magistrates are not elected by a particular class of citizens, but by the majority of the nation; they are the immediate representatives of

the passions of the multitude; and as they are wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they excite neither hatred nor fear: hence, as I have already shown, very little care has been taken to limit their influence, and they are left in possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of things has engendered habits which would outlive itself; the American inagistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to be responsible for the exercise of it; and it is impossible to say what bounds could then be set to tyranny.

Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise in America, and they already predict the exact period at which it will be able to assume the reins of government. I have previously observed, and I repeat my assertion, that the present tendency of Ameri can society appears to me to become more and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of political rights in their country; or confiscate those rights to the advantage of a single individual; but I cannot ima. gine that they will ever bestow the exclusive exercise of them upon a privileged class of citizens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an aristocracy.

An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens, who, without being very far removed from the mass of the people, are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a body which it is easy to touch, and difficult to strike; with which the people are in daily contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature and to the secret propensities of the human heart, than a subjection of this kind; and men, who are left to follow their own bent, will always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to the regular administration of an aristocracy, Aristocratic institutions cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation, affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects that of society; but these are things so repugnant to natural equity that they can only be extorted from men by constraint.

I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society began to exist, which has, by its own free will and by its own exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the aristocracies of the Middle Ages were founded by military conquest: the conqueror was the noble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequality was then imposed by force; and after it had been introduced into the manners of the country, it maintained its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legislation. Communities have existed which were aristocratic

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from their earliest origin, owing to circumstances anterior to that event, and which became more democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the Romans, and of the barbarians after them. But a people, having taken its rise in civilization and democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of conditions until it arrived at inviolable privileges and exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish so singular an example.

REFLECTIONS ON THE

CAUSES OF THE COMMERCIAL PROS=

PERITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Americans destined by nature to be a great maritime people.—Extent of their coasts.—Depth of their ports.—Size of their rivers. The commercial superiority of the Anglo-Americans less attributable, however, to physical circumstances than to moral intellectual causes.—Reason of this opinion.- Future destiny of the Anglo-Americans as a commercial nation.—The dissolution of the Union would not check the maritime vigor of the States.—Reason of this.—Anglo-Americans will naturally supply the wants of the inhabitants of South America.—They will become, like the English, the factors of a great portion of the world.

The coast of the United States, from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine River in the Gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand miles in extent. These shores form an unbroken line, and they are all subject to the same Government. No nation in the world possesses vaster, deeper, or more secure ports for shipping than the Americans.

The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated country, at a distance of three thousand miles from the central point of civilization. America consequently stands in daily need of European trade. The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately succeed in producing or manufacturing at home most of the articles which they require; but the two continents can never be independent of each other, so numerous are the natural ties which exist between their wants, their ideas, their ha. hits, and their manners.

The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now become necessary to us, but which cannot be cultivated, or can only be raised at an enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe. The Americans

only consume a small portion of this produce, and they are willing to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore the market of America, as America is the market of Europe; and maritime commerce is no less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the United States to transport their raw materials to the ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with our manufactured produce. The United States were therefore necessarily reduced to the alternative of increasing the business of other maritime nations to a great extent, if they had themselves declined to enter into commerce, as the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done; or, in the second place, of becoming one of the first trading powers of the globe.

The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided taste for the sea. The Declaration of Independence broke the commercial restrictions which united them to England, and gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. Ever since that time, the shipping of the Union has increased in almost the same rapid proportion as the number of its inhabitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their own shores nine tenths of the European produce which they consume. And they also bring three quarters of the exports of the New World to the European consumer.† The ships of the United States fill the docks of Havre and of Liverpool; while the number of English and French vessels which are to be seen at New York is comparatively small.‡

**

Thus, not only does the American merchant face competition in his own country, but he even supports that of foreign nations in their own ports with success. This is readily explained by the fact that the ves

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

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

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

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