Life and liberty in America: or Sketches of a Tour in the United States, 1858 by Charles Mackay
As the venerable statesman truly observes, the United States incur no danger from foreign aggressions; there is no one to injure them but themselves; and they have nothing to fear but "the just judgments of God." But this is only a portion of the subject, and the questions still remain, Will they not injure themselves? And, will they not incur the judgments of God by contravention of his moral laws, and by their lust of territory—bringing them into collision with foreign Powers? That the people will increase and multiply and replenish the whole continent no one can doubt: and that in the course of ages North America will be as populous as Europe, and reach a far higher civilization than Asia ever attained even in the pre-historic ages, which have left us no other records but their marvellous architectural ruins, it would be a want of faith in the civilizing influences of freedom and Christianity to deny. But in speculating upon the future of a people the mind clings to the idea of Empire and Government—and we ask ourselves whether Empire in this noble region will be one or many—central or local—imperial or republican? Whether the great Republic shall exist undivided, or whether it will fall to pieces from its own weight and unwieldiness, or from some weakness in the chain which shall be the measure and the test of its strength? Or whether for mutual convenience, and by common consent, these AngloSaxon commonwealths—when they have doubled, trebled, or quintupled their numbers by the subjugation of the entire wilderness—shall not re-arrange themselves into new combinations, and form a binary or a trinary system, such as the telescope shows us in the heavens? Or whether, in consequence of internal strife, some new Alexander, Charlemagne, or Napoleon of the West, shall arise to make himself lord absolute and hereditary? and at his death leave the inheritance to be scrambled for and divided by his generals? Though it may be folly to attempt to look too far into the future, or for a statesman to legislate with a view to what may or what may not happen a hundred and fifty years hence, still true wisdom requires that men charged with the destinies of great nations, and having the power to influence the course of events by their deeds and their opinions, should not confine themselves to the things of to-day, but calculate by aid of the experience of history, and by knowledge and study of human nature, how the deeds of to-day may influence the thoughts of to-morrow, and how the thoughts of to-morrow may produce deeds in endless succession through all future time.
That the Union may be disturbed or disrupted at some period near or remote, is an idea familiar to the mind of every inquirer and observer; and were it not so the very threats of the North or South, meaningless as they may be at the present tune, would serve to make it so. Mr. Buchanan, the actual President, whose perceptions have beea enlarged by European travel and residence, and whose mind is not entirely enclosed within an American wall, as the minds of some of his countrymen are, is among the number of statesmen in the Union whose eyes are opened to the dangers which it may incur hereafter when population lias largely increased, and when the struggle for existence—now so light in such a boundless and fertile region—has become as fierce and bitter as in Europe. It is, after all, the hungry belly of the people, and not the heads of legislators, that tries the strength of political systems: and when all the land is occupied, and has become too dear for the struggling fanner or artizan to purchase; when the starving man or the pauper has a vote equally with the well-fed and the contented proprietor; and when the criminal counts at an election for as much as an honest man—what may be the result of universal suffrage on the constitution of the Republic and the stability of the Union?....
But a greater danger even than this—the most formidable of all the rocks that are ahead—is the growth of peculation and corruption, and the decay of public virtue. A republic is, theoretically, the purest and most perfect form of Government, but it requires eminently pure men to work it. A corrupt monarchy or despotism may last for a long time without fatal results to the body politic, just as a man may live a long time, and be a very satisfactory citizen, with only one arm, one leg, or one eye. In despotic countries the people may be virtuous, though the Government is vicious; but a corrupt republic is tainted in its blood, and bears the seeds of death in every pulsation. And on this point Mr. Buchanan seems to have a clearer vision than many of his countrymen. The Presidential chair, like the tripod of the Pythoness, gives an insight into things. He knows by the daily and hourly solicitations of political mendicancy—by the clerkship demanded for this man's son, or for that man's cousin—by the consulship required for this brawler at a meeting,and the ambassadorship to London or Paris, or a place in the Ministry claimed by this indomitable partizan or that indefatigable knocker and ringer at the door of promotion—how corrupt are the agencies at work. He knows, too, what personal humiliation he himself had to undergo before reaching the White House, and which he must daily suffer, if he would please his party. He knows, as every President must know, no matter who or what he is, or what his antecedents may have been, what a vast amount of venality has to be conciliated and paid—one way or another—before the hungry maw of Universal Suffrage can be fed and satisfied, and the wheels of the great car of the Republic be sufficiently greased. In reference to this fever in the blood of the State, he thus solemnly warns the citizens in the letter from which quotation has already been made:— "I shall assume the privilege of advancing years in reference to another growing and dangerous evil. In the last age, although our fathers, like ourselves, were divided into political parties which often had severe conflicts with each other, yet we never heard until within a recent period of the employment of money to carry elections. Should this practice increase until the voters and their representatives in the State and National Legislatures shall become infected, the fountain of free government will be poisoned at its source, and we must end, as history proves, in a military despotism. A democratic republic, all agree, cannot long survive unless sustained by public virtue. When this is corrupted, and the people become venal, there is a canker at the root of the tree of liberty which will cause it to wither and to die."
For the utterance of truths like these, and as if to prove, without intending it, and by a very roundabout method, that they are truths, although unpalateable, Mr. Buchanan has been held up to ridicule by his party opponents, condemned as an "old fogey," and proclaimed to be too slow for the age in which he lives. But if corruption have attained its present growth with a population so scant, in a country by the cultivation of which ten times the number could live honestly and independently, if they trusted to hard work, and not to intrigue, for the means of subsistence; what will be the extent of corruption fifty years hence? Shall a despotism attempt a remedy worse than the disease? Or will the patient be warned of the evil of his ways, and amend his life in time? Life and liberty in America: or ... - Google Books
