I Saw Less Difference Between Edinburgh And Boston,
Than Between Boston And Chicago; The Dark-Haired Celts Of The West
Of
Scotland, and the stirring artisans of our manufacturing cities, have more
in common than the descendants of the Puritans
In New England, and the
reckless, lawless inhabitants of the newly-settled territories west of the
Mississippi. It must not be forgotten that the thirty-two States of which
the Union is composed, may be considered in some degree as separate
countries, each possessing its governor and assembly, and framing, to a
considerable extent, its own laws. Beyond the voice which each State
possesses in the Congress and Senate at Washington, there is apparently
little to bind this vast community together; there is no national form of
religion, or state endowed church; Unitarianism may be the prevailing
faith in one State. Presbyterianism in another, and Universalism in a
third; while between the Northern and Southern States there is as wide a
difference as between England and Russia - a difference stamped on the very
soil itself, and which, in the opinion of some, threatens a disseverance
of the Union.
Other causes also produce highly distinctive features in the inhabitants.
In the long-settled districts bordering upon the Atlantic, all the
accompaniments and appliances of civilisation may be met with, and a
comparatively stationary, refined, and intellectual condition of society.
Travel for forty hours to the westward, and everything is in a transition
state: there are rough roads and unfinished railroads; foundations of
cities laid in soil scarcely cleared from the forest; splendid hotels
within sound of the hunter's rifle and the lumberer's axe; while the
elements of society are more chaotic than the features of the country.
Every year a tide of emigration rolls westward, not from Europe only, but
from the crowded eastern cities, forming a tangled web of races, manners,
and religions which the hasty observer cannot attempt to disentangle.
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