Public Opinion In America Has Hitherto
Been Nothing, Unless It Has Managed To Express Itself By A Majority
Of Ballot-Boxes.
Public opinion in England is everything, let
votes go as they may.
Let the people want a measure, and there is
no doubt of their obtaining it. Only the people must want it - as
they did want Catholic emancipation, reform, and corn-law repeal,
and as they would want war if it were brought home to them that
their country was insulted.
In attempting to describe this difference in the political action
of the two countries, I am very far from taking all praise for
England or throwing any reproach on the States. The political
action of the States is undoubtedly the more logical and the
clearer. That, indeed, of England is so illogical and so little
clear that it would be quite impossible for any other nation to
assume it, merely by resolving to do so. Whereas the political
action of the States might be assumed by any nation to-morrow, and
all its strength might be carried across the water in a few written
rules as are the prescriptions of a physician or the regulations of
an infirmary. With us the thing has grown of habit, has been
fostered by tradition, has crept up uncared for, and in some parts
unnoticed. It can be written in no book, can be described in no
words, can be copied by no statesmen, and I almost believe can be
understood by no people but that to whose peculiar uses it has been
adapted.
In speaking as I have here done of American taste and American
politics, I must allude to a special class of Americans who are to
be met more generally in New York than elsewhere - men who are
educated, who have generally traveled, who are almost always
agreeable, but who, as regards their politics, are to me the most
objectionable of all men. As regards taste they are objectionable
to me also. But that is a small thing; and as they are quite as
likely to be right as I am, I will say nothing against their taste.
But in politics it seems to me that these men have fallen into the
bitterest and perhaps into the basest of errors. Of the man who
begins his life with mean political ideas, having sucked them in
with his mother's milk, there may be some hope. The evil is at any
rate the fault of his forefathers rather than of himself. But who
can have hope of him who, having been thrown by birth and fortune
into the running river of free political activity, has allowed
himself to be drifted into the stagnant level of general political
servility? There are very many such Americans. They call
themselves republicans, and sneer at the idea of a limited
monarchy, but they declare that there is no republic so safe, so
equal for all men, so purely democratic as that now existing in
France. Under the French Empire all men are equal. There is no
aristocracy; no oligarchy; no overshadowing of the little by the
great. One superior is admitted - admitted on earth, as a superior
is also admitted in heaven. Under him everything is level, and,
provided he be not impeded, everything is free. He knows how to
rule, and the nation, allowing him the privilege of doing so, can
go along its course safely; can eat, drink, and be merry. If few
men can rise high, so also can few men fall low. Political
equality is the one thing desirable in a commonwealth, and by this
arrangement political equality is obtained. Such is the modern
creed of many an educated republican of the States.
To me it seems that such a political state is about the vilest to
which a man can descend. It amounts to a tacit abandonment of the
struggle which men are making for political truth and political
beneficence, in order that bread and meat may be eaten in peace
during the score of years or so that are at the moment passing over
us. The politicians of this class have decided for themselves that
the summum bonum is to be found in bread and the circus games. If
they be free to eat, free to rest, free to sleep, free to drink
little cups of coffee, while the world passes before them, on a
boulevard, they have that freedom which they covet. But equality
is necessary as well as freedom. There must be no towering trees
in this parterre to overshadow the clipped shrubs, and destroy the
uniformity of a growth which should never mount more than two feet
above the earth. The equality of this politician would forbid any
to rise above him instead of inviting all to rise up to him. It is
the equality of fear and of selfishness, and not the equality of
courage and philanthropy. And brotherhood, too, must be invoked -
fraternity as we may better call it in the jargon of the school.
Such politicians tell one much of fraternity, and define it too.
It consists in a general raising of the hat to all mankind; in a
daily walk that never hurries itself into a jostling trot,
inconvenient to passengers on the pavement; in a placid voice, a
soft smile, and a small cup of coffee on a boulevard. It means all
this, but I could never find that it meant any more. There is a
nation for which one is almost driven to think that such political
aspirations as these are suitable; but that nation is certainly not
the States of America.
And yet one finds many American gentlemen who have allowed
themselves to be drifted into such a theory. They have begun the
world as republican citizens, and as such they must go on. But in
their travels and their studies, and in the luxury of their life,
they have learned to dislike the rowdiness of their country's
politics.
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