As I Walked Up And Down The Deck Of
The Steamboat I Confess I Felt That I Had Been Somewhat Arrogant.
I had been a few days over six months in the States, and I was
engaged in writing a book of such a nature that a man might well
engage himself for six years, or perhaps for sixty, in obtaining the
materials for it.
There was nothing in the form of government, or
legislature, or manners of the people as to which I had not taken
upon myself to say something. I was professing to understand their
strength and their weakness; and was daring to censure their faults
and to eulogize their virtues. "Who is he," an American would say,
"that he comes and judges us? His judgment is nothing." "Who is
he," an Englishman would say, "that he comes and teaches us? His
teaching is of no value."
In answer to this I have but a small plea to make - I have done my
best. I have nothing "extenuated, and have set down naught in
malice." I do feel that my volumes have blown themselves out into
proportions greater than I had intended; greater not in mass of
pages, but in the matter handled. I am frequently addressing my own
muse, who I am well aware is not Clio, and asking her whither she is
wending. "Cease, thou wrong-headed one, to meddle with these
mysteries." I appeal to her frequently, but ever in vain. One
cannot drive one's muse, nor yet always lead her. Of the various
women with which a man is blessed, his muse is by no means the least
difficult to manage.
But again I put in my slight plea. In doing as I have done, I have
at least done my best. I have endeavored to judge without
prejudice, and to hear with honest ears and to see with honest eyes.
The subject, moreover, on which I have written is one which, though
great, is so universal in its bearings that it may be said to admit,
without impropriety, of being handled by the unlearned as well as
the learned; by those who have grown gray in the study of
constitutional lore, and by those who have simply looked on at the
government of men as we all look on at those matters which daily
surround us. There are matters as to which a man should never take
a pen in hand unless he has given to them much labor. The botanist
must have learned to trace the herbs and flowers before he can
presume to tell us how God has formed them. But the death of Hector
is a fit subject for a boy's verses, though Homer also sang of it.
I feel that there is scope for a book on the United States form of
government as it was founded, and as it has since framed itself,
which might do honor to the life-long studies of some one of those
great constitutional pundits whom we have among us; but,
nevertheless, the plain words of a man who is no pundit need not
disgrace the subject, if they be honestly written, and if he who
writes them has in his heart an honest love of liberty. Such were
my thoughts as I walked the deck of the Cunard steamer. Then I
descended to my cabin, settled my luggage, and prepared a table for
the continuance of my work. It was fourteen days from that time
before I reached London, but the fourteen days to me were not
unpleasant. The demon of sea-sickness spares me always, and if I
can find on board one or two who are equally fortunate - who can eat
with me, drink with me, and talk with me - I do not know that a
passage across the Atlantic is by any means a terrible evil to me.
In finishing these volumes after the fashion in which they have been
written throughout, I feel that I am bound to express a fixed
opinion on two or three points, and that if I have not enabled
myself to do so, I have traveled through the country in vain. I am
bound by the very nature of my undertaking to say whether, according
to such view as I have enabled myself to take of them, the Americans
have succeeded as a nation politically and socially; and in doing
this I ought to be able to explain how far slavery has interfered
with such success. I am bound also, writing at the present moment,
to express some opinion as to the result of this war, and to declare
whether the North or the South may be expected to be victorious -
explaining in some rough way what may be the results of such
victory, and how such results will affect the question of slavery;
and I shall leave my task unfinished if I do not say what may be the
possible chances of future quarrel between England and the States.
That there has been and is much hot blood and angry feeling, no man
doubts; but such angry feeling has existed among many nations
without any probability of war. In this case, with reference to
this ill will that has certainly established itself between us and
that other people, is there any need that it should be satisfied by
war and allayed by blood?
No one, I think, can doubt that the founders of the great American
Commonwealth made an error in omitting to provide some means for the
gradual extinction of slavery throughout the States. That error did
not consist in any liking for slavery. There was no feeling in
favor of slavery on the part of those who made themselves prominent
at the political birth of the nation. I think I shall be justified
in saying that at that time the opinion that slavery is itself a
good thing, that it is an institution of divine origin and fit to be
perpetuated among men as in itself excellent, had not found that
favor in the Southern States in which it is now held.
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