In Some Of Our Agricultural Districts; But Also, I Think,
There Is Less Of Respect And Veneration For God's Word Among Their
Educated Classes Than There Is With Us; And, Perhaps, Also Less
Knowledge As To God's Word.
The general religious level is, I
think, higher with them; but there is, if I am right in my
supposition, with us a higher eminence in religion, as there is also
a deeper depth of ungodliness.
I think, then, that we are bound to acknowledge that the Americans
have succeeded as a nation, politically and socially. When I speak
of social success, I do not mean to say that their manners are
correct according to this or that standard; I will not say that they
are correct or are not correct. In that matter of manners I have
found those with whom it seemed to me natural that I should
associate very pleasant according to my standard. I do not know
that I am a good critic on such a subject, or that I have ever
thought much of it with the view of criticising; I have been happy
and comfortable with them, and for me that has been sufficient. In
speaking of social success I allude to their success in private life
as distinguished from that which they have achieved in public life;
to their successes in commerce, in mechanics, in the comforts and
luxuries of life, in physic and all that leads to the solace of
affliction, in literature, and I may add also, considering the youth
of the nation, in the arts. We are, I think, bound to acknowledge
that they have succeeded. And if they have succeeded, it is vain
for us to say that a system is wrong which has, at any rate,
admitted of such success. That which was wanted from some form of
government, has been obtained with much more than average
excellence; and therefore the form adopted has approved itself as
good. You may explain to a farmer's wife, with indisputable logic,
that her churn is a bad churn; but as long as she turns out butter
in greater quantity, in better quality, and with more profit than
her neighbors, you will hardly induce her to change it. It may be
that with some other churn she might have done even better; but,
under such circumstances, she will have a right to think well of the
churn she uses.
The American Constitution is now, I think, at the crisis of its
severest trial. I conceive it to be by no means perfect, even for
the wants of the people who use it; and I have already endeavored to
explain what changes it seems to need. And it has had this defect -
that it has permitted a falling away from its intended modes of
action, while its letter has been kept sacred. As I have endeavored
to show, universal suffrage and democratic action in the Senate were
not intended by the framers of the Constitution.
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