American Political Ideas Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History | Page 4

Unprecedented military strength shown by this most pacific and
industrial of peoples. Improbability of any future attempt to break up
the Federal Union. Stupendous future of the English race,--in Africa, in
Australia, and in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Future of the English
language. Probable further adoption of federalism. Probable effects
upon Europe of industrial competition with the United States:
impossibility of keeping up the present military armaments. The States
of Europe will be forced, by pressure of circumstances, into some kind
of federal union. A similar process will go on until the whole of
mankind shall constitute a single political body, and warfare shall
disappear forever from the face of the earth.

AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS.

I.
_THE TOWN-MEETING._
The traveller from the Old World, who has a few weeks at his disposal
for a visit to the United States, usually passes straight from one to
another of our principal cities, such as Boston, New York, Washington,
or Chicago, stopping for a day or two perhaps at Niagara Falls,--or,
perhaps, after traversing a distance like that which separates England
from Mesopotamia, reaches the vast table-lands of the Far West and
inspects their interesting fauna of antelopes and buffaloes, red Indians
and Mormons. In a journey of this sort one gets a very superficial view
of the peculiarities, physical and social, which characterize the different
portions of our country; and in this there is nothing to complain of,
since the knowledge gained in a vacation-journey cannot well be
expected to be thorough or profound. The traveller, however, who

should visit the United States in a more leisurely way, with the purpose
of increasing his knowledge of history and politics, would find it well
to proceed somewhat differently. He would find himself richly repaid
for a sojourn in some insignificant place the very name of which is
unknown beyond sea,--just as Mr. Mackenzie Wallace--whose book on
Russia is a model of what such books should be--got so much
invaluable experience from his months of voluntary exile at Ivánofka in
the province of Novgorod. Out of the innumerable places which one
might visit in America, there are none which would better reward such
careful observation, or which are more full of interest for the
comparative historian, than the rural towns and mountain villages of
New England; that part of English America which is oldest in
civilization (though not in actual date of settlement), and which, while
most completely English in blood and in traditions, is at the same time
most completely American in so far as it has most distinctly illustrated
and most successfully represented those political ideas which have
given to American history its chief significance in the general work of
civilization.
The United States are not unfrequently spoken of as a "new country," in
terms which would be appropriate if applied to Australia or New
Zealand, and which are not inappropriate as applied to the vast region
west of the Mississippi River, where the white man had hardly set foot
before the beginning of the present century. New England, however,
has a history which carries us back to the times of James I.; and while
its cities are full of such bustling modern life as one sees in Liverpool
or Manchester or Glasgow, its rural towns show us much that is
old-fashioned in aspect,--much that one can approach in an antiquarian
spirit. We are there introduced to a phase of social life which is highly
interesting on its own account and which has played an important part
in the world, yet which, if not actually passing away, is at least
becoming so rapidly modified as to afford a theme for grave reflections
to those who have learned how to appreciate its value. As any
far-reaching change in the condition of landed property in England, due
to agricultural causes, might seriously affect the position of one of the
noblest and most useful aristocracies that has ever existed; so, on the
other hand, as we consider the possible action of similar causes upon

the personnel and upon the occupations of rural New England, we are
unwillingly forced to contemplate the possibility of a deterioration in
the character of the most perfect democracy the world has ever seen.
In the outward aspect of a village in Massachusetts or Connecticut, the
feature which would be most likely first to impress itself upon the mind
of a visitor from England is the manner in which the village is laid out
and built. Neither in England nor anywhere else in western Europe
have I ever met with a village of the New England type. In English
villages one finds small houses closely crowded together, sometimes in
blocks of ten or a dozen, and inhabited by people belonging to the
lower orders of society; while the fine