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

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 Iv��nofka 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 houses of gentlemen stand quite apart in the country, perhaps out of sight of one another, and surrounded by very extensive grounds. The origin of the village, in a mere aggregation of tenants of the lord of the manor, is thus vividly suggested. In France one is still more