Diary in America, Series One | Page 6

others who ten years back had no prospect of ever being
admitted. All is transition, the waves follow one another to the far west,
the froth and scum, boiling in the advance.
America is, indeed, well worth the study of the philosopher. A vast
nation forming, society ever changing, all in motion and activity,
nothing complete, the old continent pouring in her surplus to supply the
loss of the eastern states, all busy as a hive, full of energy and activity.
Every year multitudes swarm off from the east, like bees: not the young
only, but the old, quitting the close-built cities, society, and refinement,
to settle down in some lone spot in the vast prairies, where the rich soil
offers to them the certain prospect of their families and children being
one day possessed of competency and wealth.

To write upon America as a nation would be absurd, for nation,
properly speaking, it is not; but to consider it in its present chaotic state,
is well worth the labour. It would not only exhibit to the living a
somewhat new picture of the human mind, but, as a curious page in the
Philosophy of History, it would hereafter serve as a subject of review
for the Americans themselves.
It is not my intention to follow the individualising plans of the majority
of those who have preceded me in this country. I did not sail across the
Atlantic to ascertain whether the Americans eat their dinners with
two-prong iron, or three-prong silver forks, with chopsticks, or their
fingers; it is quite sufficient for me to know that they do eat and drink;
if they did not, it would be a curious anomaly which I should not pass
over. My object was, to examine and ascertain what were the effects of
a democratic form of government and climate upon a people which,
with all its foreign admixture, may still be considered as English.
It is a fact that our virtues and our vices depend more upon
circumstances than upon ourselves, and there are no circumstances
which operate so powerfully upon us as government and climate. Let it
not be supposed that, in the above assertion, I mean to extenuate vice,
or imply that we are not free agents. Naturally prone to vices in general,
circumstances will render us more prone to one description of vice than
to another; but that is no reason why we should not be answerable for it,
since it is our duty to guard against the besetting sin. But as an agent in
this point the form of government under which we live is, perhaps, the
most powerful in its effects, and thus we constantly hear of vices
peculiar to a country, when it ought rather to be said, of vices peculiar
to a government.
Never, perhaps, was the foundation of a nation laid under such
peculiarly favourable auspices as that of America. The capital they
commenced with was industry, activity, and courage. They had,
moreover, the advantage of the working of genius and wisdom, and the
records of history, as a beacon and a guide; the trial of ages, as to the
respective merits of the various governments to which men have
submitted; the power to select the merits from the demerits in each; a

boundless extent of country, rich in everything that could be of
advantage to man; and they were led by those who where really giants
in those days, a body of men collected and acting together, forming an
aggregate of wisdom and energy, such as probably will not for
centuries be seen again. Never was there such an opportunity of testing
the merits of a republic, of ascertaining if such a form of government
could be maintained--in fact, of proving whether an enlightened people
could govern themselves. And it must be acknowledged that the work
was well begun; Washington, when his career had closed, left the
country a pure republic. He did all that man could do. Miss Martineau
asserts that "America has solved the great problem, that a republic can
exist for fifty years;" but such is not the case. America has proved that,
under peculiar advantages, a people can govern themselves for fifty
years; but if you put the question to an enlightened American, and ask
him, "Were Washington to rise from his grave, would he recognise the
present government of America as the one bequeathed to them?" and
the American will himself answer in the negative. These fifty years
have afforded another proof, were it necessary, how short-sighted and
fallible are men--how impossible it is to keep anything in a state of
perfection here below. Washington left America as an infant nation, a
pure and, I may add, a virtuous republic; but the government of the
country has undergone as much