of a tyrannical majority rather than the _representatives_ of the people.
The mil ion succeeds in exacting an amount of cringing political subserviency, in attempting to obtain which, in a like degree, few despots have been successful.
The absence of a property qualification, the short term for which the representatives are chosen, and the want, in many instances, of a pecuniary independence among them, combined with a variety of other circumstances, place the members of the Legislatures under the direct control of the populace; they are its servile tools, and are subject to its wayward impulses and its proverbial fickleness; hence the remarkable absence of any fixed line of policy. The public acts of America are isolated; they appear to be framed for the necessities of the moment, under the influence of popular clamour or pressure; and sometimes seem neither to recognise engagements entered into in the past, or the probable course of events in the future. America does not possess a traditional policy, and she does not recognise any broad and wel -defined principle as the rule for her conduct. The national acts of spoliation or meanness which have been sanctioned by the Legislature may be distinctly traced to the manner in which the primary elections are conducted. It is difficult, if not impossible, for the European governments to do more than guess at the part which America will take on any great question--whether, in the event of a collision between nations, she wil observe an impartial neutrality, or throw the weight of her influence into the scale of liberty or despotism.
It is to be feared that political morality is in a very low state. The bal ot secures the electors from even the breath of censure by making them irresponsible; few men dare to be independent. The plea of expediency is often used in extenuation of the grossest political dishonesty. To obtain political favour or position a man must stoop very low; he must cultivate the good wil of the ignorant and the vicious; he must excite and minister to the passions of the people; he must flatter the bad, and assail the honourable with unmerited opprobrium. While he makes the assertion that his country has a monopoly of liberty, the very plan which he is pursuing shows that it is fettered by mob rule. No honourable man can use these arts, which are, however, a high-road to political eminence. It is scarcely necessary to remark upon the effect which is produced in society general y by this political corruption.
The want of a general and high standard of morality is very apparent. That dishonesty which is so notoriously and often successful y practised in political life is not excluded from the dealings of man with man.
It is jested about under the name of "smartness," and commended under that of "cuteness," till the rule becomes of frequent and practical application, that the disgrace attending a dishonourable transaction lies only in its detection,--that a line of conduct which custom has sanctioned in public life cannot be very blameable in individual action.
While the avenues to distinction in public life are in great measure closed against men of honour, wealth offers a sure road to eminence, and the acquisition of it is the great object fol owed. It is often sought and obtained by means from which considerations of honesty and morality are omitted; but there is not, as with us, that righteous censorship of public opinion which brands dishonesty with infamy, and places the offender apart, in a splendid leprosy, from the society to which he hoped wealth would be a passport. If you listen to the conversation in cars, steamboats, and hotels, you become painful y impressed with the absence of moral truth which pervades the country. The success of Barnum, the immense popularity of his infamous autobiography, and the pride which large numbers feel in his success, instance the perverted moral sense which is very much the result of the absence of principle in public life; for the example of men in the highest positions in a state must influence the masses powerfully either for good or evil. A species of moral obliquity pervades a large class of the community, by which the individuals composing it are prevented from discerning between truth and falsehood, except as either tends to their own personal aggrandisement. Thus truth is at a fearful discount, and men exult in successful roguery, as though a new revelation had authorised them to rank it among the cardinal virtues.
These remarks apply to a class, unfortunately a very numerous one, of the existence of which none are more painfully conscious than the good among the Americans themselves. Of the upper class of merchants, manufacturers, shipbuilders, &c., it would be difficult to speak too highly. They have acquired a world-wide reputation for their uprightness, punctuality, and honourable dealings in al mercantile transactions.
The oppression which is exercised by a tyrant majority is one leading cause of the numerous political associations which exist in the States.
They are the weapons with which the weaker side combats the numerically superior party. When a number of persons hit upon a grievance, real or supposed, they unite themselves into a society, and invite delegates from other districts. With a celerity which can scarcely be imagined, declarations are issued and papers established advocating party views; public meetings are held, and a complete organization is secured, with ramifications extending al over the country. A formidable and compact body thus arises, and it occasionally happens that such a society, originating in the weakness of a minority, becomes strong enough to dictate a course of action to the Executive.
Of all the associations ever formed, none promised to exercise so important an influence as that of the Know-nothings, or the American party. It arose out of the terrific spread of a recognised evil--namely, the power exercised upon the Legislature by foreigners, more especial y by the Irish Romanists. The great influx of aliens, chiefly Irish and Germans, who speedily or unscrupulously obtain the franchise, had caused much alarm throughout the country. It was seen that the former, being under the temporal and spiritual domination of their priests, and through them under an Italian prince, were exerting a most baneful influence upon the republican institutions of the States. Already in two or more States the Romanists had organised themselves to interfere with the management of the public schools. This alarm paved the way for the rapid extension of the new party, which first made its appearance before men's eyes with a secret organization and enormous political machinery. Its success was unprecedented. Favoured by the secresy of the bal ot, it succeeded in placing its nominees in al the responsible offices in several of the States. Other parties appeared paralysed, and men yielded before a mysterious power of whose real strength they were in complete ignorance.
The avowed objects of the Know-nothings were to establish new naturalization laws, prohibiting any from acquiring the franchise without a residence of twenty-one years in the States--to procure the exclusion of Romanists from al public offices--to restore the working of the constitution to its original purity--and to guarantee to the nation religious freedom, a free Bible, and free schools; in fact, to secure to _Americans_ the right which they are in danger of ceasing to possess--
namely, that of governing themselves.
The objects avowed in the preliminary address were high and holy; they stirred the patriotism of those who writhed under the tyranny of an heterogeneous majority, while the mystery of nocturnal meetings, and a secret organization, conciliated the support of the young and ardent. For a time a hope was afforded of the revival of a pure form of republican government, but unfortunately the Know-nothing party contained the elements of dissolution within itself. Some of its principles savoured of intolerance, and of persecution for religious opinions, and it ignored the subject of slavery. This can never be long excluded from any party consideration, and, though politicians strive to evade it, the question still recurs, and will force itself into notice. Little more than a year after the Know-nothings were first heard of, they came into col ision with the subject, in the summer of 1855, and, after stormy dissensions at their great convention, broke up into several branches, some of which totally altered or abandoned the original objects of their association.
Their triumph was brief: some of the States in which they were the most successful have witnessed their signal overthrow, [Footnote: At several of the state elections at the close of 1855 the Know-nothings succeeded in placing their nominees in public offices, partly by an abandonment of some of their original aims.] and it is to be feared that no practical good wil result from their future operations. But the good cause of constitutional government in America is not lost with their failure--
public opinion, whenever it shall be fairly appealed to, will declare itself in favour of truth and order; the conservative principle, though dormant, is yet powerful; and, though we may smile at republican inconsistencies, and regret the state into which republican government has fal en, it is likely that America contains the elements of renovation within herself, and will yet present to the world the sublime spectacle of a free people governing itself by just laws, and rejoicing in the purity of its original republican institutions.
The newspaper press is one of the most extraordinary features in the United States. Its influence is omnipresent. Every party in religion, politics, or morals, speaks, not by one, but by fifty organs; and every nicely defined shade of opinion has its voices also. Every town of large size has from ten to twenty daily papers; every vil age has its three or four; and even a col ection of huts produces its one "daily," or two or three "weeklies." These prints start into existence without any fiscal restrictions: there is neither stamp nor paper duty. Newspapers are not a luxury, as with us, but a necessary of life. They vary in price from one halfpenny to threepence, and no workman who could afford his daily bread would think of being without his paper. Hundreds of them are sold in the hotels at breakfast-time; and in every steamer and railway car, from the Atlantic ocean to the western prairies, the traveller is assailed by newsboys with dozens of them for sale. They are bought in hundreds everywhere, and are greedily devoured by men, women, and children. Almost as soon as the locality of a town is chosen, a paper starts into life, which always has the effect of creating an antagonist.
The newspapers in the large cities spare no expense in obtaining, either by telegraph or otherwise, the earliest intel igence of al that goes on in the world. Every item of English news appears in the journals, from the movements of the court to those of the _literati_; and a weekly summary of parliamentary intel igence is always given. Any remarkable law proceedings are also succinctly detailed. It follows, that a dweller at Cincinnati or New Orleans is nearly as wel versed in English affairs as a resident of Birmingham, and English politics and movements in general are very frequent subjects of conversation. Since the commencement of the Russian war the anxiety for English intel igence has increased, and every item of Crimean or Baltic news, as recorded in the letters of the "special correspondents," is reprinted in the American papers without abridgment, and is devoured by all classes of readers. The great fault of most of these journals is their gross personality; even the privacy of domestic life is invaded by their Argus-eyed scrutiny. The papers discern everything, and, as everybody reads, no current events, whether in politics, religion, or the world at large, are unknown to the masses. The contents of an American paper are very miscellaneous. Besides the news of the day, it contains congressional and legal reports, exciting fiction, and reports of sermons, religious discussions, and religious anniversaries. It prys into every department of society, and informs its readers as to the doings and condition of al .
Thus every party and sect has a daily register of the most minute sayings and doings, and proceedings and progress of every other sect; and as truth and error are continual y brought before the masses, they have the opportunity to know and compare. There are political parties under the names of Whigs, Democrats, Know-nothings, Freesoilers, Fusionists, Hunkers, Woolly-heads, Dough-faces, Hard-shel s, Soft-shells, Silver-greys, and I know not what besides; al of them extremely puzzling to the stranger, but of great local significance. There are about a hundred so-called religious denominations, from the orthodox bodies and their subdivisions to those professing the lawless fanaticism of Mormonism, or the chilling dogmas of Atheism. Al these parties have their papers, and each "movement" has its organ. The "Woman's Right Movement" and the
"Spiritual Manifestation Movement" have several.
There is a continual multiplication of papers, corresponding, not only to the increase of population, but to that of parties and vagaries. The increasing call for editors and writers brings persons into their ranks who have neither the education nor the intel igence to fit them for so important an office as the _irresponsible guidance_ of the people. They make up for their deficiencies in knowledge and talent by fiery and unprincipled partisanship, and augment the passions and prejudices of their readers instead of placing the truth before them. The war carried on between papers of opposite principles is something perfectly terrific. The existence of many of these prints depends on the violent passions which they may excite in their supporters, and frequently the editors are men of the most unprincipled character. The papers advocating the opinions of the different religious denominations are not exempt from the charge of personalities and abusive writing. No discord is so dread as that carried on under the cloak of religion, and religious journalism in the States is on a superlatively bitter footing.
But evil as is, to a great extent, the influence exercised by the press, terrible as is its scrutiny, and unlimited as is its power, destitute of principle as it is in great measure, it has its bright as wel as its dark side. Theories, opinions, men, and things, are examined into and sifted until al can understand their truth and error. The argument of antiquity or authority is exploded and ridiculed, and the men who seek to sustain antiquated error on the foundation of effete tradition are compelled to prove it by scripture or reason. Yet such are the multitudinous and tortuous ways in which everything is discussed, that multitudes of persons who have neither the leisure nor ability to reflect for themselves know not what to believe, and there is a very obvious absence of attachment to clear and strongly defined principles. The great circulation which the newspapers enjoy may be gathered, without giving copious statistics, from the fact that one out of the many New York journals has a circulation of 187,000 copies. [Footnote: There are now about 400 daily newspapers in the States: their aggregate circulation is over 800,000 copies. There are 2217
weekly papers, with an aggregate circulation of 3,100,057 copies; and the total aggregate circulation of al the prints is about 5,400,000 copies.
In one year about 423,000,000 copies of newspapers were printed and circulated.] The _New York Tribune_ may be considered the "leading journal" of America, but it adheres to one set of principles, and Mr.
Horace Greely, the editor, has the credit of being a powerful advocate of the claims of morality and humanity.
It is impossible for a stranger to form any estimate of the influence really possessed by religion in America. I saw nothing which led me to doubt the assertion made by persons who have opportunities of forming an opinion, that "America and Scotland are the two most religious countries in the world."
The Sabbath is well observed, not only, as might be expected, in the New England States, but in the large cities of the Union; and even on the coasts of the Pacific the Legislature of California has passed an act for its better observance in that State. It is probable that, in a country where business pursuits and keen competition are carried to such an unheard-of extent, al classes feel the need of rest on the seventh day, and regard the Sabbath as a physical necessity. The churches of all denominations are fil ed to overflowing; the proportion of communicants to attendants is very large; and the foreign missions, and other religious societies, are supported on a scale of remarkable liberality.
There is no established church or dominant religious persuasion in the States. There are no national endowments; al are on the same footing, and live or die as they obtain the suffrages of the people. While the State does not recognise any one form of religion, it might be expected that she would assist the ministers of al . Such is not the case; and, though Government has wisely thought it necessary to provide for the education of the people, it has not thought it advisable to make any provision for the maintenance of religion. Every one worships after his own fashion; the sects are numerous and subdivided; and all enjoy the blessings of a complete religious toleration.
Strange sects have arisen, the very names of which are scarcely known in England, and each has numerous adherents. It may be expected that fanaticism would run to a great height in the States. Among the 100
different denominations which are returned in the census tables, the fol owing designations occur: Mormonites, Antiburgers, Believers in God, Children of Peace, Disunionists; Danian, Democratic Gospel, and Ebenezer Socialists; Free Inquirers, Inspired Church, Mil erites, Menonites, New Lights, Perfectionists, Pathonites, Pantheists, Tunkards, Restorationists, Superalists, Cosmopolites, and hosts of others.
The clergy depend for their salaries upon the congregations for whom they officiate, and upon private endowments. The total value of church property in the United States is estimated at 86,416,639 dollars, of which one-half is owned in the States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. The number of churches, exclusive of those in the newly-organised territories, is about 38,000. There is one church for every 646 of the population. The voluntary system is acted upon by each denomination, though it is slightly modified in the Episcopalian church. In it, however, the bishops are elected, the clergy are chosen by the people, and its affairs are regulated by a convention. It is the oldest of the denominations, and is therefore entitled to the first notice.
It has 38 bishops, 1714 ministers, and 105,350 communicants. It has 1422
churches, and its church property is estimated at 11,261,970 dol ars. A large number of the educated and wealthy are members of this body. Its formularies, with the exception of some omissions and alterations, are the same as those of the Church of England. Some of its bishops are men of very high attainments. Dr. McIlvaine, the Bishop of Ohio, is a man of great learning and piety, and is wel known in England by his theological writings.
The Methodists are the largest religious body in America. As at home, they have their strong sectional differences, but they are very useful, and are particularly acceptable to the lower orders of society, and among the coloured population. They possess 12,467 churches, 8389 ministers, and 1,672,519 communicants, and the value of their church property exceeds 14,000,000 dol ars.
The Presbyterians are perhaps the most important of the religious bodies, as regards influence, education, and wealth. Their stronghold is in New England. They have 7752 congregations, 5807 ministers, and 680,021
communicants. Their church property is of the value of 14,000,000 dol ars.
The Baptists are very numerous. They have 8181 churches, 8525 ministers, 1,058,754 communicants, and church property to the amount of 10,931,382
dol ars.
The Congregationalists possess 1674 churches, 1848 ministers, and 207,609
communicants. Their property is of the value of 7,973,962 dollars.
The Roman Catholics possessed at the date of the last census 1112
churches, and church property to the amount of 9,000,000 dol ars.
There is church accommodation for about 14,000,000 persons, or considerably more than half the population. There are 35,000 Sabbath schools, with 250,000 teachers, and 2,500,000 scholars. Besides the large number of churches, religious services are held in many schools and courthouses, and even in forests and fields. The dissemination of the Bible is on the increase. In last year the Bible Society distributed upwards of 11,000,000 copies. The Society for Religious Publications employed 1300 colporteurs, and effected sales during the year to the amount of 526,000 dol ars. The principal of the religious societies are for the observance of the sabbath, for temperance, anti-slavery objects, home missions, foreign missions, &c. The last general receipts of al these societies were 3,053,535 dol ars.
In the State of Massachusetts the Unitarians are a very influential body, numbering many of the most intel ectual and highly educated of the population. These, however, are divided upon the amount of divinity with which they shal invest our Lord.
The hostile spirit which animates some of the religious journals has been already noticed. There is frequently a good deal of rivalry between the members of the different sects; but the way in which the ministers of the orthodox denominations act harmoniously together for the general good is one of the most pleasing features in America. The charitable religious associations are on a gigantic scale, and are conducted with a liberality to which we in England are strangers. The foreign missions are on a peculiarly excel ent system, and the self-denying labours and zeal of their missionaries are fully recognised by all who have come in contact with them. No difficulty is experienced in obtaining money for these objects; it is only necessary to state that a certain sum is required, and, without setting any begging machinery to work, donations exceeding the amount flow in from al quarters.
Altogether it would appear from the _data_ which are given that the religious state of America is far more satisfactory than could be expected from so heterogeneous a population. The New England States possess to a great extent the externals of religion, and inherit in a modified degree the principles of their Puritan ancestors; and the New Englanders have emigrated westward in large numbers, carrying with them to the newly settled States the leaven of religion and morality. The churches of every denomination are crowded, and within my observation by as many gentlemen as ladies; but that class of aspiring spirits, known under the name of
"_Young America_," boasts a perfect freedom from religious observances of every kind.
There is a creed known by the name of Universalism, which is a compound of Antinomianism with several other forms of error, and embraces tens of thousands within its pale. It often verges upon the most complete Pantheism, and is very popular with large numbers of the youth of America.
There is a considerable amount of excitement kept up by the religious bodies in the shape of public re-unions, congregational _soirees_, and the like, producing a species of religious dissipation, very unfavourable, I should suppose, to the growth of true piety. This system, besides aiding the natural restlessness of the American character, gives rise to a good deal of spurious religion, and shortens the lives and impairs the usefulness of the ministers by straining and exhausting their physical energies.
To the honour of the clergy of the United States it must be observed that they keep remarkably clear from party-politics, contrasting in this respect very favourably with the priests of the Church of Rome, who throw the weight of their influence into the scale of extreme democracy and fanatical excesses. The unity of action which their ecclesiastical system ensures to them makes their progressive increase much to be deprecated.
It is owing in great measure to the efforts of the ministers of religion that the unbending principles of truth and right have any hold upon the masses; they are ever to be found on the side of rational and constitutional liberty in its extreme form, as opposed to licence and anarchy; and they give the form of practical action to the better feelings of the human mind. Amid the great difficulties with which they are surrounded, owing to the want of any fixed principles of right among the masses, they are ever seeking to impress upon the public mind that the undeviating laws of morality and truth cannot be violated with impunity any more by mil ions than by individuals, and that to nations, as to individuals, the day of reckoning must sooner or later arrive.
The voluntary system in religion, as it exists in its unmodified form in America, has one serious attendant evil. Where a minister depends for his income, not upon the contributions to a common fund, as is the case in the Free Church of Scotland, but upon the congregation unto which he ministers, his conscience is to a dangerous extent under the power of his hearers. In many instances his uncertain pecuniary relations with them must lead him to slur over popular sins, and keep the unpalatable doctrines of the Bible in the background, practical y neglecting to convey to fallen and wicked man his Creator's message, "Repent, and believe the Gospel." It has been found impossible in the States to find a just medium between state-support, and the apathy which in the opinion of many it has a tendency to engender, and an unmodified voluntary system, with the subservience and "high-pressure" which are incidental to it.
Be this as it may, the clergy of the United States deserve the highest honour for their high standard of morality, the fervour of their ministrations, the zeal of their practice, and their abstinence from politics.
CHAPTER XIX.
General remarks continued--The common schools--Their defect--Difficulties
--Management of the schools--The free academy--Railways--Telegraphs--
Poverty--Literature--Advantages for emigrants--Difficulties of emigrants--
Peace or war--Concluding observations.
At a time when the deficiencies of our own educational system are so strongly felt, it may be wel to give an outline of that pursued in the States. The following statistics, taken from the last census, show that our Transatlantic brethren have made great progress in moral and intel ectual interests.
At the period when the enumeration was made there were 80,958 public schools, with 91,966 teachers, and 2,890,507 scholars; 119 colleges, with 11,903 students; 44 schools of theology; 36 schools of medicine; and 16
schools of law. Fifty mil ions of dol ars were annual y spent for education, and the proportion of scholars to the community was as 1 to 5.
But it is to the common-school system that the attention should be particularly directed. I may premise that it has one unavoidable defect, namely, the absence of religious instruction. It would be neither possible nor right to educate the children in any denominational creed, or to instruct them in any particular doctrinal system, but would it not, to take the lowest ground, be both prudent and politic to give them a knowledge of the Bible, as the only undeviating rule and standard of truth and right? May not the obliquity of moral vision, which is al owed to exist among a large class of Americans, be in some degree chargeable to those who have the care of their education--who do not place before them, as a part of their instruction, those principles of truth and morality, which, as revealed in Holy Scripture, lay the whole universe under obligations to obedience? History and observation alike show the little influence practically possessed by principles destitute of superior authority, how small the restraint exercised by conscience is, and how far those may wander into error who once desert "Life's polar star, the fear of God." In regretting the exclusion of religious instruction from the common-school system, the difficulties which beset the subject must not be forgotten, the multiplicity of the sects, and the very large number of Roman Catholics. In schools supported by a rate levied indiscriminately on all, to form a course of instruction which could bear the name of a religious one, and yet meet the views of all, and clash with the consciences and prejudices of none, was manifestly impossible. The religious public in the United States has felt that there was no tenable ground between thorough religious instruction and the broadest toleration.
Driven by the circumstances of their country to accept the latter course, they have exerted themselves to meet this omission in the public schools by a most comprehensive Sabbath-school system. But only a portion of the children under secular instruction in the week attend these schools; and it must be admitted that to bestow intellectual culture upon the pupils, without giving them religious instruction, is to draw forth and add to the powers of the mind, without giving it any helm to guide it; in other words, it is to increase the capacity, without diminishing the propensity, to do evil.
Apart from this important consideration, the educational system pursued in the States is worthy of the highest praise, and of an enlightened people in the nineteenth century. The education is conducted at the public expense, and the pupils consequently pay no fees. Parents feel that a free education is as much a part of the birthright of their children as the protection which the law affords to their life and property.
The schools cal ed common schools are supported by an education rate, and in each State are under the administration of a general board of education, with local boards, elected by al who pay the rate. In the State of Massachusetts alone the sum of 921,532 dol ars was raised within the year, being at the rate of very nearly a dollar for every inhabitant.
Under the supervision of the General Board of Education in the State, schools are erected in districts according to the educational necessities of the population, which are periodically ascertained by a census.
To give some idea of the system adopted, I will just give a sketch of the condition of education in the State of New York, as being the most populous and important.
There is a "state tax," o