better to make it, at once, large enough to last. Thus, to avoid constant inconvenience, truth came to be made expansive. This spirit of exaggeration, taking at times the form of a very quaint and original humour, is then indeed harmless enough, but largely incorporated, as it has been, into the very essence of the national character, its effects could not fail to be highly prejudicial. We shall find it pervading not only statements and belief, but the whole tone of thought and sentiment.

Exaggeration must needs be a departure from

truth.

6

When an exaggerated standard is once adopted, truth must be altered up to it, history must be made to conform with it. A great dominion must have a great people, and a great people must have a great history; and if there be no such history in real existence, it must be made great. Hildreth, the most able of American historians, thus describes the cause of his unpopularity: "In dealing with our Revolutionary annals, a great difficulty had to be encountered in the mythic, heroic character above, beyond, often wholly apart from, the truth of history, with which, in the popular idea, the fathers and founders of our American Republic have been invested. American literature having been mainly of the rhetorical cast, and the Revolution and the old time of the forefathers, forming standing subjects for periodical eulogies, in which every new orator strives to outvie his predecessors, the true history 6 See Notes in Appendix.

E

of those times, in spite of ample records, illustrated by the labours of many diligent and conscientious inquirers, has yet been almost obliterated by declamations, which confound all discrimination and just appreciation, in one confused glare of patriotic eulogium."

Here, then, we find it the established practice of the country, in the face of ample records of the facts, wilfully to pervert its own history, in order to satisfy this desire for exaggeration. It is not easy to imagine a more deplorable spectacle, than that of a people thus employed in self-deception, receiving their knowledge, and forming their opinions, on the exaggerations of declaimers, each striving, in this manner, to "outvie his predecessors" in departure from truth. Miss Martineau, than whom no more favourable witness could be found, describes one of these fourth of July orations, and its effect on her own mind. The anniversary seems to be a kind of saturnalia, dedicated to the annual worship of the god-Self. Unaccountable it is, indeed, how respectable men can be found, who will descend to this kind of performance; or how a people, so shrewd in other respects, can be assailed with such fulsome flattery, without detecting its real mockery.

And this perversion of history, is by no means confined to the glorifications of each fourth of July. The system is inoculated in early youth with the virus of its influence. The school-books of the boy have been formed on this rule of

exag

geration. Poor old George the Third is painted as a devouring tyrant; the German troops as demons in human form; every petty skirmish is exalted into a battle; every battle into a victory; even defeats so unquestionable as that of Bunker's Hill, are made to wear the colour of a triumph; the part of France is made as small, as ours was described in laying the Atlantic cable; every citizen but Arnold, shines out a pure patriot; every general a hero-the whole is a triumphal procession, and ends in a blaze of glory.

In another direction taken by this habit there remains a result of abiding evil. That some amount of ill-will towards England should for a few years survive angry and protracted warfare, this was to be expected. That there were causes of complaint none will dispute. But by a wilful system of magnifying these causes, of aggravating every source of discord, of exaggerating every ground of complaint, a permanent feeling of hatred towards this country was engendered and sustained. Politicians arose who held it to be a matter of policy to erect a sentiment of nationality on the basis of animosity to this country. With educated men, or men of the world, this has long passed away; but such is not the case with the great substratum of society. Whatever traditions or notions of history exist amongst the Northern agriculturalists-by far the most numerous class in the country-these are interwoven with the remembrance of bitter denunciations of the oppres

sion, rapacity, and injustice of the old country. The sentiment thus created and lurking in the system, leads to the existence of a school of politicians who from time to time aim at popularity by pandering to it, and who make use of it as an instrument for attaining their own ends.

This spirit of exaggeration, thus resulting from the rapid growth of the Union, leads naturally to the boastfulness and national self-esteem which have become so prominent. Long ago, De Tocqueville observed: "For the last fifty years no pains have been spared, to convince the inhabitants of the United States, that they constitute the only religious, enlightened, and free people. They perceive, that for the present, their own democratic institutions succeed, whilst those of other countries fail; hence they conceive an overwhelming opinion. of their superiority, and they are not very remote from believing themselves, to belong to a distinct race of mankind." Some of this is certainly the simple result of geographical position. Those who are remote from Europe will naturally form an imperfect idea of the strength and resources of the great powers. To the citizen of Illinois, who may travel for a thousand miles in many directions, without reaching the limits of the Union, who is conscious of his own strength, and buoyant in his own prosperity, it will be very natural to believe it, when taught that he belongs to the greatest power on earth-victorious by land and sea, heroic and triumphant, that other

countries are but specks upon the map, and in much the same relative proportion, inferior in all elements of grandeur. The erroneous impressions thus naturally arising are converted into accepted truths by the books prepared for the people and the orations poured into their ears.

In Europe, where ignorance is abundant enough, it is at any rate mainly passive. But in America, those who have been thus taught and haranguedare the active power in the State; their passions, when aroused, are irresistible; their will, when expressed, is law. We shall find that the government reflects, less the views of the well-informed and experienced, than of this crude, wronglyinformed mass. Hence, we find in its action, a restless ambition, an aggressive, quarrelsome spirit, an entire disregard for the feelings or position of other nations; and this, so continuous and invariable, that the very name of the United States has come to be associated, in the mind of Europe, with demands or complaints, with an expectation of painful discussions, and a fore-knowledge that much will have to be conceded and endured.

It may, perhaps, be said that, after all, exaggeration is but a blemish, an infirmity of no serious importance. This cannot be, when its influence pervades all things, and extends to political belief and to its consequences. Indeed, all know that it will turn almost every virtue into vice-economy into meanness, liberality into extravagance, firmness into obstinacy, self-reliance into arrogance.