ment of their claims to national character, do the same. ted, with a degree of purity to which there is no parallel in the British realm. There, on a space not much larger than a sixth part Amalgamation takes place, also, by inof the United States territory, no fewer than termarriages to an extent quite unexamthree or four languages are spoken; and in pled anywhere else; for though the AngloEngland alone, I know not how many dia-Saxon race has an almost undisputed poslects are to be found which a person unac-session of the soil in New-England, peocustomed to them can hardly at all com- ple are everywhere else to be met with prehend, however familiar he may be with in whose veins flows the mingled blood pure English. As for France, with its Gas- of English, Dutch, Germans, Irish, and con, Breton, and I know not how many French. other remains of the languages spoken by * Nor has the assimilation of races and the ancient races which were once scat-languages been greater than that of mantered over its territory, the case is still ners, customs, religion, and political prinworse. Nor does either Germany or Ita-ciples. The manners of the people, in ly present the uniformity of speech that some places less, in others more refined, distinguishes the millions of the United are essentially characterized by simplicity, States, with the exception of the newly-ar-sincerity, frankness, and kindness. The rived foreigners; a uniformity which ex-religion of the overwhelming majority, and tends even to pronunciation, and the ab- which may therefore be called national, is, sence of provincial accent and phraseology.in all essential points, what was taught by A well-educated American who has seen the great Protestant Reformers of the sixmuch of his country may, indeed, distin- teenth century. With respect to politics, guish the Southern from the Northern with whatever warmth we may discuss the modes of pronouncing certain vowels; he measures of the government, but one feelmay recognise by certain shades of sound, ing prevails with regard to our political if I may so express myself, the Northern institutions themselves. We are no propor Southern origin of his countrymen; but agandists we hold it to be our duty to these differences are too slight to be read-avoid meddling with the governments of ily perceived by a foreigner. other countries; and though we prefer our Generally speaking, the pronunciation own political forms, would by no means of well-educated Americans is precisely insist on others doing so too. That govthat given in the best orthoëpical authori-ernment we believe to be the best for any ties of England, and our best speakers people under which they live most happiadopt the well-established changes in pro-ly, and are best protected in their rights of nunciation that from time to time gain ground there. A few words, however, are universally pronounced in a manner different from what prevails in England. Either and neither, for example, are pronounced eether and neether, not ither and nither, nor will our lawyers probably ever learn to say lien for leen. There is a very perceptible difference of accent between the English and Americans, particularly those of the Eastern or New-England States. There is also a difference of tone; in some of the states there is more of a nasal inflexion of the voice than one hears in England. person, property, and conscience; and we would have every nation to judge for itself what form of government is best suited to secure for it these great ends. Assuredly no country possesses a press more free, or where, notwithstanding, public opinion is more powerful; but on these points we shall have more to say in another part of this work. The American people, taken as a whole, are mainly characterized by perseverance, earnestness, kindness, hospitality, and selfreliance, that is, by a disposition to depend upon their own exertions to the utmost, English literature has an immense cir- rather than look to the government for asculation in America; a circumstance which sistance. Hence, there is no country where may be an advantage in one sense, and a the government does less, or the people disadvantage in another. We are not want-more. In a word, our national character ing, however, in authors of unquestion- is that of the Anglo-Saxon race, which able merit in almost every branch of liter- still predominates among us in conseature, art, and science. Still, if a litera-quence of its original preponderancy in ture of our own creation be indispensable the colonization of the country, and of the to the possession of a national character, energy which forms its characteristic diswe must abandon all claim to it. tinction. It may be added, that we have no fashions of our own. We follow the modes of Paris. But in this Germans, Russians, Italians, and English, without any abate * I have been informed that there are twelve distinct lauguages and patois spoken in France, and that interpreters are needed in courts of justice with in a hundred miles of Paris! Has the reader ever heard Haydn's celebrated oratorio of the Creation performed by a full orchestra? If so, he cannot have forgotten how chaos is represented at the commencement, by all the instruments being sounded together without the least attempt at concord. By-and-by, however, something like order begins, and at length the clear notes of the clarionet | Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, but are heard over all the others, controlling the northern and southern bounding lines, them into harmony. Something like this if extended according to the terms of the has been the influence in America of the charter, would have terminated, the one in Anglo-Saxon language, laws, institutions, the Pacific Ocean, and the other in Hudson's Bay; yet by the same charter, they were both to terminate at the South Sea, as the Pacific Ocean was then called. CHARACTER. But if, when it is alleged that we have no national character, it be meant that we have not originated any for ourselves, it may be asked, What nation has? All owe much to those from whom they have sprung; this, too, has been our case, although what we have inherited from our remote ancestors has unquestionably been much modified by the operation of political institutions which we have been led to adopt by new circumstances, and which, probably, were never contemplated by the founders of our country. CHAPTER VIII. THE ROYAL CHARTERS. Few points in the colonial history of the United States are more interesting to the curious inquirer than the royal charters, under which the settlement of the country first took place. The North Carolina and Georgia charters conveyed to the colonists provinces that were to extend westward to the South Sea. Look The Massachusetts and Connecticut charters made these colonies also reach to the South Sea, it never appearing to have entered the royal head that they must thus have interfered with the claims of Virginia. New-York, which they must also have traversed, seems not to have been thought of, though claimed and occupied at the time by the Dutch. Indeed, considering the descriptions contained in their charters, it is marvellous that the colonies ever ascertained their boundaries. ing at the charter of Massachusetts, for example, and comparing it with that state as laid down on our maps, we are amazed to think by what possible ingenuity it should have come to have its existing These charters were granted by James boundaries, especially that on the northI., Charles I., Charles II., James II., Will-east. Still more confounding does it seem iam and Mary, and George I. They were that Massachusetts should have successvery diverse, both in form and substance. fully claimed the territory of Maine, and Some were granted to companies, some to yet have had to relinquish that of Newsingle persons, others to the colonists Hampshire. themselves. Most of them preceded the The charter granted to William Penn foundation of the colonies to which they for Pennsylvania was the clearest of all, referred; but in the cases of Rhode Island yet it was long matter of dispute whether and Connecticut, the territories were set-or not it included Delaware. On the othtled first; while Plymouth colony had no crown charter at all, and not even a grant from the Plymouth Company in England, until the year after its foundation. The ordinary reader can be interested only in the charters granted by the crown of England; those from proprietary companies and individuals, to whom whole provinces had first been granted by the crown, can interest those readers only who would study the innumerable lawsuits to which they gave occasion. Such in those days was the utter disregard for the correct laying down of boundaries, that the same district of country was often covered with two or more grants, made by the same proprietors, to different individuals; thus furnishing matter for litigations which lasted in some colonies more than a century, and sometimes giving rise to lawsuits even at the present day. The royal charters give us an amusing idea of the notions with respect to North American geography entertained in those days by the sovereigns of England, or by those who acted for them. The charter of Virginia not only included those vast regions now comprised in the States of er hand, Delaware was claimed by Maryland, and with justice, if the charter of the latter province were to be construed literally. Still, Maryland did not obtain Delaware, Such charters, it will be readily supposed, must have led to serious and protracted disputes between the colonies themselves. Many of these disputes were still undetermined at the commencement of the war of the Revolution; several remained unadjustified long after the achievement of the national independence; and it was only a few years ago that the last of the boundary questions was brought to a final issue before the Supreme Court of the United States. After the Revolution, immense difficulties attended the settlement of the various claims preferred by the Atlantic States to those parts of the West which they believed to have been conveyed to them by their old charters, and into which the tide of emigration was then beginning to flow. Had Virginia successfully asserted her claims, she would have had an empire in the Valley of the Mississippi sufficient, at some future day, to counterbalance almost all the other states put together. North yet unjustifiable means were often emCarolina and Georgia also laid claim to ployed to induce the latter to cede their territories of vast extent. The claims of claims to the former, such as excessive Connecticut and Massachusetts directly importunity, the bribery of the chiefs, and conflicted with those of Virginia. Hence sometimes even threats. Thus, although, it required a great deal of wisdom and pa- with the exception of lands obtained by tience to settle all these claims, without right of conquest in war, I do not believe endangering the peace and safety of the that any whatever was obtained without confederacy. All, at length, were adjusted something being given in exchange for it, except that of Georgia, and it, too, was ar- yet I fear that the golden rule of "doing ranged at a later date. Virginia magnan- to others as we would that they should do imously relinquished all her claims in the unto us," was sadly neglected in many of West; a spontaneous act, which immedi- those transactions. In Pennsylvania and ately led to the establishment of the State New-England, unquestionably, greater fairof Kentucky, followed in due time by nes was shown than in most, if not all the the foundation of those of Ohio, Indiana, other colonies; yet even there, full justice, Illinois, and Michigan, in what was long according to the above rule, was not always called the Northwestern Territory. The practised. Indeed, in many cases it was relinquishment by North Carolina of her difficult to say what exact justice implied. claims west of the Alleghany Mountains To savages roaming over vast tracts of led to the creation of the State of Tennes- land which they did not cultivate, and But Connecticut refused to abandon which, even for the purposes of the chase, her claim to the northeastern part of Ohio, were often more extensive than necessary, often called to this day New Connecticut, to part with hundreds, or even thousands without receiving from the General Gov-of square miles, could not be thought a ernment a handsome equivalent in money, matter of much importance, and thus conwhich has been safely invested, and forms science was quieted. But although our the basis of a large capital, set apart for forefathers may not have done full justice the support of the common schools of the to the poor Indians, it is by no means cerstate. Georgia also ceded her claims intain that others in the same circumstances the West to the General Government, on would have done better. the condition that it should obtain for her from the Indians a title to their territory lying to the east of the Chattahoochee River, now the western boundary of that state. Out of the cession thus made by Georgia have been formed the States of Alabama and Mississippi. see. The impatience of the colonists to obtain possession of lands which their charters, or arrangements consequent thereon, led them to regard as their own, has at times thrown the General Government into much embarrassment and difficulty. Thus, in the conflict between it and the State of The United States have had to struggle Georgia, a few short years ago, Congress with still more serious difficulties, origina- had agreed to buy the claims of the Inditing in the old royal charters. Little re- ans still remaining within that state, and to gard was paid to the prior claims of the provide for their removal beyond its limIndians in the extensive grants made by its, in return for the relinquishment of its those charters, directly or indirectly, to claims in the West. But this removal of the colonists. The pope had set the ex- the Indians, it had been expressly stipulaample of giving away the Aborigines with ted, was to be effected peaceably, and with the lands they occupied, or, rather, of giv- their own consent. Time rolled on, the ing away the land from under them; and population of Georgia increased, the setalthough in all the colonies founded by tlements of the white men had begun to our English ancestors in America there touch those of the red men, and the latter was a kind of feeling that the Indians had were urged to sell their lands and to retire some claims on the ground of prior occu- farther to the west. But to this they pation, yet these, it was thought, ought to would not consent. Thereupon the Gengive place to the rights conferred by the eral Government was called on to fulfil its royal charters. The colonists were sub-engagement. It exerted itself to the utject to the same blinding influence of selfishness that affects other men, and to this we are to ascribe the importunity with which they urged the removal of the Indians from the land conveyed by the royal charters, and which they had long been wont to consider and to call their own. In no case, indeed, did the new-comers seize upon the lands of the aboriginal occupants without some kind of purchase; * Amounting to 2,040,228 dollars. most to persuade the Indians to sell their lands; but neither would it employ force itself, nor allow Georgia to do so, though much was done by the colonists, and something, too, by the state indirectly, to worry the Indians into terms. The chiefs, however, long held back. But at length the lands were sold at a great price, and their occupants received others west of the Mississippi, and have removed to these. There, I doubt not, they will do better than in their former abode. To rid itself of such embarrassments cations afterward introduced during the created by the old charters, the General subjugation of the Saxons by the NorthGovernment, at the instance of great and men or Danes, lasting through 261 years,* good men, adopted, some years ago, the plan and which, though both partial in its exof collecting all the tribes still to be found tent, and interrupted in its continuance, within the confines of any of the states, left not a few monuments of its existence, upon an extensive district to the west of and gave a name to one of the orders of Arkansas and Missouri, claimed by no the English nobility.† state, and, therefore, considered as part of But, above all, he must study the influence the public domain. There it has already of the Norman Conquest, which was comcollected the Cherokees, the Choctas, the pleted within twenty years from the battle Chickasas, the Creeks, and several smaller of Hastings, fought A.D. 1066. Without tribes. Soon the territories of all the states extirpating all the Saxon institutions, that will be cleared of them, except in so far as event reduced the Anglo-Saxons of Engthey may choose to remain and become land to the condition of serfs; gave their citizens. Nor can I avoid cherishing the lands to sixty thousand warriors, compohope that the great Indian community now sing the conqueror's army; established an forming, as I have said, west of Missouri absolute monarchy, surrounded by a powand Arkansas, will one day become a state erful landed aristocracy; and thus introitself, and have its proper representatives duced an order of things wholly new to in the great council of the nation. I may the country, and foreign to its habits. conclude these remarks by observing, that He must attentively mark the influence the late painful dispute between the Uni- exercised by the Anglo-Saxon and Norted States and Great Britain, now so hap-man races upon each other, during the pepily terminated, relative to the boundaries between the State of Maine on the one hand, and Lower Canada and New-Brunswick on the other, originated in the geographical obscurity of certain limits, scribed in one of these old charters. CHAPTER IX. HOW A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF THE AMER- TER, MAY BEST BE ATTAINED. of the power of the pope, as is commonly believed, was Henry's object, may be seen from the fact of his being no less earnest in calling for assistance from Rome, than Becket was in invoking her protection. riod, that has since elapsed, of nearly eight hundred years; and he will there find a clew to many transactions which appear wholly unintelligible in the common histode-ries of England. The reciprocal hatred of the two races will explain the quarrel of Becket, the first archbishop of the Saxon race after the Conquest, and Henry II., the fifth of the Norman kings; that national animosity leading Becket to resist the demands of the king, as calculated to extend the tyranny of a hated race of conquerors, and the king to humble the conquered by crushing their haughty representHe who would obtain a thorough knowl-ative. That this, and not the diminution edge of the people of the United States, their national character, the nature of their government, and the spirit of their laws, must go back to the earliest ages of the history of England, and study the character of the various races that from early times have settled there. He must carefully mark the influences they exerted on each other, and upon the civil and political institutions of that country. He must study the Saxon Conquest, followed by the introduction of Saxon institutions, and Saxon laws and usages; the trial of an accused person by his peers; the subdivision of the country into small districts, called townships or hundreds; the political influence of that arrangement; and the establishment of seven or eight petty kingdoms, in which the authority of the king was shared by the people, without whose consent no laws of importance could be made, and who often met for legislation in the open fields, or beneath the shade of some wide-spreading forest, as their Scandinavian kinsmen met, at a much later period, round the Mora stone.* He must next study the modifi On the plains of Upsala in Sweden. The mora stone signifies the stone on the moor. He will perceive this mutual animosity manifesting itself in innumerable instances and in apparently contradictory conduct. At one time the Anglo-Saxons sided with the nobility against the monarch, as in the wars between the barons and King John, and also Henry III., not because they loved the barons, who were of the same detested Norman race, but because they dreaded the consequences to themselves of another conquest, by a king who had invited over the Poitevins, the Aquitains, and the Provençals, to help him against his own subjects in England. At other times they sided with the king against the barons, when they saw that the triumph of the latter was likely to augment their burdens. And although, as M. Thierry remarks,‡ From A.D. 787 to A.D. 1048. + That of Earl, from the Danish and Norwegian Jarl, who was at once the civil and military governor of a province. "Conquête de l'Angleterre,” vol. iv., p. 366–368, Brussels edition. 66 ments on the part of the people. Thus the cause of liberty gained ground both among the nobility and the commonalty. With the progress of the Reformation, the strife between the two races became exasperated; the nobility and gentry desiring little more than the abatement or rejection of the papal usurpation; the Saxon race, led by men whose hearts were more deeply interested in the subject, desiring to see the Church rid of error and superstition of every form. From the discussion of the rights of conscience, the latter went on to examine the nature and foundations of civil government, and being met with violent opposition, they proceed the bitter hostility which had lasted for four centuries seemed to become extinct in the fifteenth, when the wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster ranged the two races promiscuously on each side, yet traces of their distinct existence are to be found at this day, in the language, in the customs, and in the institutions of England. Although the monarch no longer employs the ancient formula, as it occurs in royal ordinances and proclamations for four hundred years after the Conquest, such as Henry V., Henry VII. of that name since the conquest,' yet to this day a Norman phraseology is sometimes employed by the monarch, as, for instance, le roy le veult; le roy s'advisera'; le roy mercie ses loyaux sued to lengths they never dreamed of when jets. To this day the nobility of England, though recruited from time to time from the rich, the talented, and the ambitious commoners of Saxon blood, remains essentially Norman in spirit and in character. The It was just as this grand opposition of same may be said of the gentry, or propri- sentiment was drawing on to a direct coletors of landed estates; whereas the great lision, and when men's minds were enbulk of the remaining population is of An- grossed with the important questions that glo-Saxon origin.‡ In Wales, and in Ire-it pressed upon them, that the two cololand, the races of the conquerors and the conquered appear still more distinct, and in the latter mutual antipathy is far from having ceased. In Scotland, there is comparatively little Norman blood, the Normans never having conquered that country.§ they first set out. In the fearful struggle that followed, both the National Church and the monarchy were for a time completely overthrown. nies destined to exercise a predominant influence in America left the British shore. The first of the two in point of date sought the coasts of Southern, the second sailed to those of Northern Virginia, as the whole Atlantic slope was then called. The one settled on James River, in the present state of Virginia, and became, in a sense, the ruling colony of the South; the other established itself in New-England, there to become the mother of the six Northern States. Both, however, have long since made their influence to be felt far beyond the coasts of the Atlantic, and are continuing to extend it towards the Pacific, in parallel and cleary-defined lines; and both retain to this day the characteristic features that marked their founders when they left their native land. To the resistance of the Anglo-Saxon race in England to the domination of the Norman aristocracy that kingdom was ultimately indebted for the free institutions it now enjoys. The oppressions of the nobility and of the crown were checked by the cities and boroughs, in which the Anglo-Saxon commons became more and more concentrated, with the advance of civilization and population. The nobles themselves, on occasions when they, too, had to contend for their rights and privileges against the sovereign, gave a help- If not purely Norman in blood, the Southing hand to the people; and in later times ern colony was entirely Norman in spirit; especially, after the people had established whereas the Northern was Anglo-Saxon the power of their Commons, or third es- in character and in the institutions which tate, on an immovable foundation, aided it took to the New World. Both loved the sovereign against alleged encroach-freedom and free institutions, but they dif * Henry VIII. was the last monarch who used this formula in his proclamations, and styled himself Henry, Eighth of the name since the Conquest. The king wills;" "the king will take counsel;" "the king thanks his loyal subjects." Even in our day, the language of the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester holds true in no inconsiderable degree in regard to the population of England: "The folk of Normandie In fact, there is not a little Norman blood in Scotland; but what of it is to be found in the aristocracy came by intermarriages, or by Normans who age to the favour of the Scottish monarchs, not by recommended themselves by their talents and cour conquest fered as to the extent to which the people should enjoy them. The one had sprung from the ranks of those in England who pleaded for the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobility; the other, from the great party that was contending for popular rights. The one originated with the friends of the Church as left by Queen Elizabeth; the other, with those who desired to see it purified from what they deemed the corruptions of antiquity, and shorn of the exorbitant pretensions of its hierarchy. The one, composed of a company of gentlemen, attended by a few mechanics or labourers, contemplated an extensive traffic with the natives; the oth- |