American Notes for General Circulation

by Dickens, Chales

  hamstring cattle: and spare the lights of Freedom upon earth who

  notch the ears of men and women, cut pleasant posies in the

  shrinking flesh, learn to write with pens of red-hot iron on the

  human face, rack their poetic fancies for liveries of mutilation

  which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave,

  breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the

  Saviour of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for targets!

  Shall we whimper over legends of the tortures practised on each

  other by the Pagan Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of

  Christian men! Shall we, so long as these things last, exult above

  the scattered remnants of that race, and triumph in the white

  enjoyment of their possessions? Rather, for me, restore the forest

  and the Indian village; in lieu of stars and stripes, let some poor

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  feather flutter in the breeze; replace the streets and squares by

  wigwams; and though the death-song of a hundred haughty warriors

  fill the air, it will be music to the shriek of one unhappy slave.

  On one theme, which is commonly before our eyes, and in respect of

  which our national character is changing fast, let the plain Truth

  be spoken, and let us not, like dastards, beat about the bush by

  hinting at the Spaniard and the fierce Italian. When knives are

  drawn by Englishmen in conflict let it be said and known: 'We owe

  this change to Republican Slavery. These are the weapons of

  Freedom. With sharp points and edges such as these, Liberty in

  America hews and hacks her slaves; or, failing that pursuit, her

  sons devote them to a better use, and turn them on each other.'

  CHAPTER XVIII - CONCLUDING REMARKS

  THERE are many passages in this book, where I have been at some

  pains to resist the temptation of troubling my readers with my own

  deductions and conclusions: preferring that they should judge for

  themselves, from such premises as I have laid before them. My only

  object in the outset, was, to carry them with me faithfully

  wheresoever I went: and that task I have discharged.

  But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character

  of the American people, and the general character of their social

  system, as presented to a stranger's eyes, I desire to express my

  own opinions in a few words, before I bring these volumes to a

  close.

  They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and

  affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their

  warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of

  these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders

  an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of

  friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded

  up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to

  them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for

  whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.

  These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole

  people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their

  growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which

  endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of

  their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told.

  It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself

  mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its

  wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the

  popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable

  brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen

  plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently

  dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce

  it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great

  sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness

  and independence.

  'You carry,' says the stranger, 'this jealousy and distrust into

  every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from

  your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates

  for the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your

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  Institutions and your people's choice. It has rendered you so

  fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed

  into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you

  are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this,

  because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you

  distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately apply

  yourselves to find out, either that you have been too bountiful in

  your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who

  attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may

  date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any

  notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the

  character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust,

  and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of

  trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved;

  but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden

  with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you,

  or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the

  governed, among you?'

  The answer is invariably the same: 'There's freedom of opinion

  here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be

  easily overreached. That's how our people come to be suspicious.'

  Another prominent feature is the love of 'smart' dealing: which

  gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a

  defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold

  his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter; though it

  has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness

  has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to

  cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash,

  could have effected in a century. The merits of a broken

  speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not

  gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, 'Do as you

  would be done by,' but are considered with reference to their

  smartness. I recollect, on both occasions of our passing that illfated

  Cairo on the Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such

  gross deceits must have when they exploded, in generating a want of

  confidence abroad, and discouraging foreign investment: but I was

  given to understand that this was a very smart scheme by which a

  deal of money had been made: and that its smartest feature was,

  that they forgot these things abroad, in a very short time, and

  speculated again, as freely as ever. The following dialogue I have

  held a hundred times: 'Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance

  that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property

  by the mo
st infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the

  crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted

  by your Citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?' 'Yes,

  sir.' 'A convicted liar?' 'Yes, sir.' 'He has been kicked, and

  cuffed, and caned?' 'Yes, sir.' 'And he is utterly dishonourable,

  debased, and profligate?' 'Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder,

  then, what is his merit?' 'Well, sir, he is a smart man.'

  In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages are

  referred to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough, it

  would be a weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded the

  Americans as a trading people. The love of trade is assigned as a

  reason for that comfortless custom, so very prevalent in country

  towns, of married persons living in hotels, having no fireside of

  their own, and seldom meeting from early morning until late at

  night, but at the hasty public meals. The love of trade is a

  reason why the literature of America is to remain for ever

  unprotected 'For we are a trading people, and don't care for

  poetry:' though we DO, by the way, profess to be very proud of our

  poets: while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation,

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  and wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian joys

  of trade.

  These three characteristics are strongly presented at every turn,

  full in the stranger's view. But, the foul growth of America has a

  more tangled root than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its

  licentious Press.

  Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be

  taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands;

  colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be

  diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through

  the land with giant strides: but while the newspaper press of

  America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral

  improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and

  will go back; year by year, the tone of public feeling must sink

  lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become

  of less account before all decent men; and year by year, the memory

  of the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and

  more, in the bad life of their degenerate child.

  Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there

  are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and

  credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen

  connected with publications of this class, I have derived both

  pleasure and profit. But the name of these is Few, and of the

  others Legion; and the influence of the good, is powerless to

  counteract the moral poison of the bad.

  Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate:

  in the learned professions; at the bar and on the bench: there is,

  as there can be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious

  character of these infamous journals. It is sometimes contended -

  I will not say strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for

  such a disgrace - that their influence is not so great as a visitor

  would suppose. I must be pardoned for saying that there is no

  warrant for this plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends

  directly to the opposite conclusion.

  When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can

  climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America,

  without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee

  before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is

  safe from its attacks; when any social confidence is left unbroken

  by it, or any tie of social decency and honour is held in the least

  regard; when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion,

  and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without

  humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance

  and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart;

  when those who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it

  casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare

  to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all

  men: then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men

  are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its

  evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in

  the state, from a president to a postman; while, with ribald

  slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature

  of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper,

  or they will not read at all; so long must its odium be upon the

  country's head, and so long must the evil it works, be plainly

  visible in the Republic.

  To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to

  the respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to those who

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  are accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it would be

  impossible, without an amount of extract for which I have neither

  space nor inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful

  engine in America. But if any man desire confirmation of my

  statement on this head, let him repair to any place in this city of

  London, where scattered numbers of these publications are to be

  found; and there, let him form his own opinion. (1)

  It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as

  a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more.

  It would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness

  of heart and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful,

  without being eminently and directly useful. But here, I think the

  general remonstrance, 'we are a new country,' which is so often

  advanced as an excuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable, as

  being, of right, only the slow growth of an old one, may be very

  reasonably urged: and I yet hope to hear of there being some other

  national amusement in the United States, besides newspaper

  politics.

  They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament

  always impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy character. In

  shrewdness of remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the

  Yankees, or people of New England, unquestionably take the lead; as

  they do in most other evidences of intelligence. But in travelling

  about, out of the large cities - as I have remarked in former parts

  of these volumes - I was quite oppressed by the prevailing

  seriousness and melancholy air of business: which was so general

  and unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet

  the very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last. Such

  defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to me, to

  be referable, in a great degree, to this cause: which has

  generated a dull, sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected

  the g
races of life as undeserving of attention. There is no doubt

  that Washington, who was always most scrupulous and exact on points

  of ceremony, perceived the tendency towards this mistake, even in

  his time, and did his utmost to correct it.

  I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the

  prevalence of various forms of dissent in America, is in any way

  attributable to the non-existence there of an established church:

  indeed, I think the temper of the people, if it admitted of such an

  Institution being founded amongst them, would lead them to desert

  it, as a matter of course, merely because it WAS established. But,

  supposing it to exist, I doubt its probable efficacy in summoning

  the wandering sheep to one great fold, simply because of the

  immense amount of dissent which prevails at home; and because I do

  not find in America any one form of religion with which we in

  Europe, or even in England, are unacquainted. Dissenters resort

  thither in great numbers, as other people do, simply because it is

  a land of resort; and great settlements of them are founded,

  because ground can be purchased, and towns and villages reared,

  where there were none of the human creation before. But even the

  Shakers emigrated from England; our country is not unknown to Mr.

  Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his benighted

  disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some of our

  populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American campmeeting;

  and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious

  imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the

  other, has had its origin in the United States, which we cannot

  more than parallel by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts

  the rabbit-breeder, or even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury: which latter

  case arose, some time after the dark ages had passed away.

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  The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people

  to assert their self-respect and their equality; but a traveller is

  bound to bear those Institutions in his mind, and not hastily to

  resent the near approach of a class of strangers, who, at home,

  would keep aloof. This characteristic, when it was tinctured with

  no foolish pride, and stopped short of no honest service, never

  offended me; and I very seldom, if ever, experienced its rude or