count they are unfitted for Europe. M. de Tocqueville is, perhaps, mistaken here; the American ambassadors have been always men of ability and address. But he holds, that the advantages and disadvantages of democratic and aristocratic governments are, that the first can easily repair its faults and has always good intentions, and that the latter has larger views and more legislative wisdom. "The American," observes M. de Tocqueville, " considers every thing as his own work, and is thus rendered quite intolerable in defending every thing in and about his country and her institutions, admitting no evil or defect whatever." All this seems to be quite agreeable to the experience of other travellers. For myself, I have found it, on this account, the most fatiguing thing in the world to talk with an American about his country; no information can be got; he will admit nothing. It is in vain that you make remarks; your own understanding is not of the slightest use to you. One exception only have I met with, a very intelligent man, and tolerably candid. We talked for some time about America; and I at last observed, "The truth is, that government has no difficulties in America, for there is nothing to govern." He smiled, made no reply, and the conversation ended.

Notices of the kind, which I have now selected from the work of M. de Tocqueville, do not show, and are not meant to show, that civil liberty is not a blessing to a people: there is no blessing to be compared to it; but they may show, that men are not to be exclusive and intolerant in their notions of it; and that the democratic government in America, though it is the country to which an appeal is always made by democratic writers, is not necessarily such a perfect model, that every reasonable man in every other part of the world, should set himself immediately to assimilate to it the laws and institutions of his own country. That America is a country where human happiness is diffused and realized to a very extraordinary degree, need not be at all denied; the history of the country and the unparalleled advantage of having wide and untouched tracts of country accessible to the civilized part of it, this forms a sufficient solution for the phenomenon just mentioned, and for the possibility of men subsisting together with that freedom from restraint, which is so delicious to men

of irregular minds and proud and lofty spirit; but it is not at all the less evident on this account, that America is no example for the governments of Europe; governments established in old countries, with no such outlet for their population, and whose inhabitants, not derived from the republican adventurers of Europe, and the puritans and pilgrim fathers of England, have long inherited habits and notions, civil and religious, of a cast totally different; such as could not be reduced to the democratic model, with any chance of permanence or success, and not without the greatest violence offered, even to those principles in the human mind, which it is incumbent upon the most democratic reasoners in common consistency to respect.

I will now turn from this work of M. de Tocqueville, the French observer, and will advert to-morrow to the speeches of Mr. Webster, the great statesman and orator of America, deservedly the pride of his country, and a public man that, from his eloquence and good sense, would be an honour to any country. The two volumes are highly worthy of your attention, and in many passages will, as I conceive, afford no slight illustration of the general doctrines that I am now endeavouring to inculcate. And I must observe at the same time, that it is no meaning of mine to deaden the spirit of civil liberty, I wish only to direct it aright, and to make it more reasonable; and I am not, therefore, at all unwilling that you should hear the panegyrics of the American system, displayed and enforced by the most splendid of the orators which it has produced.

IN

LECTURE V.

AMERICA.

N the lecture of yesterday I endeavoured to fortify your minds against exclusive systems in politics; against the mistake of supposing that human happiness can only be realized under republican institutions, that no governments are lawful, but those founded on the will of the majority told by the head; and I quoted largely from the late work of M. de Tocqueville to show, that the government of America is not one exempt from its appropriate evils; and that those evils are of a nature and of a magnitude sufficient to prevent any reasonable man from being an undistinguishing worshipper of such constitutions, and from endeavouring to introduce any similar system of republicanism into any of the older countries of Europe, more particularly into our own island, where a mixed system exists, that exhibits a specimen of human civilization, that might well satisfy, and more than satisfy, any intelligent speculator on the institutions of government, and the nature of mankind. And finally I observed, that the instance of America was one unparalleled in the history of the world; and both from the nature of its first settlers, and the particular circumstances in which the population is placed, formed no precedent whatever for the inhabitants of other countries.

In the lecture of to-day, I shall refer to the work of Mr. Webster; and I shall not hesitate to renew the same sort of reasoning, and repeat the same remarks, that I have already made, on the American system. I am naturally anxious, that such as have reference to our own country should find admission into your minds, and remain there for your consideration hereafter; and repetition may be one means among others of producing this effect.

The subject of America is very inexhaustible: no country

can be more interesting, not only from the novelty of the case, but from the high tone of civil and religious liberty which is there maintained, and from the example for imitation that is supposed to be there exhibited, for every other portion of mankind. It is to this last particular, this example, that I chiefly direct my attention. The manners, the morals, the religious sects, with these I do not concern myself, they are naturally the topics adverted to by our own travellers; and such subjects as I am discussing will also be found in their pages, especially in the very reasonable work of Mr. Hamilton, "Men and Manners in America." But I do not refer to the accounts that they have given; I confine myself to the French traveller, and the American orator, because to their representations, as not arising from any feelings, connected with this country, there can be no possible objection, and any conclusions, that can be fairly deduced from them, must be considered as decisive.

I observed at the end of my last lecture, that it was no meaning of mine, to deaden the spirit of civil liberty; that my wish was only to direct it aright and make it reasonable; that I was not therefore unwilling that you should hear the panegyrics of the American system, displayed and enforced by the most splendid of the orators which it has produced. These panegyrics will be abundantly found in every part of these two volumes of Mr. Webster's Speeches; and they will at all events animate the mind to a due sense of the value of civil liberty, and of the extraordinary state of personal inde pendence and prosperity in which every individual in America does, or at least may exist. But the question to which I am all along inviting your attention is this :-How far the American system can be realized in an old European country, and how far, even in this new country of America, certain evils are not experienced, which would be of fearful import indeed, if any system was adopted which would introduce them into the communities of Europe.

Observe, for instance, many passages in the preface to the second volume, as given by the American editors of the work. "Our government," they say, "popular in its theory, popular in its conception and in the rightful action of the system, is still more popular in its actual operations. This being the

case, flattery of the people is not merely the demagogue's accustomed theme, but the temptation to espouse popular prejudices, to inveigh against even just exercises of constituted power, to disparage institutions, and to court temporary opinions, is too strong to be resisted, except by firmly balanced minds, warmed with a true patriotism. It will accordingly be found, that this is the path to advancement most frequently pursued: the people have been most flattered by those, who have most systematically and boldly assailed all those constitutional safeguards, originally devised to protect the people from the abuses of executive power. So artfully contrived is this plan of popularity, that the real friend of the people, the friend of the constitution and the laws, in which the safeguard of their liberties exists, is apparently thrown upon unpopular ground, and compelled at times to resist their own hasty cooperation, in measures resulting in their own injury. The discharge of this duty, in which the very heroism of politics consists, is the touchstone of the statesman; and in nothing do Mr. Webster's public character and course of political conduct, appear in so noble and commanding a light. On all occasions he has been the great champion of the constitution and laws, the supporter of the institutions of the country, and of its great fundamental interests; and from his first appearance in public life to the present day, his writings may be searched in vain for a single attempt to play the demagogue; and yet who could have played it, we were about to say, with a better right? Who could have played it with a better pretence? Why are not the catchwords of a false and party republicanism for ever on his lips? Why does he not throw himself into the circle of those who are stimulating and leading on the people to a mad crusade against the people's constitution and laws? Is he so blind as not to see that that way lies the road to honour, office, and power? Is he so wanting in discernment, that he wanders from this path through ignorance? Are there so few examples to guide his choice? Not so. Mr. Webster is a patriot: he would find no pleasure in influence and place, obtained by fomenting prejudices, by sowing alienation and hatred among the members of the community, by exciting the people to tear down the fabric of their own liberty, and by making the institutions odious in which it is organized,