XXXVII. 1837. years succeeding 1828, their annual amount, and the price CHAP. received for them, had risen to ten times its former amount." But this was only the commencement of the great inroad of civilised man upon the forest; a progress twofold greater awaited him; and so rapid had been the rise in the value of land on the frontier, that nearly all who had engaged in it of late years had made money by their purchasessome great fortunes; and the banks which had advanced the money were in a state of unprecedented affluence. From this very prosperity arose the storm which ere long involved the United States in woe, and by its influ- 1 Chevalier, ence across the Atlantic produced effects of the last im- 415. portance on the British empire.1 i. 143, 409, 9. between the landholders and Ame In the states of Europe-and the case had been the same in the Roman empire-the great landed estates in Difference the country were originally acquired by the right of con- political quest. They were the grants made by a victorious chief- feeling of tain to his followers; and though in many, perhaps most in Europe instances, they afterwards changed hands, and were ac- rica. quired by commercial wealth, yet the purchasers rapidly acquired the feelings, and became actuated by the interests of the more elevated and dignified circle into which they had been admitted. Hence the majority of the landed aristocracy, both of new and old descent, is always conservative and monarchical in its ideas, and the elements of freedom and popular government first appear in the great hives of industry produced by manufacturing and commercial activity. The passing of the Reform Bill * QUANTITIES OF LAND SOLD AND PRICE RECEIVED IN AMERICA. -Report of Secretary to the Treasury of the United States, Dec. 8, 1835; and CHEVALIER, i. 413. CHAP. was the first and greatest triumph of the latter over the XXXVII. former. In America the case is just the reverse. 1837. 10. in America . rally in the towns. The aristocracy is there found in the towns, the democracy in the country. The reason is, that it is in the former alone that the means of making considerable fortunes existed. The forests being there pierced, and the wilds cultivated by the arms of laborious industry, not won by the sword of victorious conquest, it was soon found that the retention of land without its occupation was impossible. The feudal baron might do this, living in his strong castle, surrounded by his armed retainers; to the pacific colonist living in his log-house, and aided only by a few backwoodsmen, the thing was impossible. In all the colonies, accordingly, whether of America or Australia, the limits of retainable property have been found to be little beyond those of actual occupation; and all attempts to found great estates by the purchase or grants of large tracts of country, have been in the end defeated by the experienced impossibility of keeping off the squatters from tracts of good land not actually cleared, or about to be so, by the axe of the backwoodsman. Society being thus constituted by the strongest of all Aristocracy laws-that of necessity-the only places in which the grew natu- growth of fortunes was practicable, were the towns, especially the commercial ones on the sea-coast. To them the vast progress of the back settlements, from the labour of the equal Anglo-Saxon freemen, afforded the greatest possible advantages: for the produce of their fields teeming with the riches of a virgin soil, afforded an immense amount of rude produce, which the wealth and redundant population of Europe were ever ready to take off; while their wants, even in a simple and primeval state of society, presented a vast and growing market for the manufacturing industry of the Old World. This was the secret of the great export of British manufactures to the United States, which had now come to amount to £12,000,000 declared value yearly; a quantity equal to what £24,000,000 XXXVII. 1837. would have been at the war prices. This prodigious traf- CHAP. fic, the most important in which England was engaged, all passed through New York, Pennsylvania, Baltimore, New Orleans, Boston, and the other great towns on the sea-coast, and was of course in a great degree monopolised by the chief mercantile houses who possessed the capital or could command the credit necessary for carrying it on. To them, credit and an extensive paper currency were the condition of existence; they were as indispensable as the axe and the plough to the settlers in the Far West. As wealth flowed in rapidly to those who could command the assistance of this potent auxiliary, fortunes grew up rapidly, and with them the habits, interests, and desires of a mercantile aristocracy. 11. country. But meanwhile the very reverse of all this obtained in the backwoods, where the market for this immense com- And demomerce was in process of formation. There the forest cracy in the settlers, detached from each other, each cultivating his little freehold alone, were in habits of independence by the necessities of their situation. No aid from Government could be obtained on any emergency; no regular troops were at hand to aid in repelling an assault; no fortified place existed to serve as a place of refuge, or an asylum for their wives and children in case of disaster. In such circumstances, self-government became a habit, because self-defence was a necessity. The backwoodsmen, and the cultivators who succeeded to their cleared domains, accustomed to rely on their own resources, and to act for themselves in every emergency, required no aid from any superior power, and were not disposed to submit to any control. A feeling of independence, and a resolution to assert it alike against foreign invasion and domestic authority, arises inevitably and universally in the human mind in such circumstances. Accordingly, it had long been found that the representatives sent by the frontier States to the Congress were the most democratic, and the final ascendancy of their party has been VOL. VI. R XXXVII. CHAP. Owing to the unparalleled growth of the population in the basin of the Mississippi, and beyond the Alleghany Mountains. 1837. 12. ders party violent in A contest for the majority in the legislature, and the What ren- consequent command of the government, is a matter of Contests so far greater importance, and rouses the passions much more America. strongly in America than a similar conflict in the constitutional monarchies of Europe. The reason is, that, owing to the republican form of government, a much greater number of persons are interested in, and hope to profit by it. The majority in Congress being determined by the votes of between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 of voters in the State, and no other influence, parties have long felt the necessity of rousing the multitude to their support by offering to them not merely the empty honours, but the substantial fruits of victory. This is effected by an immense multiplication of offices more highly paid as they descend in the scale, and come within the reach of the democracy, and a rigorous change of their occupants when a change in government takes place. It is calculated that there were, in 1837, 60,000 offices in America at the disposal of the executive, all of which are changed on a change of ministry. Thus the voters have an immense number of offices to look for in the event of their party gaining the ascendancy in Congress. This vast multiplication of offices is not complained of, because each party hopes to profit by it-just as in England we hear nothing of the evils of patronage, at least from the popular press, when their party are in power, and it is showered down upon themselves. These offices are the queville de allotment of the conquered lands, the prospect of which ii. 284-287; so vehemently excited the Roman soldiery, and the coni. 137, 153. test for which, under the name of an agrarian law, at length occasioned the ruin of the republic.1 1 De Toc l'Amerique, Chevalier, As there were no great landed proprietors in America, and commercial wealth alone could form the basis of an aristocracy, the banks in the great towns, especially on the XXXVII. 1837. jealousy of of the de party. sea-coast, early excited the jealousy of the ambitious de- CHAP. mocrats in the interior. Being composed of hard-headed practical men, and led by chiefs of acknowledged ability, 13. they were not long in perceiving that it was the system of General credit built upon the advances made by these banks, the banks that was the foundation on which the commercial aristo- on the part cracy, which had often ruled the Union, and got the com- mocratic mand of the numerous offices at the disposal of the executive, rested. If they could only destroy the banks, the axe would be laid to the root of the commercial aristocracy, as completely as it would to an army if you cut off its supplies. When this desirable consummation was effected, no obstacle would remain to their undisputed and permanent government of the republic, and enjoyment of its fruits. With the usual selfishness and blindness of faction, they resolved to prosecute their object with all their forces, regardless of its inevitable consequences, and careless although the branch they were in such haste to cut away should be that on which they themselves sat. They were not long in effecting their object, and bringing that ruin upon their country, and elevation to themselves, which might reasonably have been expected from their proceedings. 14. Jackson: sures against the GENERAL JACKSON was at this period the President of the Republic, an eminence which he had attained General in consequence of his successful defence of the lines his men before New Orleans against the English in 1814. He was the head of the democratic party by whom he had banks. been placed in power, and being a violent party-man, without commercial interests or connections, he determined to follow out the wishes of his constituents without any regard to the effects of the measures they advocated upon the general prosperity of the Union, or even their own ultimate interests. To effect this object, a crusade was set on foot against the banks, and especially that of the United States, in which the press took the lead. Three-fourths of the 1265 journals which at that period |