428
If two men are united in society, who have the same interests, and to a certain extent the same opinions, but different characters, different acquirements, and a different style of civilization, it is probable that these men will not agree. The same remark is applicable to a society of nations.
Slavery then does not attack the American Union directly in its interests, but indirectly in its manners.
The states which gave their assent to the federal contract in 1790 were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of twenty-four members. The population which amounted to nearly four millions in 1790, had more than tripled in the space of forty years; and in 1830 it amounted to nearly thirteen millions.[1] Changes of such magnitude cannot take place without some danger.
A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derives its principal changes of duration from the wisdom of its members, their individual weakness, and their limited number. The Americans who quit the coasts of the Atlantic ocean to plunge into the western wilderness, are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men expelled from the states in which they were born. When they arrive in the deserts, they are unknown to each other; and they have neither traditions, family feeling, nor the force of example to check their excesses. The empire of the laws is feeble among them; that of morality is still more powerless. The settlers who are constantly peopling the valley of the Mississippi are, then, in every respect very inferior to the Americans who inhabit the older parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they already exercise a great influence in its councils; and they arrive at the government of the commonwealth before they have learned to govern themselves.[2]
The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the contract; for their safety is then dependant upon their union. When, in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000 inhabitants,[3] each of them felt its own insignificance as
- ↑
Census of 1790 3,929,328. do. 1830 12,856,165. - ↑ This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt that in time society will assume as much stability and regularity in the west, as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic ocean.
- ↑ Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790.
