stranger, a freeman or a slave; certain vices were blazoned abroad, certain virtues were extolled above all others. “In that age,” says Plutarch in the life of Coriolanus, “martial prowess was more honoured and prized in Rome than all the other virtues, insomuch that it was called virtus, the name of virtue itself, by applying the name of the kind to this particular species; so that virtue in Latin was as much as to say valour.” Can any one fail to recognize the peculiar want of that singular community which was formed for the conquest of the world?
Any nation would furnish us with similar grounds of observation; for, as I have already remarked, whenever men collect together as a distinct community, the notion of honour instantly grows up amongst them; that is to say, a system of opinions peculiar to themselves as to what is blameable or commendable; and these peculiar rules always originate in the special habits and special interests of the community.
This is applicable to a certain extent to democratic communities as well as to others, as we shall now proceed to prove by the example of the Americans.[1]
Some loose notions of the old aristocratic honour of Europe are still to be found scattered amongst the opinions of the Americans; but these traditional opinions are few in number, they have but little root in the country, and but little power. They are like a religion which has still some temples left standing, though men have ceased to believe in it. But amidst these half-obliterated notions of exotic honour, some new opinions have sprung up, which constitute what may be termed in our days American honour.
I have shown how the Americans are constantly driven to engage in commerce and industry. Their origin, their social condition, their political institutions, and even the spot they inhabit, urges them irresistibly in this direction. Their present condition is then that of an almost exclusively
- ↑ I speak here of the Americans inhabiting those States where slavery does not exist; they alone can be said to present a complete picture of democratic society.
