The American Democrat/On Candor
ON CANDOR.
Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs, equally to the honest man and to the gentleman: to the first, as doing to others as we would ourselves be done by; to the last, as indispensable to the liberality of the character.
By candor we are not to understand trifling and uncalled for expositions of truth; but a sentiment that proves a conviction of the necessity of speaking truth, when speaking at all; a contempt for all designing evasions of our real opinions; and a deep conviction that he who deceives by necesary implication, deceives wilfully.
In all the general concerns, the publick has a right to be treated with candor. Without this manly and truly republican quality, republican because no power exists in the country to intimidate any from its exhibition, the institutions are converted into a stupendous fraud.
Foreigners reproach the Americans with a want of directness and candor, in conducting their ordinary intercourse. It is said that they dissemble thoughts that might properly be expressed, in the presence of the parties interested, to express them openly and in a way to insinuate more than is asserted, behind their backs. It is to be feared that this is a vice of humanity, but, still, one people may be more under its influence than another. It would be a singular and a false effect of freedom, to destroy a nation's character for candor; but we are not to be deceived by names, it being quite possible that a tyranny of opinion should produce such results, even in a democracy.
America is under many powerful influences, that have little connection with the institutions. The want of large towns, the scattered population, and the absence of much marked inequality of condition, necessarily lend a provincial character to the population, a character that every where favors the natural propensity of man to bring all his fellows within the control of his own strictures. The religionists who first setded the country, too, have aided in bringing individual opinion in subjection to publick opinion, and, as the latter is always controlled by combinations and design, consequently more or less to error. There is no doubt that these combined causes have had the effect to make a large portion of the population less direct, frank, candid and simple in the expression of their honest sentiments, and even in the relation of facts, than the laws of God, and the social duties require. It is to this feeling that the habit has arisen of making cautious and evasive answers, such as "I guess," "I conclude," "I some think," "I shouldn't wonder, if such a man had said so and so," when the speaker is the whole time confident of the fact. This practice has the reproach of insincerity and equivocation, is discreditable, makes intercourse treacherous and unsafe, and is beneath the frankness of freemen. In all these respects, a majority of the American people might take a useful lesson from the habits of England, a country which though remarkable for servility to superiors, can boast of more frankness in ordinary life, than our own.
Candor has the high merit of preventing misconceptions, simplifies intercourse, prevents more misunderstandings than equivocation, elevates character, inculcates the habit of sincerity, and has a general tendency to the manly and virtuous qualities.