REMARKS ON THE STATISTICS, &c. OF THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER I. Introductory.-Misconceptions on the subject of America in Europe. Contradictory accounts of travellers.-Arguments suited to European governments not often applicable to the United States.-Government of that country well adapted to the circumstances of its inhabitants. ALTHOUGH the attention of Europeans, since the conclusion of the treaty of Ghent in 1814, has been directed to the progress of the United States of North America with more interest than at former periods, and although the rapidly increasing population and resources of the Federal Union have been of late years more justly appreciated than heretofore, yet there is perhaps no country of equal importance that is in fact so little known in Europe generally. No better proof can be wanting of this ignorance in our own country, on the subject of B America, than the conflicting and contradictory opinions and reports concerning it that are continually made public. Not only the allusions frequently made in either House of Parliament to the theoretic tendency and practical effects of her political institutions, but the observations of the daily and periodical press furnish ample evidence of the great difference of opinion that exists on the advantages or defects of her form of government, and its influence on the social system in some measure its consequence. That many misconceptions as to the real situation of the Americans should be entertained by those who have never visited their country is the less surprising, when we observe that, even among the numerous travellers in the United States who have published their impressions of its present condition, or their views of its future prospects, there should be such diversity of opinion, that one is sometimes inclined to doubt that the different writers are describing the self-same country. This may doubtless be said of accounts of other countries; but, where intercourse is frequent, and distance from our homes not great, vulgar errors are rectified, or prejudiced mistatements contradicted, with greater facility and certainty than where that serious obstacle to an intimate acquaintance between two nations intervenes, viz. some thousand miles of the Atlantic. Even those rapid improvements in the means of communication anticipated by some * sanguine authors, will not so speedily overcome this natural bar to an intimate acquaintance with the American continent, as not to allow for many years to come a wide field for speculation and theoretical discussion, founded on partial and exaggerated statements, and unintentional or wilful misrepresentation. While one party, zealously admiring the system of America, represents the United States as a political Utopia, and would wish to transplant her institutions and particularly her financial economy to England, forgetful of the many circumstances rendering such a form of government or any such practical adoption of her scale of expenditure undesirable or impossible in this country,-another set of men are unceasing in their condemnation of every thing American, describing manifold evils as the present effects, and predicting convulsion and ruin as the future results, of the mode of government which the people of the United States have adopted. In either case the ignotum pro magnifico accounts for the exaggerated opinions so frequently, and often conscientiously, expressed on the subject. But the opinions of travellers in the United States, however speculative, deserve more attention than * Vide McGregor's British America, M'Taggart's work, &c. those of men who write by their firesides strictures upon countries of which they have no practical knowledge, and whose impressions are coloured by the prejudices of a party, or their own misapprehensions. Unfortunately, those who have published descriptions of America have not generally remained there long enough to be enabled to use their judgment uninfluenced by prepossessions against or in favour of the theory or practice of the American system; they consequently apply a scale of their own, adapted to a country widely different in circumstances, manners, and institutions, in forming opinions of the government and people of the United States. The traveller who on first arriving in any foreign country should unreservedly commit to paper his impressions and opinions of its usages or political institutions, and endeavour to explain and account for its peculiar customs, from his own observations and knowledge, and then lay aside his notes during a year's residence in the same place, would probably be surprised on a reperusal of them at the mistaken views that he had in many instances taken; at least I have found it so. And if this be true of European countries, having generally many features of resemblance, it is particularly so in the judgments passed by Europeans on the United States. I am speaking now more especially of the political institutions of America, but the same remarks are even more strikingly applicable |