to the social system of that country. It should be recollected that many provisions of the constitution of the United States, which to an Englishman appear at first sight fraught with danger, will perhaps on a nearer examination be found well adapted to the American Union; for we are prone unconsciously to apply the arguments that would be good in England to a country extremely dissimilar; and thus contemplating, with views and ideas suited to a very different state of things, particular measures or modes of government, it is not surprising that our judgments and predictions of their consequences should be erroneous. Americans say that we look at their Republican institutions through our "monarchical spectacles," and that it requires some apprenticeship to so different a state of things to see them in their true light.

Let us look at the converse of this proposition. When an American arrives in England for the first time, he is apt to jump at conclusions equally unfounded respecting our country. I know what were the impressions of some individuals from the United States, and men of sagacity and experience, on first witnessing the practical workings of our constitutional monarchy, and the results of our social system. And if most Americans were honestly to confess their real opinions (formed after only a short residence in England) at any period during the last thirty years, I am convinced that there are few who

would not avow a conviction of their astonishment at the possibility of our government having continued to work with any success for five years together; but after a residence of greater duration, they perceive the existence of counteracting causes preventing many of the bad effects which they anticipated, and even begin to think that the transition to a form of government like their own would neither be so easy nor so advantageous as they previously believed. Americans are eminently practical men; all their undertakings, and generally all the measures, whether of governments or individuals in that country, are stamped with utility as their object, and dictated by sound practical good sense and prudence. They consequently quickly detect the wildness and absurdity of many of the Republican theories of those Europeans, who would seek to adopt forms of government totally unfitted for the circumstances of their country;-and soon adapt their views to the peculiarities of the political atmosphere in which they find themselves.

Englishmen do not, I think, so readily divest themselves of their preconceived ideas when reflecting on the situation of America, and are apt to continue bigoted in their own hypotheses, notwithstanding the frequent contradictions from facts and practical results to which they are continually subjected. It would be difficult otherwise to account for the

erroneous views that are so often taken of the American Republic; and for the condemnation of a system pursued with such remarkable success in one country, because it is not adapted to the circumstances of another.

As all human institutions carry with them from the first moment of their origin the seeds of their own decay or dissolution, it would be folly to expect that the American constitution should not share in the general imperfection of our nature. But so far from considering the political system of the United States as peculiarly fraught with danger to its own existence, and built upon imprudently slight foundations, I conceive it to be better adapted for the security, good government, and welfare of the American people, than any which could perhaps, under their peculiar circumstances, have been conceived; indeed this opinion is supported by the authority of writers by no means friendly to popular governments*. The constitution of America was the work of the combined talent and experience of men of sagacity and information, well acquainted with the wants and habits of their own country, and not ill versed in the theories or practices of others; and

* Vide Quarterly Review, No. XCII. p. 585. "It is a scheme, indeed, with which the Americans may well be content; for one better fitted to their situation it might not have been very easy, if possible, to devise."

they constructed their institutions upon a foundation of experience and practical ability, to suit the peculiar circumstances of their countrymen. Hitherto their system has worked wonderfully for the prosperity of the United States, and it is not one of its least advantages that any necessary change or amelioration is foreseen and provided for, with such careful precautions and restrictions, as prospectively secure a remedy for future wants or changes of circumstance. It appears, I think, likely to last, and adapt itself to the mutations brought on by the lapse of years, with at least as fair a prospect of success as the nature of most human institutions can promise.

CHAPTER II.

Nature of American Republic generally misunderstood in Europe. -Its dissimilarity to the republics of antiquity, or to those of more modern times.-Contrast between the American Republic and that which succeeded the first French Revolution. -Of a Federal Union.

THE name of Republic, or rather the associations connected with that title, may go a great way in accounting for the misconceptions and prejudices with which all considerations of the government of the United States are observed. Most of our recollections of school and college connected with the word Republic, present the classical images, but really rude and uncivilized habits, of Sparta, the vices and defects of Athens or Lacedemonia, or the fluctuating and turbulent æras of Rome. Whatever may have been the boyish enthusiasm in favour of those governments of antiquity, inspired by the nature of our early course of education, there are few of us who have assumed the toga of manhood without discovering that no forms of government could be well imagined less adapted to the wants, the habits, or the religious lights of our own country in the present day, than the political systems of Greece or