Society in America. Harriet Martineau

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СКАЧАТЬ landed in Ohio, less than fifty years ago, it contained fewer than a hundred whites; and buffalo lodged in a cane brake where the city now stands; while the State at present contains upwards of a million of inhabitants, the city between thirty and forty thousand; and Cincinnati has four daily, and five or six weekly, newspapers, besides a variety of other periodicals.

      The most remarkable circumstance, and the most favourable, with regard to the peopling of Cincinnati is, that its population contains contributions of almost every element that goes to constitute society; and each in its utmost vigour. There are here few of the arbitrary associations which exist among the members of other societies. Young men come with their wives, in all directions, from afar; with no parents, cousins, sects, or parties about them. Here is an assemblage from almost every nation under heaven—a contribution from the resources of almost every country; and all unburdened, and ready for natural association and vigorous action. Like takes to like, and friendships are formed from congeniality, and not from accident or worldly design. Yet is there a tempering of prejudices, a mutual enlightenment, from previous differences of education and habits—difference even of country and language. Great force is thus given to any principle carried out into action by the common convictions of differing persons; and life is deep and rapid in its course. Such is the theory of society in Cincinnati; and such is, in some degree, its practice. But here it is that sectional prejudice interferes, to set up arbitrary associations where, of all places, they should be shunned.

      The adventurers who barbarize society in new places, have gone westward; and, of the full population that remains, above one-fifth are Germans. Their function seems to be, everywhere in the United States, to develope the material resources of the infant places in which they settle; and the intellectual ones at a more advanced stage. They are the farmers and market-gardeners here. There are many English, especially among the artizans. I saw two handsome white houses, on the side of a hill above the river, with rich ground lots, and extensive garden walls. These are the property of two English artizans, brothers, who emigrated a very few years ago. An Englishman, servant to a physician in Cincinnati in 1818, turned pork-butcher; was worth 10,000 dollars when I was there, and is rapidly growing rich. There are many New Englanders among the clergy, lawyers, and merchants; and this is the portion of society that will not freely mix with the westerners. It is no wonder if the earliest settlers of the place, westerners, are proud of it, and are careful to cherish its primitive emblems and customs. The New Englanders should not take this as an affront to themselves. It is also natural enough that the New Englanders should think and speak alike, and be fond of acting together; and the westerners should not complain of their being clannish. I was at a delightful party at the house of one of the oldest inhabitants, where a sprig of the distinctive buck-eye was hung up in the hall, and a buck-eye bowl of lemonade stood on the table. This was peevishly commented upon by some of eastern derivation: but I thought it would have been wiser to adopt the emblem than to find fault with it. Cincinnati has not gone to the eastern people: the eastern people have gone to her. If they have adopted her for their city, they may as well adopt her emblems too, and make themselves westerners at heart, as well as in presence. These discontents may appear trifling; but they are not so while they impede the furtherance of great objects. I was told on the spot that they would be very transient; but I fear it is not so. And yet they would be very transient if the spirited and choice inhabitants of that magnificent city could see their position as it is viewed by people at a distance. When I was one day expressing my admiration, and saying that it was a place for people of ambition, worldly or philanthropic, to live in, one of its noblest citizens said, "Yes, we have a new creation going on here; won't you come and dabble in the mud?" If they will but remember that it is a new creation that is going on, and not a fortuitous concourse of atoms; that the human will is, or may be, the presiding intelligence; that centuries hence, their posterity will either bless their memories with homage like that which is paid to the Pilgrim Fathers, or suffer the retribution which follows the indulgence of human passions, all petty jealousies will surely subside, in the prospect which lies before every good man. In a place like Cincinnati, where every man may gratify his virtuous will, and do, with his own hands, the deeds of a generation, feelings should be as grand as the occasion. If the merchants of Genoa were princes, the citizens of Cincinnati, as of every first city of a new region, are princes and prophets at once. They can foresee the future, if they please; and shape it, if they will: and petty personal regards are unworthy of such a destiny. It is melancholy to see how the crusading chiefs quarrelled for precedence on the soil of the Holy Land: it would be more so to see the leaders of this new enterprise desecrating their higher mission by a like contention.

      SECTION VI.

       CITIZENSHIP OF PEOPLE OF COLOUR.

       Table of Contents

      Before I entered New England, while I was ascending the Mississippi, I was told by a Boston gentleman that the people of colour in the New England States were perfectly well-treated; that the children were educated in schools provided for them; and that their fathers freely exercised the franchise. This gentleman certainly believed he was telling me the truth. That he, a busy citizen of Boston, should know no better, is now as striking an exemplification of the state of the case to me as a correct representation of the facts would have been. There are two causes for his mistake. He was not aware that the schools for the coloured children in New England are, unless they escape by their insignificance, shut up, or pulled down, or the school-house wheeled away upon rollers over the frontier of a pious State, which will not endure that its coloured citizens should be educated. He was not aware of a gentleman of colour, and his family, being locked out of their own hired pew in a church, because their white brethren will not Worship by their side. But I will not proceed with an enumeration of injuries, too familiar to Americans to excite any feeling but that of weariness; and too disgusting to all others to be endured. The other cause of this gentleman's mistake was, that he did not, from long custom, feel some things to be injuries, which he would call anything but good treatment, if he had to bear them himself. Would he think it good treatment to be forbidden to eat with fellow-citizens; to be assigned to a particular gallery in his church; to be excluded from college, from municipal office, from professions, from scientific and literary associations? If he felt himself excluded from every department of society, but its humiliations and its drudgery, would he declare himself to be "perfectly well-treated in Boston?" Not a word more of statement is needed.

      A Connecticut judge lately declared on the bench that he believed people of colour were not considered citizens in the laws. He was proved to be wrong. He was actually ignorant of the wording of the acts by which people of colour are termed citizens. Of course, no judge could have forgotten this who had seen them treated as citizens: nor could one of the most eminent statesmen and lawyers in the country have told me that it is still a doubt, in the minds of some high authorities, whether people of colour are citizens. He is as mistaken as the judge. There has been no such doubt since the Connecticut judge was corrected and enlightened. The error of the statesman arose from the same cause; he had never seen the coloured people treated as citizens. "In fact," said he, "these people hold an anomalous situation. They are protected as citizens when the public service requires their security; but not otherwise treated as such," Any comment would weaken this intrepid statement.

      The common argument, about the inferiority of the coloured race, bears no relation whatever to this question. They are citizens. They stand, as such, in the law, and in the acknowledgment of every one who knows the law. They are citizens, yet their houses and schools are pulled down, and they can obtain no remedy at law. They are thrust out of offices, and excluded from the most honourable employments, and stripped of all the best benefits of society by fellow-citizens who, once a year, solemnly lay their hands on their hearts, and declare that all men are born free and equal, and that rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

      This system of injury is not wearing out. Lafayette, on his last visit to the United States, expressed his astonishment at the increase of the prejudice against colour. He remembered, he said, how the black soldiers used СКАЧАТЬ