ENGLISH OPINION OF AMERICA.
Wrrniat these few years public opinion in England respecting the United States of America has undergone a great change. Men may regret this, or rejoice at it ; there may be doubts as to whe- ther there are substantial reasons for the change ; but the fact is beyond dispute.
Little more than ten years ago, the prestige which attached to the United States at the time when they established their inde- pendence existed in its full force. The depreciating remarks of tourists of the Trollope school were retailed with avidity by some Ultra-Tories ; they were perhaps lau,ghed at as clever caricatures ; but by the mass of the educated classes in England they were resented almost as much as by Americans. They were not be- lieved, and Englishmen were angry that Englishmen could be so unjust. The general public in this country still retains its distaste for the petty spirit in which such writers pried into and carped at the domestic menages of America .. but there are few now who retain enough of their old veneration for "the model republic" to take the matter to heart.
. From the close of the war in 1812, the attention of the English public had not been much attracted to America. Our merchants knew that their correspondents in the United States were rapid- ly advancing in wealth by exertions of a wonderfully equable energy. Our men of science frequently received valuable contri- butions to their respective departments from their fellow-labourers in the Union. Cooper, Sedgwick, Bryant, Paulding, Brown, and 4 host of others, were acceptable to our literary circles. It was clear that there was much of what was good and pleasant in the United States ; and men took upon trust that the character of the aggregat ',people and of their institutions was such as they had been ac ,stomed to hear it represented from boyhood.
There wr/a great deal in the character of the American Revolu- tion and R'evolutionists, and still more in the tone of mind preva- lent among the classes who led European opinion at the time when the Revolution broke out, to give rise to an exaggerated estimate of the young republic. The robust and well-balanced mind of Franklin—the moral dignity of Washington—the fervid enthusi- asm of Henry—the stern stoicism of Samuel Adams—would of themselves have commanded admiration under any circum- stances. The mere fact of a few thinly-peopled provinces making head against the most powerful state of Europe, appeared in itself little less than miraculous. The diplomatists and warriors of the old states—not aware of the practical schooling supplied by Indian wars and the popular institutions of British America—were asto- nished to find professional equals in men whom accident seemed to have forced to assume these characters impromptu. And men and events possessing such inherent recommendations to esteem were contemplated b7 a Revolutionary public. The writings of Rous- seau and the Encyclopedists had preoccupied the minds of the European noblesse with the theory that the virtues of private life were all in all ; that the strength and goodness of the state were to be found exclusively among the bourgeois. The middle classes gladly received a doctrine so flattering to themselves. It was the fashionable tone—the cant of the day—to depreciate rank and its possessors and panegyrize the humble citizen. Still there was a lurking misgiving that this fine theory was after all but a theory. A society in this uncomfortable mood of scepticism welcomed the American emissaries despatched to seek assistance from the dif- ferent courts in Europe as realizations of the future golden age, to which their philosophers had taught them to look forward. In Realist England, where Rousseauism had made less way, the American cause was taken up by the popular leaders, irritated beyond measure by the narrow-minded despotism of the Court. There was a general predisposition throughout Europe to regard the Americans as the champions of political and social equality; and on this account to attribute to their political institutions not only the real virtues of the founders, but all those that the heated imaginations of their admirers ascribed to them. • This traditionary faith in the practical workings of the Ameri- can constitution was confirmed by our occasional glimpses of the republic's progress in arts, science, and literature. The Ameri- can republic was the idol of the Liberal party in England—the example with which its members were wont to clinch their argu- tnents in support of popular institutions. Even the old Tories entertained a sneaking kindness and respect for such an energetic offshoot of the English race. America was looked on as a young and enterprising relative, who did credit to the family ; and all England was proud of her. But a more intimate acquaintance has materially changed the estimate of American worth. The mere sentimentalists were the first to give way : the contradiction of Negro slavery in a Demo- cratic nation, and the tierce uncompromising spirit in which the institution was vindicated, alienated a very numerous if not a very clear-headed class of English society. Repudiation next did its work. We are, what Bonaparte called us, a nation of shop- keepers; and a fraudulentbankrupt, or anything that looks like one, is our aversion. Still there is a class of hard-headed politicians who do not allow their sympathies and antipathies to form their judg- ments exclusively: but even they have been obliged, reluctantly, to abandon their faith in American institutions. They have all but finally entertained the conviction that there is no central power in the United States strong enough to enforce the law ; that private citizens have no adequate security for the public faith of America in financial transactions, and foreign governments no adequate security for American compliance with the law of nations. And, seeking for the source of these evils, an analysis of American in- stitutions, combined with the analysis of the human mind, point to the conclusion that the political vices of the United States are necessary consequences of their political constitution.
Faith in American institutions and the American people, if not utterly lost in England, has shrunk to its very lowest ebb. For our own parts, remembering Channing, and looking to the noble stand at present by Webster, Calhoun, and other American leaders, we have not yet relinquished hope. But we feel—and our Ame- rican kinsmen ought to know it—that they who participate in our "trembling hope" are few indeed.
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