AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION.
THERE is nothing, perhaps, in the whole range of American. polities which so painfully strikes the observer as the difficulty: of ascertaining the course of public opinion. There are so many kcal centres, party lines are so sharply defined, and there is such a habit of talking for the sake of a moment's effect, that the national opinion, which must exist if the North is a nation at all, is, except in very great crises, almost invisible. One can discover what a Republican, qua Republican, wishes to do ; or what a Democrat, so far as he is Democrat, desires to avoid; or record pretty accurately the tone of a city or sometimes the tendency of a. State ; but the general current of thought and desire is beyond an outsider's ken. There exists, in fact, in America but one means of expressing opinion, and that one is very imperfect.. Majorities in Congress indicate nothing ; for while the one which is sitting passes a law, another may already have been elected in order to reverse that decision. The action of the Cabinet proves very little ; for though its members may be courting opinion, they may also be courting the President, or trying to, conciliate individual States, or, on questions like slavery, expressing individual thoughts. The State Legislatures furnish no guide, even if it were possible for Englishmen to follow their votes ; for- they are constantly swayed by an overruling desire to protect State rights against the national will. The press gives least in- dication of all, for there is no national press, not one paper which will honestly report the best speeches on both sides, or which can be relied on to state any bets hostile to its own. views. The editors, moreover, are constantly and seriously em- barrassed by their inability to discover the tone of public senti- ment, and have an odd trick of publishing wild disconnected. articles to see if the public will accept any particular course. These articles are not like those which the English public calls. "feelers," they are usually strong expressions in favour of some- particular line of policy. If the public endorse them, a fact soon visible in the country papers and letters, the editor sticks to his line ;- if not, he tries another,—principle, except upon strictly moral ques- tions, not influencing his course in the least. Public meetings might, be some guide, but no human intellect can watch them through twenty-one States, and the forty-two newspapers, one for each party, which it would be absolutely necessary to buy. Political. speeches are worthless, for American politicians want to follow opin- ion, not lead it, and are frequently as much puzzled as foreigners to ascertain its direction. They were all in the wrong as to the attack on Sumter, and wheeled round, when they discovered the truth, with an unanimity which would have been ludicrous had it been less devoid of principle. The truth is that America, hie every country under a very wide suffrage, is governed in the last resort by a class habitually silent, which, in ordinary cases, submits to be led, but which occasionally takes the reins into its own hands, and expects politicians to drag the coach in the required direction. This class, the country- population buried in villages scattered over an enormous surface, cannot be visited, and is, therefore, rarely understood even by professional politicians; and even the elections, to which alone Americans trust, do not always reveal its opinion. Under ordinary circumstances, it votes pretty much as it is bid ; but in extraordinary circumstances, such as exist just now, no leader has the slightest control, and "inflexi- ble " party bonds snap like burning flax. When the slave Burns was arrested, the people of Boston were amazed to find that the yeomanry of the State were prepared to begin civil war rather than carry out the Fugitive Slave Law, and looked at the men who rode in, quoting a Hebrew text about not delivering up the captive within thy gates,—as if they had been red Indians.
If it were possible at this moment to ascertain the views of this class, it would be possible also to predict the immediate course of events ; but no certainty can be attained. All that it is practi- cable to attempt is to indicate the general tendencies displayed on the few occasions on which they have been compelled to act. They have, in politics, we believe, but two strong passions— love of the Union for the sake of its imperial power, and hatred of any form or sort of direct taxation.
The first feeling was strongly exhibited immediately after the Southern attack on Sumter. The politicians who thought they understood their own country were perfectly astonished at the cry which came up from the country districts, at the bitter rage expressed by men usually as slow and as sleek as bulls. It frightens them even now, and is the real cause of the hesitation visible in the Democratic ranks, and the half inclination to go on with the war if the Republicans give it up. This passion cannot yet be exhausted, nor, being as it is a feeling and not a _thought, can it have been argued away. A single victory would *probably blow it into a flame, and we are not sure that when the issue is distinctly set forth, and negotiations commence for the recognition of the South, this class will not furnish the means for one more despairing effort. On the other hand, the country popu- lation of the North is governed habitually by an intense dislike to expense, and particularly to expense visible in immediate cash. Englishmen, habitually the most wasteful of mankind, can scarcely :understand how strong this love of thrift may become, how savage a temper can be produced by interrupted frugality. The American yeoman is perhaps the only man in the world who demands pay _for receiving his own relatives on a visit, or who, knowing how to :read, hoards his savings in actual cash. To such men the tax- gatherer seems almost a personal foe, and heavy taxes, unless com- pelled, they certainly will not pay. They have a belief that they must this time ; and the suggestion that if the Union be dissolved the national responsibility for its debts will end, comes gratefully to their ears. It was to this feeling that General Butler, an -acute attorney who knows the people, appealed, when he proposed to conquer the South, and pay for the war by an export duty on cotton. The people are not, as many Englishmen imagined, so stupid as not to see that such a duty risks the whole trade; but it gives them a chance of avoiding the dreaded payments in cash, and they look to General Butler as the first of modern financiers. It is by the action of these two feelings, love of im- perial power, and dread of imperial taxation, that they are ulti- mately swayed, and the point to discover is simply which is the .stronger of the two.
We believe the former, on the well-known ground that masses once driven to choose, always obey the imagination in preference to the reason. Thrift does not appeal to the imagination. Im- perial power does. Moreover, the yeoman is well aware that the surrender of national rank will not by any means exempt him from heavy taxation. The South has become already a military Republic, will become, the moment the war is over, a military oligarchy, resembling in the principles of its organization nothing so much as Sparta. To face such a rival, which can paralyze its trade, the North must keep up a great army and a very powerful fleet. Neither can be main- tained without money, and the yeoman justly calculates that -while repudiation is possible for a debt, repudiation of wages is only equivalent to the loss of essential service. The in- fluence of frugality is therefore as a political element imperfect, while that of the passion for empire, being unaffected by facts, re- mains unimpaired by events, and is as often exasperated as con- trolled by military disaster.
. The tendency, therefore, of the great yeoman class will be, we conceive, to fight on, not perhaps for the conquest of the South, but for the adoption of such a boundary as shall leave them still the paramount power upon the American continent, and give them a chance in the future of renewing the war with success.
This tendency may be affected by a hundred circumstances ; such as the want of a leader, the imbecility of the Government, the effect of a momentary despair, or even the dread, unaccountably morbid throughout America, of foreign intervention ; but it is this which we believe will govern the general course of events, and prevent that immediate peace which otherwise would result from the general impression of the people, and the special impression of the West, that the resources of a great nation are being senselessly thrown away.
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