American prints, and his name and his supposed misdemeanors are bandied about from one end of the Union to the other. It is hardly credible to what a state of slavery they would reduce the American representative. One man says, "I understand I can have a Court dress at a Jew's." "Yes, you can, I believe.” "Well, now, suppose we step down together; you may cheapen it a bit for me, may be." These facts are known to the respectable and gentleman-like Americans, who, after the samples which have come over, and have obtained admission into society and gone to Court, will not shew themselves, but prefer to stay at home. All this is wrong, and a remedy must soon be found, as the evil increases every day. The Americans cannot take the English Court by storm, or force us to acknowledge their equality in this country. There are but certain classes in this country who have any pretension to be received at Court; and unless the Americans can prove that they are by their situa tion, or descent, of a sufficient rank to qualify them to be admitted, they must be content to be excluded, as the major portion of our countrymen are. Even an American being a member of Congress does not qualify him, although being a member of the Senate certainly should. The members of the American Congress are not in the mass equal by any means in respectability to the members of the English House of Commons; and there have been many members of the English House of Commons, since the passing of the Reform Bill, who could not, and cannot, gain admittance into society. If the harmony and good feeling between the two countries is to continue uninterrupted, and our intercourse to be extended, as there is every probability that it will be, it appears to me that there is more importance to be attached to this question than at the first view of it might be supposed. The Americans are more ambitious of birth and aristocracy than any other nation, which is very natural, if it were only from the simple fact that we always most desire what is out of our reach. Since the Americans have come over in such numbers to this country, our Herald's Office has actually been besieged by them, in their anxiety to take out the arms and achievements of their presumed forefathers; this is also very natural and very proper, although it may be at variance with their institutions. The determination to have an aristocracy in America gains head every day: a conflict must ensue, when the increase of wealth in the country adds sufficiently to the strength of the party. But some line must be drawn in this country, as to the admission of Americans to the English Court, or, if not drawn, it will end in a total, and therefore unjust exclusion. As but few of the Americans can claim any right to aristocracy in their own country from acknowledged descent, I should not be surprised if in a few years, now that the two countries are becoming so intimately connected, a reception at the English Court of this country be considered as an establishment of their claim. If so, it will be a curious anomaly in the history of a republic, that, fifty years after it was established, the republicans should apply to the mother country whose institutions they had abjured, to obtain from her a patent of superiority, so as to raise themselves above that hated equality which, by their own institutions, they profess. 186 CHAPTER XV. GOVERNMENT. IT is not my intention to enter into a lengthened examination of the American form of government. I have said that, as a government, "with all its imperfections, it is the best suited to the present condition of America, in so far as it is the one under which the country has made, and will continue to make, the most rapid strides ;" but I have not said that it was a better form of government than others. very weakness is favourable to the advance of the country; it may be compared to a vessel which, from her masts not being wedged, and her timbers being loose, sails faster than one more securely fastened. Considered merely as govern Its |