"Did I see among them, the intelligence and
refinement: the true, honest, patriotic heart of
America? Here and there, were drops of its
blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the
stream of desperate adventurers which sets that
way for profit and for pay. It is the game of
these men, and of their profligate organs, to
make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal,
and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy
men, that sensitive and delicate-minded persons
shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they,
be left to battle out their selfish views
unchecked. And thus this lowest of all scrambling
fights goes on, and they who in other countries
would, from their intelligence and station, most
aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the
farthest from that degradation.

"That there are, among the representatives
of the people in both Houses, and among all
parties, some men of high character and great
abilities, I need not say. The foremost among
those politicians who are known in Europe, have
been already described, and I see no reason to
depart from the rule I have laid down for my
guidance, of abstaining from all mention of
individuals. It will be sufficient to add, that to
the most favourable accounts that have been
written of them, I fully and most heartily
subscribe; and that personal intercourse and
free communication have bred within me, not
the result predicted in the very doubtful
proverb, but increased admiration and respect."

Towards the end of his book, the Young Man
from the Country thus expressed himself
concerning its people.

"They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial,
hospitable, and affectionate. Cultivation and
refinement seem but to enhance their warmth
of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the
possession of these latter qualities in a most
remarkable degree, which renders an educated
American one of the most endearing and most
generous of friends. I never was so won upon,
as by this class; never yielded up my full
confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably,
as to them; never can make again, in half a
year, so many friends for whom I seem to
entertain the regard of half a life.

"These qualities are natural, I implicitly
believe, to the whole people. That they are,
however, sadly sapped and blighted in their growth
among the mass; and that there are influences
at work which endanger them still more, and give
but little present promise of their healthy restoration;
is a truth that ought to be told.

"It is an essential part of every national
character to pique itself mightily upon its
faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
wisdom from their very exaggeration. One
great blemish in the popular mind of America,
and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood
of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American
citizen plumes himself upon this spirit,
even when he is sufficiently dispassionate to
perceive the ruin it works; and will often
adduce it, in spite of his own reason, as an
instance of the great sagacity and acuteness of
the people, and their superior shrewdness and
independence.

"' You carry,' says the stranger, ' this
jealousy and distrust into every transaction of
public life. By repelling worthy men from
your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a
class of candidates for the suffrage, who, in
their every act, disgrace your Institutions and
your people's choice. It has rendered you so
fickle, and so given to change, that your
inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you no
sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure
to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and
this, because directly you reward a benefactor,
or a public servant, you distrust him, merely
because he is rewarded; and immediately apply
yourselves to find out, either that you have
been too bountiful in your acknowledgments,
or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who
attains a high place among you, from the President
downwards, may date his downfal from
that moment; for any printed lie that any
notorious villain pens, although it militate directly
against the character and conduct of a life,
appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed.
You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness
and confidence, however fairly won, and
well deserved; but you will swallow a whole
caravan of camels, if they be laden with
unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this
well, think you, or likely to elevate the character
of the governors or the governed, among
you?'

"The answer is invariably the same: ' There's
freedom of opinion here, you know. Every man
thinks for himself, and we are not to be easily
overreached. That's how our people come to be
suspicious.'

"Another prominent feature is the love of
' smart' dealing: which gilds over many a swindle
and gross breach of trust; many a defalcation,
public and private; and enables many a knave
to hold his head up with the best, who well
deserves a halter: though it has not been without
its retributive operation, for this smartness has
done more in a few years to impair the public
credit, and to cripple the public resources, than
dull honesty, however rash, could have effected
in a century. The merits of a broken speculation,
or a bankruptcy, or of a successful
scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his
observance of the golden rule, ' Do as you would be
done by,' but are considered with reference to
their smartness. I recollect, on both occasions
of our passing that ill-fated Cairo on the
Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such gross
deceits must have when they exploded, in
generating a want of confidence abroad, and
discouraging foreign investment: but I was
given to understand that this was a very smart
scheme by which a deal of money had been
made: and that its smartest feature was, that
they forgot these things abroad, in a very short
time, and speculated again, as freely as ever.
The following dialogue I have held a hundred