Society in America, Volume 1"At the close of a long work which I completed in 1834, it was thought desirable that I should travel for two years. I determined to go to the United States, chiefly because I felt a strong curiosity to witness the actual working of republican institutions ... I went with a mind, I believe, as nearly as possible unprejudiced about America, with a strong disposition to admire democratic institutions, but an entire ignorance how far the people of the United States lived up to, or fell below, their own theory ... In the course of this tour, I visited almost every kind of institution. The prisons of Auburn, Philadelphia, and Nashville; the insane and other hospitals of almost every considerable place; the literary and scientific institutions; the factories of the North; the plantations of the South; the farms of the West. I lived in houses which might be called palaces, in log-houses, and in a farm-house. I travelled much in wagons, as well as stages; also on horse back, and in some of the best and worst of steamboats. I saw weddings, and christenings; the gatherings of the richer at watering places, and of the humbler at country festivals. I was present at orations, at land sales, and in the slave market. I was in frequent attendance on the Supreme Court and the Senate; and witnessed some of the proceedings of state legislatures. Above all, I was received into the bosom of many families, not as a stranger, but as a daughter or a sister. I am qualified, if any one is, to testify to the virtues and the peace of the homes of the United States"--V. 1, Introd |
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Popular passages
Page 82 - Is placable, because occasions rise So often that demand such sacrifice ; More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more ; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress ; Thence, also, more alive to tenderness...
Page 11 - ... political parties, at least the honest part of them, agree conscientiously in the same object, the public good : but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers ; the other, by a different one.
Page 59 - On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.
Page 43 - A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves.
Page 367 - Let us declare that the question of slavery is not, and shall not be, open to discussion; that the system is deep rooted among us, and must remain forever; that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting means in operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill.
Page 259 - The streets were crowded with land speculators, hurrying from one sale to another. A negro, dressed up in scarlet, bearing a scarlet flag, and riding a white horse with housings of scarlet, announced the times of sale. At every street-corner where he stopped, the crowd flocked round him; and it seemed as if some prevalent mania infected the whole people.
Page 58 - that a change in the administration must produce a change in the subordinate officers;' in other words, that it should be deemed necessary for all officers to think with their principal? But on whom does this imputation bear? On those who have excluded from office every shade of opinion which was not theirs? Or on those who have been so excluded? I lament sincerely that unessential differences of opinion should ever have been deemed sufficient to interdict half the society from the rights and the...
Page 59 - It would have been to me a circumstance of great relief, had I found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the majority. I would gladly have left to time and accident to raise them to their just share. But their total exclusion calls for prompter corrections. I shall correct the procedure ; but that done, return with joy to that state of things, when the only questions concerning a candidate shall be, is he honest ? Is he capable ? Is he faithful to the Constitution ? I tender you the...
Page 148 - States have power to tax women who hold property; to divorce them from their husbands; to fine, imprison, and execute them for certain offences. Whence do these governments derive their powers? They are not "just," as they are not derived from the consent of the women thus governed.
Page 58 - I lament sincerely that unessential differences of opinion should ever have been deemed sufficient to interdict half the society from the rights and the blessings of self-government, to proscribe them as unworthy of every trust. It would have been to me a circumstance of great relief had I found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the majority. I would gladly have left to time and accident to raise them to their just share. But their...