Equally commendable is the practice adopted in many schools, of the English boys learning German, and the German boys English; by which means they become masters of two languages and of the rich literature of each.* I am fully of the opinion, that the mixture of the English and German population (there are 17,000 Germans in Cincinnati alone) in the United States is every where productive of the happiest results. Each of these closely related races communicates to the other what it lacks, or moderates what it has in excess. Thus the excellent newly established German society for reading and mutual improvement is in no degree opposed to English culture, but only prevents our native home treasures from being lost through indolence or forgotten through disuse. Each party offers to the other what it possesses, to double its wealth. Nature and mind form in the Western states of America a rare, I may say, a unique combination; and among them Ohio takes the lead. Her mission is to examine impartially the great social problems and controversies of the confederate states, to test them fairly, and thus to guide and govern the rest. It may be doubted whether the grand republicanism of the South must not be disturbed by slavery, and whether in the East there may not spring up by the side of the cultivated classes a dangerous city populace (tribus urbana); but in Ohio we see only youth, vigor, health, progress, and improving prospects in all directions. The spirit of nil admirari, exhibited in view of such phenomena, would be only a sign of sheer envy or insensibility !† * "They have far more than realized the expectations of their warmest friends." Fifteenth Annual Report on the Common Schools in Cincinnati, p. 6. † I had the following conversation with a lady: "Has no fair American touched your heart?"-" Age is no security against folly; I have been violently smitten.""May I ask who the favored one is?"-" Her grandfather was born the 19th of April, 1781; her mother was a German. In all America there are not thirty, nay, scarcely three women of such beauty, virtue, wisdom, and wealth."-" But you are already married; what will your wife say?"- "She is used to such freaks, and won't say a word against it."-" Have you made known your passion to its object?" -" Certainly; and she has distinctly declared that she will not withhold her consent, whenever I dare proclaim to the world my love and admiration." -" But who is this wonderful lady?"-" She is the Republic of Ohio." CHAPTER XXXVI. FOREIGN RELATIONS. Relations with Europe-The Indians-Texas-The Oregon Territory-Canada. BEFORE we take once more a summary view of the internal, especially the political relations of the United States, and attempt to exhibit them in their workings and final results, we must first cast a glance at their external relations. They are undoubtedly in a simpler and consequently in a happier state, than those of nearly all the kingdoms of Europe. First of all, since the time of Washington and Jefferson, it has been a well established and strictly observed principle of the United States, not to become entangled in the labyrinth of European diplomacy and in the misery of its wars; in no way to transgress the principles of public law and constitutional forms, for the sake of bringing about or preventing particular results; and to make no offerings on that altar of Moloch-vain military glory.* Accordingly, with the inland powers of Europe the United States cannot come into serious or dangerous collision; but this will be unavoidable, whenever the European maritime powers shall engage in war, and enforce their old principles which are destructive to all neutral trade. The If on the other hand, neutrals in time of war could carry on all sorts of trade under their own flags, undisturbed and free from search, the belligerents would be deprived of a principal means of injuring their opponents and compelling them to sue for peace. The stronger naval power would lose by this means almost the entire advantage of its superior strength; while the weaker one would assert and extol for its own benefit the freedom of the seas. controversies respecting this point are of the utmost consequence during a naval war, but lose all their importance on the recurrence of peace; consequently they were left wholly unsettled by the Treaty of Ghent. In the event of another European naval war, the belligerents, it is to be hoped, will not again adopt the tyrannical proceedings which prevailed at the time of the French Revolution. Should this however occur, the United States, whose trade has become so immense, could not take refuge in the suicidal expedient of submitting to an embargo or of breaking off its trade with both parties; but must oppose that one which declines to enter into reasonable arrangements. There is however more reason than ever to hope that the weight and influence of America will deter other states from injustice, and that the peace of the United States will be permanent, while the powers of Europe destroy one another after the old accustomed fashion, and fancy that this is the road to real glory! * Tyler's Message of 1842. Let us now see what danger, if any, threatens the United States from their neighbors on the American continent. In the first place, as regards the Indians, who now live beyond the Mississippi in close proximity to one another, and are advancing, it is to be hoped, in civilization, it may be asserted that on that account they will become more dangerous than before. To this we may reply, that progress in civilization will make the Indians more peaceful, and prevent the folly of taking up arms against the United States. But should they perchance be seduced to do so by others, they would be more easily and speedily overcome than before, when they were scattered about and difficult to find. If we turn our attention to the new republic of Texas, we find the most opposite opinions maintained with regard to it. Its violent assailants, both in America and in Europe, assert that it owes its origin to a most unrighteous insurrection, is inhabited by a worthless rabble of every sort, and polluted by the curse of slavery.. What says history ?* The Spaniards founded their claims on the discovery of some points of this large unknown territory; but for centuries they did absolutely nothing of consequence to acquire a knowledge of it and to settle it, and it was not till quite recent times that the government treated with people who wished to emigrate thither from the United States. Plans of this kind were interrupted by the revolt of Mexico from the mother country, and Texas declared herself ready to enter as a separate state into the new great confederation. This condition was at first accepted, but afterwards declined; and thus, instead of being governed by a genuine federal constitution, it was alternately the prey of military and priestly tyranny or of wild anarchy. Worthless persons did certainly take advantage of these times of confusion to make their way into Texas; but it would be great injustice thus to designate all the inhabitants of Texas, or to maintain that the revolt of Mexico from Spain was glorious, but that that of Texas was execrable. A country said to be three times as large as Great Britain and Ireland, and in fact without a master, a perfect res nullius, had forsooth no right to a separate existence, and was condemned to be an appurtenance of Mexico, or rather of her soldiery, for all time to come! "Independence," says a thoroughly well informed man, "produced in Mexico an intoxication of freedom, which caused the people to seek their liberty in the most unbounded licentiousness, their sovereignty in contempt of law and morality and in impunity for crime; each one thought he had a right to do and to leave undone whatever he saw fit, and not only to utter his opinions, but to carry them out by violence." Mexico has indeed adopted many of the public institutions of the United States, and also a similar constitutional law as far as its letter is concerned; but through the overpowering influence of the priests or the army, it rarely comes into play; besides, there is no such thing as an immediate free choice of representatives, and public trials by jury or legal toleration in religious matters are never thought of.* * Kennedy's Texas, vol. ii. Texas very naturally would not allow its fate to be determined by such a people; the Saxo-Germanic element of American civilization came again into conflict with the Romance stock; and it conquered as it had done before in Canada, Louisiana, and Florida. On the 21st of April, 1836, the Texans under Houston defeated the Mexican president Santa Anna at San Jacinto, took him prisoner, dispersed his entire army, and captured all his warlike stores. This determined the independence of Texas; Jackson acknowledged it on the last day of his presidency, and the powers of Europe followed the example. These victors of San Jacinto were far from being a rabble which by accident once shows a warlike spirit, but men who felt the value both of civil order and of public right, and who strove to found a genuine republic. In their Declaration of Independence of the 2d of March, 1836, they complain-and justly-that the confederate state of Mexico had changed into a military tyranny; that the power of the soldiery was alone cherished and provided for; that the free exercise of religion was prohibited; and the people were ordered to be disarmed, for the purpose of plunging them headlong into Mexican anarchy. On the 17th of March, 1836, the new state adopted a new constitution fashioned after the American model. The President is elected for three years, but is ineligible for the next three. The number of representatives, until the population exceeds 100,000, shall not be under twenty-four or over forty. They are chosen annually, and every freeman who is twenty-one years old and has resided in the country six months is entitled to vote. The number of senators, also chosen by election for three years, amounts to from one third to one half that of the representatives. Clergymen are excluded from any share in the constitution or administration. Every free father of a family is entitled to a league of land, and every single man to one third of a league. Slaveholding is permitted, but not the importation of slaves from Africa. Congress cannot manumit slaves without the consent of the owners; nor can the owners without the consent of Congress, unless the freedmen emigrate. No free negro or colored person is tolerated in Texas without the consent of Congress. Slavery was retained, because most of the colonists held slaves, and the slaveholding portion of the United States favored the new republic, while the free northern states declared against it;* another reason was the great want of men and capital in the country. * Mühlenpfordt, i. 372. With the exception of this dark feature, there are adopted into the constitution of the young republic of Texas all the great principles of American freedom, which in Europe are for the most part rejected or not reduced to practice: such as that all power comes from the people; absolute freedom of the press and of religion; no search-warrants without the strongest grounds; trial by jury; the right to bear arms; a general militia; no monopolies or prerogatives; no right of primogeniture, &c. An ample quantity of land has been appropriated for schools and universities. Bible societies, temperance societies, and Sundayschools are in operation; and laws have been passed against gambling and drunkenness. Notwithstanding the universal though vague and unproved charges of the immorality of its inhabitants, Texas has made astonishing progress since its declaration of independence; and has kept free from the tyranny and anarchy of Mexico, to which shallow theorists and the envious would gladly chain her. Many very naturally adopted the conviction, that a union of Texas with the United States would prove equally advantageous to the peace, power, wealth, development, and legal condition of the country. Such a union however was declined, chiefly through the influence of the northern half of the confederacy: partly because (in contradiction to the peculiar history of America) the right of the Texans to an independent existence was denied; and partly because the Northerners were offended at the existence of slavery, and were opposed to increasing the number of the slaveholding states of the Union and of the defenders of free trade as opposed to a protective tariff. This refusal of course was ill received in Texas, and caused the inhabitants of that country to consider, whether it was not in fact more advisable for the young republic (which without doubt was gradually gaining strength) to keep itself entirely independent. Every alliance, it was said, limited and confined a state; while it must be an object to keep their trade entirely free, to avoid the errors of the United States, and to found still more perfect civil institutions. Notwithstanding all the obstacles and grounds of opposition, * Kennedy, ii. 382. |