A DISCOURSE CONCERNINI} THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICA ON THE MIND; BEING THE ANNUAL ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, AT THE UNIVERSITY IN PHILADELPHIA, ON THE 18th OCTOBER, 1823, BY THEIR APPOINTMENT, AND PUBLISHED BY THEIR ORDER. 0. ir.A w BY Cr'Jr INGERSOLL, MEMBEB OF THE AMERICAS PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIKT?. PHILADELPHIA : PUBLISHED BY ABRAHAM SMALL. 1823. \ \ AT a Special Meeting of the American Phi- losophical Society, held this day, it was Resolved, that the thanks of the Society he com- municated to Mr. INGERSOLL, for the oration pronounced by him^ this day, by their appointment^ and that he be requested to furnish them a copy for publication. Extract from the Minutes, R. M. PATTERSON, Secretary, Hall of the Amer. Phil. Soc, Oct, I8th, 1823. A DISCOURSE, &c. Appointed to deliver the annual discourse of the American Philosophical Society y I propose to sketch the philosophical condition of this country, and explain the influence of America on the mind. The task is not an easy one, owing to the extreme dispersion of the materials. Elsewhere intellectual improvements are collected in the accessible reposi- tories of a metropolis, absorbing most of the intelli- gence of a whole nation, and flourishing with arti- ficial culture long applied. In the United States we have no such emporium ; the arts and sciences are but of recent and spontaneous growth, scatter- ed over extensive regions and a sparse population. We will begin with the base of the American pile, whose aggrandisement, like the pyramids of Africa, confounds the speculations of Europe. While the summit and sides elsewhere are more wrought and finished, America excels in the foundation, in which we are at least the se- niors, of all other nations. Public funds for the B tlie education oi" the whole community are endow- ments exclusively American, which have been in operation here for several ages, while the most im- proved governments of Europe are but essaying such a groundwork, which indeed some of them dread, and others dare not risk. It is nearly two hundred years since school funds were esta- blished by that aboriginal and immortal hive of intelligence, piety, and self-government, the Ply- mouth colony. These inestimable appropriations are now incorporated with all our fundamental in- stitutions. By the Constitution of the United States it is the duty of government to promote the pro- jj-ress of science and the useful arts. Not one of O the eleven new States has been admitted into the Union without provision in its constitution for schools, academies, colleges, and universities. In most of the original States large sums in money are appropriated to education, and they claim a share in the great landed investments which are mortgaged to it in the new States. Reckoning all those contributions federal and local, it may be asserted that nearly as much as the whole national expenditure of the United States is set apart by laws to enlighten the people. The public patron- age of learning in this country, adverting to what the value of these donations will be before the close of the present century, equals at least the os- tentatious bounties conferred on it in Europe. In one State alone, m ith but 275,000 inhabitants, more than forty thousand pupils are instructed at tlie public schools. I believe we may compute the number of such pupils throughout the United States at more than half a million. In the city of Philadelphia, without counting the pnvate or the charity schools, there are about five thousand pu- pils in tiie Commonwealth's seminaries, taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, at an expense to the public of little more than three dollars a year each one. Nearly the whole minor population of the United States are receiving school education. Besides the multitudes at school, there are consi- derably more than three thousand under graduates always matriculated at the various colleges and universities, authorised to grant academical de- crees ; not less than twelve hundred at the medical schools ; several hundred at the theological semi- naries ; and at least a thousand students of law. Nearly all of these are under the tuition of profes- sors, without sinecure support, depending for their livelihood on capacity and success in the science of instruction. In no part of these extensive realms of knowledge is there any monastic prepossession against the modern improvements. Not long since chemistry, political economy, and the other great improvements of the age were excluded from the English universities as innovations unfit to be classed with rhetoric, logic, and scholastic ethics. Oxford and Cambridge, in the fine metaphor of Dugald Stewart, are immovably moored to the*same station by the strength of their cables, thereby ena- bling the historian of the human mind to measure 8 the rapidity of the current by which the rest of the world are borne along. The schools are equally stationary. Notwithstanding their barbarous disci- pline, and the barbarous privileges of the colleges, they have always produced good Latinists and Hel- lenists. But American education is better adapted to enlarge and strengthen the mind, and prepare it for practical usefulness. In that excellent institu- tion, the Military Academy, the dead languages are not taught, and that kind of scholarship is postpon- ed to sciences certainly more appropriate to a mili- taiy education. This is not the occasion to inquire whether those standard exercises of the faculties and roots of language may ever be supplanted with- out injury. But as it is certain that the many great men w ho have received education at the English seminaries is not a conclusive proof of their excel- lence, though often cited for the purpose, so it is also true, that eminent individuals have appeared in literature and science, without the help of that kind of scholarship. The founder of the American Phi- losophical Society was not a scholar in this sense ; yet his vigorous and fruitful mind, teeming with sagacity, and cultivated by observation, germinated many of the great discoveries, which, since matur- ed by others, have become the monuments of the age : And whether science, politics, or polite litera- ture, was the subject of which Franklin treated, he always wrote in a fine, pure style, with the power and the charm of genius. Successive improvements in the modern Ian- 9 guages, continually perfecting themselves under the prevalence of liberal ideas, have brought thenn to a degree of moral certainty and common attainment, which must render the dead languages less important hereafter. Their study will be confined probably to a few ; and may, perhaps, in the lapse of time, perish under the mass of knowledge destined lo oc- cupy entirely the limited powers of the human un- derstanding. While, therefore, we are discussing whether the learning of the ancient languages ought to be maintained, innovating time is settling the question in spite of unavailing efforts and regrets for the imnortal authors of European literature. Thus we may understand why the Latin and Greek languages are less cultivated in America than in Europe. Unfettered by inveterate prepossessions, the mind, on this continent, follows in its march the new spirit that is abroad, leading the intelligence of all the world to other pursuits. Since the career of this country began, education on the continent of Europe has severely suffered by political fluctuations, and continues to be thwarted by political superintendence. Whatever science and literature accomplish there must be in spite of a perplexing and pernicious education. Wanting the stability and tranquillity and security of free institutions, their existence is in perpetual fluctuation and jeopardy, fhe schools are regulated by one dynasty to day, by another on opposite principles to-morrow, as the instruments of each in its turn, employed as much in unlearning what had been 10 laugiit, as in learning what is to be inculcated, con- tinually molested and convulsed by state intrusion. The arts and sciences which war requires and re- quites, may be encouraged and advanced : and for- tunately for mankind, their extensive circle embra- ces many in which peace also delights or may enjoy. The northern universities have best preserved both their liberality and their useful- ness. But in southern Europe, learning appears to be disastrously eclipsed where it has never ceased to receive Pagan and Christian sacrifice for more than two thousand successive years. — Liberty, says Sismondi, had bestowed on Italy four centuries of grandeur and glory; during which, she did not need conquests to make her sreatness known. The Italians were the first to study the theory of government, and to set the ex- ample of liberal institutions. They restored to the world, philosophy, eloquence, poetry, history, ar- chitecture, sculpture, painting, and music. No science, art, or knowledge could be mentioned, the elements of which they did not teach to people who have since surpassed them. This universality of intelligence had developed their mind, their taste, and their manners, and lasted as long as Italian liberty. How melancholy is the modern reverse of this attractive picture I When even freedom of thought can hardly breathe, and freedom of speech or writing has no existence, revolution is the only remedy for disorder ; sedition infects the schools, rebellion the academies, and treason the universi- 11 ties. In America, where universal education is the hand-maid of universal suffrage, execution has never been done on a traitor ; general intelligence disarms politics of their chimerical terrors ; our only revolution was but a temperate transition, with- out mobs, massacres, or more than a single instance of signal perfidy ; every husbandman understands the philosophy of politics better than many princes in Europe. Poetry, music, sculpture, and paint- ing, may yet linger in their Italian haunts. But philosophy, the sciences, and the useful arts, must establish their empire in the modern re- public of letters, where the mind is free from power or fear, on this side of that great water bar- rier which the creator seems to have designed for the protection of their asylum. The monarchs of the old world may learn from those sovereign citizens, the ex-presidents of these United States, the worth of an educated nation : who, having made large contributions to literature and the sciences, live in voluntary retirement from supreme authori- ty, at ages beyond the ordinary period of European existence, enjoying the noble recreations of books and benevolence, without guards for their protec- tion, or pomp for their disguise, accessible, ad- mired, protected, and( immortalised. The Egyp- tians pronounced posthumous judgment on theii' kings : we try our presidents while living in cano- nised resignation, and award to those deserving it, an exquisite foretaste of immortality. In adult life we may trace the effects of the causes 13 just indicated in education. The English language makes English reading American : and a generous, especially a parental nationality, instead of dispa- raging a supposed deficiency in the creation of lite- rature, should remember and rejoice, that the idiom and ideas of England are also those of this country, and of this continent, destined to be enjoyed and improved by millions of educated and thinking people, spreading from the bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Columbia. Such is the influence of general education and self-government, that already over a surface of almost two thousand miles square, there are scarcely any material provincialisms or peculiarities of dialect, much less than in any nation in Europe, I believe I might say than in any hundred miles square in Europe ; and, what is perhaps even more remarkable, the German, Dutch and French veins which exist in different sections, are rapidly yielding to the English ascendancy, by voluntary fusion, without any^coercive or violent applications. Adverting to the great results from the mysterious diversity of the various languages of mankind, the anticipation is delightful in the effects of the Ame- rican unity of tongue, combined with universal education throughout this vast continent, — the home of l.'berty at least, if not the seat of one great empire. But speaking and writing the language of an an- cient*and refined people, whose literature preoccupies nearly every department, is, in many respects, an un- exampled disadvantage in the comparative estimate. 13 America cannot contribute in any comparative pro- portion to the great British stock of literature, which almost supercedes the necessity of American sub- scriptions. Independent of this foreign oppression, the American mind has been called more to politi- cal, scientific, and mechanical, than to literary exer- tion. And our institutions, moreover, partaking of the nature of our government, have a levelling ten- dency. The average of intellect, and of intellectual power in the United States, surpasses that of any part of Europe. But the range is not, in general, so great, either above or below the horizontal line. In the literature of imagination, our standard is con- siderably below that of England, France, Germany and perhaps Italy. The concession, however, may be qualified by a claim to a respectable production of poetry ; and the recollection that American scenes and incidents have been wrought by Ame- rican authors into successful romances, some of which have been re-published and translated, and are in vogue in Europe ; and that even popular dra- matic performances have been composed out of these incidents. The stage, however, is indicative of many things in America, being engrossed by the English drama and English actors. But as a prooL. of American fondness, if not taste, for theatrical en- tertainment, I may mention here that an English comedian has lately received for performances before the audiences of four or five towns, whose united population falls short of four hundred thou- sand people, a much larger income than any of the ictors of that countrv receive in which this sort of C % 14 intellectual recreation is most esteemed. There would be no inducement for strolling across the Atlantic, if the largest capital in Europe afforded similar encouragement, taking emolument as the test, and London with 1,200,000 inhabitants as the standard. As another remarkable proof of the state of the stage in the United States, I may add that an eminent American actor appears in the same season, (and it is practicable within the same mon'.h) before audiences at Boston and New-Or- leans, compassing two thou'sand miles from one to the other, by internal conveyance. Such is the philosophical, as well as natural, approximation of place, and the unity of speech throughout that dis- tance. In the literature of fact, of education, of politics, and of perhaps even science, European pre-emi- nence is by no means so decided. The American schools, the church, the state, the bar, the medical profession, are, all but the last, largely, and all of them adequately, supplied by their own literature. Respectable histories are extant by American au- thors of the States of Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Penn- sylvania, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire ; besides some general histories of New England, and several geographical and topographical works on OKio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, containing histories of their settlements. Our national histo- ries, inferior in subordinate attractions to the ro- mantic historical fictions of Europe, are composed 15 of much more permanent and available materials. In biography, without equal means, have we not done as much since we began as our English mas- ters ? In the literature as well as the learning of the sciences, botany, mineralogy, metallurgy, en- tymology, ornithology, astronomy, and navigation, there is no reason to be ashamed ot our profi- ciency. In mathematics and chemistry, our com- parative deficiency is perhaps the most remarkable. In grammatical researches, particularly in the in- teresting elements of the Indian languages, Ame- rican erudition has preceded that of Europe, where some of the most learned and celebrated of the Ger- man and French philologists have caught from American publications, the spirit of similar inquiry. In natural and political geography our magnificent interior has produced great accomplishments, sci- entific and literary. The maps of America have been thought worthy of imitation in Europe. Mr. Tanner's Atlas, lately published, is the fruit of a large investment of money and time, and reflects credit on every branch of art employed in its exe- cution. The surveys of the coast now making by government, will be among the most extensive, ac- curate, and important memorials extant. Several scientific expeditions have likewise been sent by the government at different times into the western regions, whose vast rivers, steppes and deltasJhave been explored by learned men, whose publications enrich many departments of science, and are incor- porated with applause into the useful literature of the age. One of th« most copious and authentic 1(5 istatislical works in print, is an American produc- tion, which owes its publication to the patronage of Congress. The public libraries, particularly those of Cambridge Universit}^ of the New York Historical Society, of the American Philosophical Society, of the city of Philadelphia, of Congress, and others which might be enumerated, abound with proof and promise of the flourishing condition and rapid advancesofliterature and science through- out America. A single newspaper of this city, contains advertisements, by a single bookseller, of more than one hundred and fifty recent publica- tions by American authors from the American press, comprehending romance, travels, moral phi- losophy, mineralogy, political and natural geogra- phy, poetry, biography, history, various scientific inquiries, and discoveries, botany, philology, ora- tory, chemistry applied to the arts, statistics, agri- cultural and horticultural treatises, strategy, me- chanics, and many other subjects. From this am- ple and creditable catalogue I may select for espe- cial notice the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences as a work of uncommon merit ; and the profound and elaborate report on Weights and Measures, as a laudable specimen of official func- tion. The first and the present Secretaries of the De- partment of State, who have both made reports on this important branch of scientific politics, rank among the foremost scholars of the age by their eminence in various literary and scientific attain- ments. The American state papers, generally, have received the homage of the most illustrious states- 17 i^en of England, for excellence in the princi ciples and eloquence of that philosophy which is the most extensively applied to the affairs of men : and their publications afford lara^e contributions to its literature. Whether any policy be preferable to another, is generally a merely speculative topic. But I may with propriety assert that the United States have been the most stedfast supporters of maritime liberality, of inter-national neutrality, and of the modern system of commercial equality. They were the first to outlaw the slave trade, and the first to declare it piratical. Great Britain is imi- tating their example in commercial, colonial, na- vigation, penal, and even financial, regulations. France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, parts of Germany, and South America, have in part adopted their po- litical principles. And in all the branches of politi- cal knowledge, the American mind has been distin- guished. The publication of books is so much cheaper in ' this country than in Great Britain, that nearly all we use are American editions. Accordinof to re- ports from the Custom-houses, made under a re- solution of the Senate in 1822, it appears that the importation of books bears an extremely small pro- portion to the American editions. The imported books are the mere seed. It is estimated that be- tween two and three millions of dollars worth of books are annually published in the United States. It is to be regretted, that literary property here is held by an imperfect tenure, there being no other protection for it than the provisions of an ineffi- 18 cient act of Congress, the impotent oftspring of an obsolete En2:lish statute. The inducement to take copyrights is therefore inadequate, and a large proportion of the most valuable American books are "published without any legal title. Yet there were one hundred and thirty five copy rights purchased from January 1822 to April 1823. There have been eight editions^ comprising 7500 copies of Stewart's Philosophy published here since its ap- pearance in Europe thirty years ago. Five hundred thousand dollars was the capital invested in one edi- tion of Rees' Cyclopoedia. Of a lighter kind of read- ing, nearly 200,000 copies of the Waverley no- vels, comprising 500,000 volumes, have issued from the American press in the last nine years. Four thousand copies of a late American novel were disposed of immediately on its publication. Five hundred dollars were paid by an enterpris- ing bookseller for a single copy of one of these novels, without any copy right, merely by prompt republication to gratify the eagerness to read it. Among the curiosities of American literature, I must mention the itinerant book trade. There are, I understand, more than two hundred wagons which travel through the country, loaded with books for sale. Many biographical accounts of diotinguished Americans are thus distributed. Fifty thousand copies of Mr. Weem's Life of Wash- inu:ton have been published, and mostly cir- culated in this way throughout the interior. I might add to these instances, but it is unneces- sary, and would be irksome. Education, the sci- \ 19 ences, the learned professions, the church, politics, together with ephemeral and fanciful publications, maintain the press in respectable activity. The modern manuals of literature and science, magazines, journals and reviews, abound in the United States, although they have to cope with a larger field of newspapers than elsewhere. The North American Review, of which about four thou- sand copies are circulated, is not surpassed in know- ledge or learning, is not equalled in liberal and judicious criticism, by its great British models, the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, of which about four thousand copies are also published in the United States. Written in a pure, old English style, and, for the most part, a fine American spirit, the North American Review, superintends with ability the literature and science of America. Not less than a thousand newspapers, some of them with several thousand subscribers, are circu- lated in this country ; the daily fare of nearly every meal in almost every family; so cheap and common, that, like air and water, its uses are undervalued. But a free press is the great distinction of this age and country, and as indispensable as those elements to the welfare of all free countries. Abundant and emulous accounts of remarkable occurrences con- centrate and diffuse information, stimulate inquiry, dispel prejudices, and multiply enjoyments. Co- pious advertisements quicken commerce; rapid and pervading publicity is a cheap police. Above all the press is the palladium of liberty. An Ame- rican would forego the charms of France or Italy / for tlie luxury of a large newspaper; which makes every post an epoch, and provides the barrenest corners of existence \vith an universal succeda- neum. Duly to appreciate the pleasures of it, like health or liberty, we must undergo their temporary privation. Nor is our experience of the licentious- ness of the press too dear a price to pay for its freedom. It is a memorable fact in the history of American newspapers, that while some of the most powerful have been consumed in the combustion of their own calumnies, on the other hand, the most permanent andflourishingare those least addicted to defamation. It is also a fact, that the most licenti- ous newspapers which have appeared in America, were edited by Europeans. The American standard is equally removed from the coarse licentiousness which characterises much of the English press, and the constraints of that of the rest of Europe — and this standard has been established, while state prosecu- tions have been falling into dislike. Our newspa- pers are regulated by a public tact much truer and stronger than such ordeals. The same ethereal in- fluence in a free temperature, is equally effective to preserve the good from obloquy, and to consign the unworthy to degradation. Where the press is per- fectly free, truth is an overmatch for detraction. Many of our public men have constantly enjoyed the public favour, in spite of intense abuse ; and have survived its oblivion, to receive a foretaste of posthumous veneration. Under the light of these results, the press has learned the value of temper- ance, and while all the avenues of private redress 2i are open to those who choose to seek it, state prose- cutions have nearly disappeared. Irreligious, ob- scene, and seditious publications, are infinitely more common from the English than from the American press: scurrilous and libellous newspapers exist to be sure, but they are the lowest and most obscure of the vocation ; whereas in England, some of the most elevated and best patronised, are the most scandalous and personal. In the darker ages, dun- geons, scaffolds, torture, and mutilation, were the dreadful, but vain restraints put on the understand- ing. Can it be supposed, that in this enlightened jera, punishment, however mitigated, will do more than inflame it ? And what is the English law of public prosecution for libels, but a milder rem- nant of those principles ? By which, infidelity, blas- phemy, sedition, treason, and individual calumny, are provoked, disseminated and infuriated. Expe- rience has taught us, that the freedom of the press is the best protection against its abuse, and that its transient licentiousness is part of the very nature of the blessing itself. The splendid skies, forests and foliage of America, with which Europe has nothing of the kind to compare, are inseparable from those vicissitudes and extremities of weather and seasons, which, while menacing desolation, purify and sub- limate existence. This American deduction of the much apprehended postulate of the press, is obvi- ously and rapidly gaining converts in England, whence perhaps it may ukimately spread over Eu- rope, and abolish the pernicious alternatives there D 2Ja prevalent. Without it, the press must cause con- vulsions, and retard the progress of the mind. The English newspaper press, much less free by law than the Ameiican, is in practice much more licentious. A late number of the Quarter- ly Review, (which is no mean authority on such a point) admits, in so many words, that the occu- pation of the English daily press is, to * do every thing that honor and honesty shrink from' : to which character the absence of decency should be sujieradded. The Attorney General protects go- vernment from libels ; but the Chancellor has brought about a most preposterous state of things between the right of literary property, and the want of right in obscene, blasphemous, or otherwise ille- gal subjects of that property. English party vitu- peration is much coarser and more personal than ours. But, without going into politics, it may suf- fice to notice the difference in other thincfs. There are vented in the London newspapers, regular and perennial streams of defilement — polluting police reports, details of inhuman amusements, pugilistic and others, indelicate particulars of various private occurrences, the infamous amours of the royal and noble, are catered for every day's repast, and de- manded with an eagerness which bespeaks a vitia- ted appetite. It seems to be thought that publicit3% like execution, deters from crimes, when assuredly^ they both stimulate their perpetration. There is another office of the English press, extremely dero- gatory to the press itself, and injurious to society. I mean the journalising private and domestic con- 33 cerns, and the most trivial transactions of social in- tercourse, for the gratification of a vanity, peculiar to the aristocracy of that kingdom. The effects of this proclamation of the common affairs of private life, can hardly fail to be injurious to the female character in particular, whose modesty and retire- ment are thus perpetually broken in upon. The American newspaper press is conducted in better taste, and with more dignity. From literature the transition is natural to the arts, which minister to usefulness, comfort and prosperity, individual and national. Under their authority to provide for the encouragement of the arts and sciences, the United States, in thirty years, have issued about four thousand four hun- dred patent rights for new and useful inventions, discoveries, and improvements. By the prevailing construction of the acts of Congress, American pa- tentees must be American inventors or improvers, and are excluded from all things before known or used in any other part or period of the world. The English law allows English patentees to monopo- lise the inventions, discoveries, and improvements of all the rest of the world when naturalised in Great Britain. Notwithstanding this remarkable disad- vantage, I believe the American list of discoveries is quite equal to the English. The specimens and models open to public inspection in the national re- pository at Washington, are equal, I understand, to any similar collections in England or France, and superior to those of any other country. It will hardly be expected that I should undertake to men- tion even the most remarkable articles of this im- mense museum, containing every element of practi- cal science, of mechanism, of refinement, and of skill. I may be allowed, however, to say that the cotton gin has been of more profit to the United States, than ten times all they ever received by in- ternal taxation ; that our grain mill machinery, ap- plied to the great staples of subsistence, is very su- perior to that of Europe ; that there are in the patent office models of more than twenty different power looms, of American invention, operated on, and weaving solely by extraneous power, steam, water, wind, animals, and otherwise ; and that the English machines for spinning have been so improved here, that low-priced cottons can be manufactured cheap enough to undersell the English in England, after defraying the charges of transportation. Where American ingenuity has been put to trial it has never failed. In all the useful arts, and in the philosophy of comfort, — that word, which cannot be translated into any other language, and uhich, though of En- glish origin, w as reserved for maturity in America, we have no superiors. If labour saving machinery has added the power of a hundred millions of hands to the resources of Great Britain, what must be the effect of it on the population and means of the United States ? Steam navigation, destined to have greater influence than any triumph of mind over matter, eqiial to gunpowder, to printing, and to the compass, worthy to rank in momentum with reli- gious reformation, and civil liberty, belongs to America. A member of this Society, in his elo- 25 quent appeal to the judgment of Great Britain, has argued this claim ibly on abstract reasoning. But, vviihout disputing the conceptions and experiments of England, France, and Scotland, of Worcester, Hulls, JufFrou, or Miller, or entering at all into the question of prior imagination, it has ahvays appeared to me that there is a plain principle on which to rest the rights of this country. Steam navigation was reserved for the genius of those rivers, on a single one of which there is already more than a hundred steam-boats, containing upwards of fourteen thou- sand tons, and in whose single sea port, fifty steam boats may be counted at one time. This was the meridian to reduce to practical results, whatever conceptions may have existed elsewhere on this subject. Necessity, the mother of this invention, was an American mother ; born, perhaps, on the shores of the Potomac, the Delaware, or the Hud- son, yet belonging to the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Mississippi, and the Pacific ocean. By a very use- ful book called the Western Navigator, (published in this city,) it appears that the entire length of the Mississippi river is 2500 miles, of ihe Missouri 3000, of the Arkansas 2000, of the Red 1500; and from the recent works of Major Long and Mr. Schoolcraft, it is ascertained that a large number of great tributaries unite their waters with these prodi- gious floods, washing altogether, according to the summary of the author of the Western Navigator, in the valley of the Ohio, 200,000 square miles, in the valley of the Misssissippi proper, 180,000, in that of the Missouri, 500,000, and in that of S6 the lower Mississippi, 330,000, giving a total of 1,210,000 miles as the area of what is termed the Mississippi basin. Most if not all of these vast streams are innavigable but by steam boats, owing to the course of their currents and other circumstan- ces. These then are the latitudes of steam boats, which have been abandoned in some parts of Europe, as too large for their rivers, and too expensive for their travelling. — In less than ten years from this time, steam boats may pass from the great lakes of the north-west by canals to the Atlantic, thence to the isthmus of Darien, and across that to China and New Holland. They now ply like ferry boats from New York toPensacola,New Orleans and Havanna, with the punctuality and security, and more than the ac- commodation, of the best land carriage of Europe. Wherever this wonderful invention appears, over- coming the winds and waves by steam, measuring trackless ocean distances by the quadrant, and pro- tected from lightning by the rod, it displays in every one of these accomplishments the genius of Ame- rica. In the ordinary art of navigation, the construc- tion, equipment, and manipulation of vessels, com- mercial and belligerent, America is also conspicu- ous. The merchant vessels of the United States, manned w ith fewer hands, perform their voyages, generally, in one third less time than those of the only other maritime people to be compared with them. And without referring to the achievements of the American navy as credentials of courage or renown, 1 may with propriety remark, that an intel- S7 ligent and scientific fabrication and application of arms, ammunition, ships, and all the materials of maritime warfare, are unquestionably demonstrated by their success in it. The mechanics, artisans, and laborers of this country are remarkable for a disposition to learn. Asserted European superiority has been of great advantage to America in preventing habitual re- pugnance to improvement, so common to all man- kind, especially the least informed classes. Supe- rior aptitude, versatility and quickness in the han- dicrafts, are the consequences of this disposition of our people. A mechanic in Europe is apt to con- sider it almost irreverent, and altogether vain to suppose that any thing can be done better than as he was taught to do it by his father or master. A house or ship, is built in much less time here than there. From a line of battle ship, or a steam engine, to a ten penny nail, in every thing, the mechani- cal genius displays itself by superior productions. The success of a highly gifted American mechani- cal genius now in England, seems to be owing in part to his adapting his improvements, by a happy ingenuity, to the preservation of machinery, for which several English mechanics have been en- riched and ennobled, but which wuuld have been superseded as useless had it not been thus rescued. If a ship, a plough and a house be taken as sym- bols of the primary social arts of navigation, agri- culture and habitation, we need not fear com- parisons vi'ith other people in any one of them. In the intellectual use of the elements, the com- S8 binations and improvements of the earth and its products, of water, of air, and of fire, no greater protjress has been made in Europe within this cen- tury than in the United States. The houses, ships, carrian^es, tools, utensils, manufactures, implements of husbandry, conveniences, comforts, the whole circle of social refinement, are always equal, mostly superior here to those of the most improved nations. I do not speak of mere natural advantages, of being better fed, more universally housed and more com- fortably clothed, than any other people ; but ex- cepting the ostentatious, and extravagant, if not de- generate and mischievous, luxuries of a few in the capitals of Europe merely ; looking to the general average of civilisation, where does it bespeak more mind or display greater advancement? Internal improvements, roads, bridges, canals, water- works, and all the meliorations of intercourse, have been as extensively and as expensively made within the last ten years in the United States, as in probably any other country ; notwithstanding the sparseness of a population, of which scarcely half a million is concentrated in cities, and a slender capital. Five thousand post offices distribute intelligence through- out the United States with amazing celerity and precision over eighty thousand miles of post roads. The mail travels twenty-one thousand miles every day, compassing eight millions of miles in a year. There are twelve thousand miles of turnpike roads. Our facilities and habits of intercourse are unequal- led in Europe : almost annihilating the obstacles of space. Within two years from this time, when 29 ail the great canals now in progress shall be com- pleted, an internal navigation often thousand miles will belt this country from the great western valley to the waters of the Hudson and the Chesapeake. The New York canal and the Philadelphia water works are not surpassed, if equalled, by any simi- lar improvements m Europe within the period of their construction. The polite arts, painting, engraving, music, sculpture, architecture, the arts of recreation, amuse- ment, and pageantry, flourish most in the seats of dense population. Few of them thrive without the forcing of great capitals, the reservoirs of the refine- ments of ancient, sometimes declining, empire. Architecture is an art of state, whose master works are reserved for seats of goverment. The public edifices of Edinburgh or Liverpool, for instance, or those erected at any other provincial town within the last twenty years, bear no comparison to the costly and magnificent capitol, built, burnt, and re- built, within that period at Washington. Indeed, I believe that there are no public buildings which have been constructed at London during this cen- tury in so expensive and splendid a style. The Halls of the Senate, and of the Representatives at Washington, are in the relation of contrast with the Houses of Commons and the Lords in London, as to magnitude, magnificence and accommodation. And, if I am not mistaken, the only historical paint- ings of national events, which have ever been paid for by legislative appropriation, are those executed by an American artist for the walls of the capitol. E 30 To these imperfect views of education, literature, science, and the arts, I will add sketches of the American mind, as developed in legislation, juris- prudence, the medical profession and the church ; which, in this country, may be considered as the other cardinal points of intellectual exercise. Representation is the great distinction between ancient and modern government. Representation and confederation distinguish the politics of Ameri- ca, where representation is real and legislation pe- rennial. Thousands of springs, gushing from every quarter, eddy onward the cataract of representative democracy, from primary self-constituted assem- blies, to the State Legislatures, and the national Congress^ Three thousand chosen members re- present these United States, in five and twenty Legislatures. There are, moreover, innumerable voluntary associations under legislative regulations in their proceedings. I am within bounds in as- serting, that several hundred thousand persons as- semble in this country every year, in various spon- taneous convocations, to discuss and determine measures according to parliamentary routine. From bible societies to the lowest handicraft there is no impediment, but every facility, by law, to their or- ganisation : And we find not only harmless but beneficial, those various self-created associations, which in other countries give so much trouble and alarm. It is not my purpose to consider the politi- cal influences of these assemblies, nor even their political character. But their philosophical effect on the individuals composing them, is to sharpen 31 their wits, temper their passions, and cuhivate their elocution : While this almost universal practice of political or voluntary legislation, could hardly fail to familiarise a great number of persons with its proprieties. The mode of transacting business is nearly the same in them all, from the humblest de- bating club to Congress in the capitol. Legislation in the United States is better ordered, more de- liberative, decorous, and dignified, much less tumul- tuous or arbitrary and more eloquent than in Europe. Contin ual changes of the political representatives, af- ford not less than ten thousand individuals spread throughout the United States, practically familiar with the forms and principles of legislation, who, through the vivid medium of a free press, constitute, as it were, an auditory greatly superior to that of any other nation. A large proportion of this great number of practical legislators, is qualified by the habits of discussion incident to such employment, and perfect freedom, to deliver their sentiments in public speaking ; which, being in greater request, of greater efficacy, and at greater liberty in Ameri- ca than in Europe, is naturally more prevalent and powerful here than there. It is a striking view of the ideas of legislation in Europe, that within the last thirty years France and Spain have waged de- structive wars for legislatures, consisting of single assemblies ; a constitution, which in America, would not be thousfht worth so much bloodshed. The much abused French revolution, has given to that country a Legislature of two houses, and a press of considerable freedom. But the peers are 33 lost in the secrecy of their sessions : and the de- puties can hardly be called a deliberative assem- blv. Few speak, inasmuch as most of the orations are read from a pulpit : and still fewer listen, amidst the tumults that agitate the whole body. To crown these frustrations of eloquent debate, when, it becomes intense and critical, as it must be, to do its offices, the proceedings are sometimes closed by an armed force, marched in to seize and expel an obnoxious orator. This is certainly not the philosophy of legislation. In Great Britain, an excessive number is crowded into an inconvenient apartment, where but few at- tempt to speak, and few can be brought to listen : and where both speakers and hearers are disturbed by tumultuous shouts and unseemly noises, not, ac- cording to our ideas, consonant with either eloquent or deliberative legislation. In theory, the House of Commons contains nearly 700 members : in prac- tice the most important laws are debated and en- acted by sixty or fifty. Owing to the want of per- sonal accommodation, when the house is crowded, its divisions to be counted are attended with great confusion. Most of the bills are drafted, not by members, but by clerks hired for that purpose : to which is owing much of the inordinate tautology and technicality of modern acts of Parliament. In theory and principle there is no audience, and in fact, bystanders are not permitted but occasionally,, under inconvenient restrictions. Reports and pub lications of the debates are unauthorised, and of course imperfect, notwithstanding the exploits of 33 stenography. Althousjh Parliament is omnipotent, yet a member may not publish abroad what he says in his place, without incurring itrnominious punish- ment as a libeller: which punishment was actually inflicted not lon^ ago on a peer, proceeded against by information, for that offence. In France, the press is, in this respect, freer than in England. The publication of speeches in the Legislature is consi- dered an inviolable right, which, among all the re- vocations of the present government, has never been molested or called in question. By a perversion of the hours, unknown, I believe, in any other country or age, most of the business of Parliament is done in the dead of night, to which, probably, manv of the irreo-ularities now mentioned are as- cribable. The great popular principles which have preserved the British Parliament, while every other similar attempt in Europe has fail- ed, or nearly so, and its brilliant political per- formances, have recommended it to admiration, notwithstanding these disadvantages ; and in- deed sanctioned them as part of the system. But unprejudiced judgment must allow, that all these are imperfections which have no place in Congress. Hence it is, that there are not now, and probably never were at any one time, more than two or three members of Parliament actuated by the great impulses of oratory : and that the talent of extemporaneous and useful eloquence always has been much more common in Congress. Burke's inimitable orations, which all ages will read with deliain to cite the civil law, and as the English common law has always repelled that excellent code from its tribunals. I cannot think, with the learned edi- tor of the Law Register, that late English law books are a dead expense to the American bar ; or that, in his strong phrase, scarcely an important case is furnished by a bale of their reports. But I deplore the colonial acquiescence in which they are adopt- ed too often without probation or fitness. The use and respect of American jurisprudence in Great Britain will begin only when we cease to prefer their adjudications to our own. By the same means we shall be relieved from disadvantageous restric- tions on our use of British wisdom; and our system will acquire that level to which it is entitled by the education, learning, and purity of those by whose administration it is formed. In their national capacity, the United States have no common law, but all the original States are go- verned by that of England, with adaptations. In 37 one of the new States, in which the French, Spanish, and English laws, happen to be all naturalised, an attempt at codification from all these stocks is mak- ing, under legislative sanction. In others, possibly all of the new States, which have been carved out of the old, a great question is in agitation whether the English common law is their inheritance. Being a scheme of traditional precepts and judicial prece- dents, that law requires continual adjudications, with their reasons at large, to explain, replenish, and en- force it. Of these reports, as they are termed, no less than sixty four, consisting of more than two hundred volumes, and a million of pages, have al- ready been uttered in the United States ; most of them in the present century ; and in a ratio of great increase. The camel's load of cases, which is said to have been necessary to gain a point of law in the decline of the Roman empire, is therefore already insufficient for that purpose in the x\merican. Add to which, an American lawyer's library is incom- plete without a thousand volumes of European le- gists, comprehending the most celebrated French, Dutch, Italian, and German treatises on n?.tural, national, and maritime law, together with all the English chancery and common law. I have heard of an American lawyer of eminence whose whole property is said to consist in a large and expensive law library. Notwithstanding this mass of literature, the law has been much simplified in transplantation from Europe to America : and its professional as well as political tendencv is still to further simplicity. The F 38 brutal, ferocious, and inhuman laws of the feudists^ as they were termed by the civilians, (I use their own phrase,) the arbitrary rescripts of the civil law, and the harsh doctrines of the common law, have all been melted down by the genial mildness of Ame- rican institutions. Most of the feudal distinctions be- tween real and personal property, complicated te- nures andprimogenitiire, the salique exclusion of fe- rn ties, the unnatural rejection of the half-blood, and ante-nuptial offspring, forfeitures for crimes, the pe- nalties of alienage, and other vices of P^uropean jurisprudence, which nothing but their existence can defend, and reason must condemn, are either abolished, or in a course of abrogation here. Cog- nisance of marriage, divorce, and posthumous ad- ministration, taken from ecclesiastical, has been conferred on the civil tribunals. Voluminous con- veyancing and intricate special pleading, among the cosdiest mysteries of pnjfessional learning in Great Britain, have given place to the plain and cheap substitutes of the old common law. With a like view to abridge and economise litigation, co- ercive arbitration, or equivalents for it, have been tried by legislative provision; jury trial, the great safe- guard of personal security, is nearly universal, and ought to be quite so, for its invaluable political influ- ences. It not only does justice between the litigant parties, but elevates the understanding and enlightens the rectitude of all the community. Sanguinary and corporal punishments arc yielding to the interesting experiment of penitential confinement. Judicial officiaj tenure is mostly independent of legislative 39 interposition, and completely of executive influence. The jurisdiction of the courts, is far more exten- tensive and elevated than that of the mother coun- try. They exercise, among other high political functions, the original and remarkable power of in- validating statutes, by declaring them unconstitu- tional : an ascendancy over politics never before or elsewhere asserted by jurisprudence, which autho- rises the weakest branch of a popular government to annul the measures of the strongest. If popular indignation sometimes assails this authority, it has seldom if ever been able to crush those who have honestly exercised it ; and even if it should, though an individual victim might be immolated, his very martyrdom would corroborate the system for which he suffered. Justice is openly, fairly, and purely administered, freed from the absurd costumes and ceremonies which disfigure it in England. Judi- cial appointment is less influenced by politics ; and judicial proceedings more independent of political considerations. The education for the bar is less technical, their practice is more intellectual, the vocation is rela- tively at least more independent in the United States, than in Great Britain. Here, as there, it is a much frequented avenue to political honours. All the chief justices of the United States have filled eminent political stations, both abroad and at home. Of the five Presidents of the United States, four were lawyers ; of the several candidates at pre- sent for that office, most, if not all, are lawyers. But without any public promotion, American so- 4U ciety has no superior to the man who is advanced in any of the liberal professions. Hence there are more accompUshed individuals in professional life here, than where this is not the case. Under other governments, patronage will advance the unworthy, and power will oppress the meritorious. Even in France, where there are, and always have been law- yers of great and just celebrity, we sometimes see that for exerting the noblest, and, in free countries, the most common duties of their profession, for re- sisting the powerful and defending the weak, they are liable to irresponsible arrest, imprisonment, and degradation, without the succour and sanctuary of a free press, and dauntless public sympathy. In Great Britain, it is true, there is no such apprehen- sion to deter them : and equally true, that profes- sional, as well as political d'^gnities, are free to all candidates. But the ascendancy of rank, the con- tracted divisions of intellectual labour, the techni- cality of practice, combine with other causes to render even the English individuals, not perhaps inferior lawyers, but suborbinate men. British jurisprudence itself, too, that sturdy and inveterate common law, to which Great Britain owes many of the great popular conservative prin- ciples of her constitution — even these have been impaired by long and terrible wars, during which, shut up within their impregnable island, the offspring of Alfred and of Edward, infusing their passions, their politics, and their prejudices into their laws, have wrenched them to their occasions. The dis- tinguishing attributes and merits of the common 41 law are, that it is popular and mutable ; takes its doctrines from the people, and suits them to their views. While the American judiciary enforces this system of jurisprudence, may it never let wars, or popular passions, or foreign influences, impair its principles. There are about ten thousand physicians in the United States, and medical colleges for their edu- cration in Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, Connecti- cut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio. There are also two medical universities in the state of New York, one in Pennsylvania, one in Mary- land, one in Massachusetts, and one in Kentucky ; containing altogether about twelve hundred stu- dents. Under the impulses of a new climate and its peculiar distempers, the medical profession has been pursued and its sciences developed with great zeal and success in this country ; whose necessities have called forth a bolder and more energetic treat- ment of diseases, more discriminating and philoso- phical, as well as decisive and efficient ; a more scientific assignment of their causes, and ascertain- ments of their nature. Many medical errors and prejudices, now abandoned in Europe, were first re- futed here. What is justly termed a national cha- racter, has been given to the medical science of America, and American medical literature is cir- culated and read in Europe, where several Ameri- can medical discoveries and improvements have been claimed as European. Anatomy, the most stationary of the medical sciences, is ardently culti- vated, and has been advanced by discoveries in the 4S American schools. Valuable contributions have been made to physiology, and more rational views inculcated of animal economy. An American dis- covery in chemistry has distinguished its author throughout Europe : Where the achievements of this master spirit of sciences, while, to be sure they leave ours behind, yet encourage it to an applica- tion full of promise. It is a merit of the American schools, at least, to have accurately defined the bounds of chemistry and physiology. Our diver- sified soils and climates, afford inexhaustible heal- ing and balsamic plants, many of which have been adopted into the materia medica, and displayed in publications creditable to the literature and some of the fine arts, as well as the science of this country. And the bowels of this continent are rich with sanative minerals, some of which, likewise, have been extracted and made known both to science and by literature. Mr. Cleaveland's treatise on mine- ralogy is, I believe, used as a text book in Great Britain. American physicians are probably unrivalled in the knowledge and use of what are termed the heroic remedies. They have introduced new and rational doctrines respecting the operation of reme- dies ; combatting the notion of their reception into the circulation, and referring it to the principle of sympathy. They deny the asserted identity of remedies ; believing, that they have succeeded in proving an essential difference in their operation, not only in degree, but in effect. The American improvements in Surgery are too numerous, and *3 though not the less important, too minute and tech- nical, to be generalised in a summary. Its appa- ratus, mechanism, and operations, have been im- proved by a theory and practice equal in science, skill and success, to any in the world. But its greatest melioration is philosophical. The founder ■of most of the improvements in surgery alluded to, deeming its most skilful operations, but imper- fections in the preserving art, reserves them for its last resort, never to be performed till all means of natural cure prove abortive. On this exalted prin- ciple the great Hunter taught and practised ; unit- ing humanity and philosophy to science and art ; a benefactor, whose original and admirable sug- gestions it is the merit of American physicians and surgeons to have introduced into their practice in this country, before their imputed innovations were reconciled to pre-conceived opinions in his own. Midwifery, both practical and theoretical, has also received essential improvements in the American school, some of which have been declared by high authority to mark an ccra in the obstetric practice. In the theory and practice of medicine, the im- provements are too many and important for my recital. The gastric pathology, the prevailing ti-eatment and theory of hydrokephalus, and of drop- sies in general, the boasted European practice in marasmus, the cure of the croup, of gout by evac- uations, the arrest of malignant erisipelas, and of mortification, and of inflamation of the veins; in short, a long list of remedial systems, which might be enumerated, though claimed in Europe, belong 41 to America. The vaunted suggestion of Europe, that fever originates in sympathetic irritation, and that venesection and other evacuations are requi- site in the primary stages of it, have long been the estabhshed doctrines of America, where they were first demonstrated. American medical science and skill have outstripped those of the rest of the world, Europe included, in the character and treat- ment of epidemics and pestilences. In this great field, Europe has done little, while the progress of America has been great. Bigoted to antiquated notions the medical science of the old world has stagnated for centuries in prejudices, which have been expelled in the new, where the causes, na- ture, laws, and treatment of these destructive visi- tations have been ascertained and systematised, English critics particularly dwell with exultation on their supposed late triumphs over these distem- pers. Divested of the long prevalent notion of de- bility and putrescency, they nov^^ urge depletion as if the suggestion were their own, whereas thirty years have elapsed since the physicians of this country were in the full employment of it. The theory and practice of medicine, the fearless and generous resistance of pestilential disease, sug- gest a recollection of a late medical professor here, whose works are in the libraries of the learned in many countries, and in several languages, whose fas- cinating manners and eloquent lectures largely con- tributed to thefoundation of a flourishing school, whose zeal, if some times excessive, was characteristic of genius, mid the pioneer of success ; whose services. 45 iet me add, as a patriot, and a philantropist, shed a divine lustre on his career as a physician. The first leading man to lay down his life in batde in the American revolution, was an eminent physician. The best historian of that period, was also an emi- nent physician : And in a country, which knows no grade above that of the eminent in learning; and usefulness, there have been, and there are, many others of this profession to whom more than pro- fessional celebrity belongs. They frequently unite political with professional distinctions. Many of the members of this profession, have filled various stations in every branch of our government. Many of them at this moment, occupy high executive and legislative public offices. The pernicious and de- grading system which subdivides labour infini- tesimally — a system useful perhaps for pin-makers, but most injurious in all the thinking occupations — has no countenance in America. The American physician practices pharmacy, surgery, midwifery ; and is cast on his own resources for success in all he does : The consequence of which is, that he is forced to think more for himself, and of course to excel. In Europe, successful physicians are too often made so by favour or chance. They are, moreover, the luxuries of the metropolis and a few great cities. Throughout the interior of England, generally, the medical attendant is an uneducated apothecary, whose science stops at the compound- ing of a drug, or the opening of a vein. Even in London, this class is always in reserve to succeed the preliminary and expensive visits of the doctor : G 46 w hose employment, besides, depends too much on the recommendation of these subordinates. In this country, medical skill is much more generally dis- tributed. Elvery hamlet, every region abounds with educated physicians, whose qua'ifications to be sure, ultimately depend much on their opportu- nities : But who, at least for the most part, begin with the recommendations of diplomas. Perhaps the most humane discovery in modern medicine is vaccination ; to which America has no claim : though superior intelligence here has given it much greater effect, than among the ignorant j)opulace of Europe. The doctrine of non-conta- gion in pestilential distempers, should it be esta- blished, must also enjoy great credit as a triumph for humanity. The most distressing prejudices concerning contagion, are not yet extirpated in Eu- rope. I am not authorised to consider a disbelief in this shocking aggravation of any malady, as a point in which the medical profession of America is quite unanimous with respect to yellow fever: but a foreign physician, who lately collected their opinions, ascertained the ratio of non-contagionists to be 567 to 28 contagionists. A late French am- bassador in this country, who was bred a physician, has publicly claimed the merit of the discovery of non-contagion for another French physician, who was in practice in this city in 1793, and is now in the service of the king of France. But in a treatise on the yellow fever by Dr. Hillary, published sixty years ai';o, its contagion is explicitly denied by the unqualified declaration, that * it has nothing of a pestilential or contagious nature in it.' That this is not the sentiment prevalent in France, would seem to be inferrible from recent events. A French army was stationed at the foot of the Pyrennees, as a sanitory cordon, to prevent the passage of conta- gion over those lofty, and frost crowned mountains. Whatever may be the theories or reveries of a few, therefore, it is a remarkable proof of the actual state of the public intelligence on this subject, not only in France, but throughout Europe, that all inquiries concerning the cause of this apparently warlike demonstration were silenced by assurances that its design was to repel contagious disease : under which assertion the wisdom of Europe rested, till the plans thus masked were ripe for execution. I shall conclude with some views of the Ameri- can church ; which I hope to be able to shew is as justly entitled to that distinctive appellation as the church of Rome, the church of England, the Galilean church, the Greek church, or any others, to theirs respectively. It is the policy or the prejudice of governments, ■which use the church as an engine of state, to de- cry institutions which separate them, and leave re- ligion to self-regulation. They are accused of infi- delity and immorality. The want of ecclesiastical respectability is inferred from its want of political protection and influence. These Pagan doctrines have prevailed where ever Christianity has been unknown. They were Egyptian, Grecian, Ro- man ; they are Mahometan. But they cannot en- dure the light of reason and truth. Whoever reads 48 the text book of Christianity must be ccnvinced that it is the religion of self-government. No Eu- ropean dogma is more unfounded than that repub- licanism and infidelity are coadjutors. Intelligent men in the United States, with much more unani- mity and sincerity than in Europe, believe that without religion humanity would be forlorn and bar- barous. And in no country are those ecclesiastical classes and cures, which have formed parts of the institutions of religion, in all times, better establish- ed than in this. In estimating the progress and con- dition of the mind in America, therefore, I have neither disposition nor occasion to deny, that the condition of religion is one of the best tests of the general intellectual state. Independently of their help in the cure of souls, the clergy have always rendered the most important services to the human understanding. Learning and science were long in their exclusive care. In those periods when the mind was most depressed, the church was the chancery of its preservation. To it we owe nearly all the best relics of ancient learning: from it, we still receive much of our education ; for here, as elsewhere, most of our teachers are ecclesiastics. It is therefore a very interesting inquiry how the church and its ministers, who are also the ministers of education, fare in any community. Segregation from political connection and tolera- tion are the cardinal principles of the American church. On the continent of Europe, toleration means, where it is said to exist, catholic supre- macy suffering subordinate protestantism. In the 49 united kins^dom of Great Britain and Ireland, it means a protestant hierarchy, abetted by dissenters, excliidini): catholics from political privileges, and subjecting them to double ecclesiastical imposi- tions. France, Italy, Ireland, and Spain, have been desolated by contests between church and state. Toleration has won at least part of these bloody fields. But a segregated church does not appear to have made any advance in Europe. In the United States, both of these principles are not only fundamental political laws, but ancient, deep-seated doctrines, whose bases were laid long before poli- tical sovereignty was thought of, when Williams, Penn and Baltimore, by a remarkable coincidence, implanted them in every quarter, and in every creed. American toleration, means the absolute inde- pendence and equality of all religious denomina- tions. American segregation, means, that no hu- man authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with the rights of conscience. Ade- quate trial of these great problems, not less momen- tous than that of political self-goverenment, has proved their benign solution. Bigotry, intolerance, blood thirsty polemics waste themselves in harm- less, if not useful, controversy, when government takes no part. We enjoy a religious calm and har- mony, not only unknown, but inconcievable, in Europe. We are continually receiving accessions of their intolerance, which is as constantly disarmed by being let alone. Our schools, families, legis- latures, society find no embarrassment from varie- ties of creed, which in Europe would kindle the deadliest discord. 50 That these consequences are not the fruits of lukevvarmness and disregard to religion, remains td be shewn. I shall touch but lightly on the dissenting church, as it is called in England ; not because its condition in the United States is not worthy of regard, and a great argument for my object, but because its well known prosperity renders it almost unnecessary that I should dwell on any details of it. Always demo- cratic even in Europe, no reason can be imagined why it should not thrive in the aboriginal republi- canism of America, the natural and fruitful soil of spontaneous religion. Accordingly, there are up- wards of seven hundred congregational churches in the New England States alone, and nearly that num- ber of clergymen of that denomination, including pastors, unsettled ministers, and licensed preachers : from which enumeration I exclude the Baptists of that quarter, who are uniformly of the congregation- al order in church government. There is a theo- logical seminary at Andover, in Massachusetts, containing about one hundred and fifty students in divinity. At Harvard college, there is a theologi- cal professor of the Anti-trinitarian faith, with whom several resident graduates commonly study. Of the two hundred and thirty congregational minis- ters of Massachusetts, about seventy are Anti-trini- tarians. In Maine, there is a theological seminary, with two professors, and about forty pupils. Yale ©ollege in Connecticut, has a theological depart- ment attached to it, in which there are three pro- fessors, and a considerable number of students. In 51 Comnall, in Connecticut, there is also a Heathen mission school, in which, about thirty youths, born in India, on the Pacific ocean, and the western wilds of this continent, or other heathen places, are educated with special reference to ministerial du- ties in their respective birth places. The Presbyterian church in the United States, in addition to the congregational, contains about nine hundred ministers, one hundred and thirty five li- centiates, one hundred and forty seven candidates, more than fourteen hundred churches, and last year administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to an hundred thousand communicants. It has theo- logical seminaries in the Slates of New Jersey, New York, and Tennessee : And, as is obvious from these indications, is established on broad and flour- ishing endowments. I shall also very summarily touch the condition of those enthusiastic, and, for the most part, itine- rant churches, which, ever since their first example in the appearance of the Franciscan and Dominican friars of the thirteenth century, in a similar manner and on similar occasions, have, under various titles, interposed their austere and reviving tenets, into the deserted or decaying quarters of Christianity; uhose popular and rallying doctrines have a highly bene* ficial influence on the morals of the community. The Methodist church of America contains three di' -cesses, eleven hundred itinerant clergy, exclu- sively clerical, and about three thousand stationary ministers, who attend also to other than ecclesiasti- cal occupations, 'ihey reckon twelve conferences, 5S and more than twenty five hundred places of wor- ship. By the report to the Baptist convention, which sat in June last, at Washington, the places of worship of that persuasion are stated at more than two thousand three hundred; and they reckon a very large number of ministers. There are three theological seminaries of the Baptist church, one in New England, one in the interior of the State of New York, and one at the city of Washington. There were likewise two theological seminaries of the Methodist church, of whose services, however, it has been for the present deprived by accidental circumstances. It is a remarkable and most lau- dable characteristic of all these reliarious denomina- tions that their means are applied among other beneficial purposes, always liberally to that of edu- cation. The Universalists have one hundred and twenty preachers, two hundred separate societies, and eight periodical publications. The Lutheran, the Dutch Reformed, and Associate Reformed, the Moravians, the Friends, in short, almost an innumerable roll of creeds, have their several seminaries of education, their many places of worship, numerous clergy or preachers, and every other attribute of secular, as well as spiritual, religion in prosperity. To the clergy of some of these sects, especially the Presbyterian and Congregational, the American revolution is deeply indebted for its origin, pro- gress, and issue. The generous, yet jealous princi- ples of self-government, proclaimed as the motives of that event, have no more steadfast, uniform, or 53 invincible adherents, than their followers. Pole- mical literature, metaphysical knowledge, pulpit eloquence, philological learning, invigorating the mind, and giving it power over the world, are su- peradded to the laborious and self-denyed lives and pure ministry of these ecclesiastics. The dissen- ters in England form, no doubt, a body of learned and zealous divines : but from the time when Eng- land first sent her sons to New England to learn and teach theology to the present day, the Ameri- can dissenting church, is, at least equal to that of the mother country in intelligence and influence, and much superior in eloquence. But it is on the American church of England and the American church of Rome, that we may dwell with most complacency. Here, where no political predominance, no peculiar, above all, no mysteri- ous, inquisitorial, arbitrary, or occult polity, no tythes, no titles, peerage, crown, or other such appliances sustain the ministry, where the cro- sier is as plain as the original cross itself, and the mitre does not sparkle with a single brilliant torn from involuntary contribution, — it is here, I venture to say, that within the last century, the church of England and the church of Rome have construct- ed more places of worship, (relatively speaking,) endowed more diocesses, founded more religious houses, and planted a stronger pastoral influence, than in any other part of the globe. It is in the United States of America, under the power of Ame- rican religion that the English and Roman Catholic chuicaes are Nourishing. H 54 Until the revolution, the church of England was the estabished church in all the American colonies. In Maryland and Virginia, where it was most firmly seated, a sort of modus or composition for tythes was assessed by law, either on the parishes or by the polls. In Virginia there were moreover glebes annexed to the parish churches. In New York, there was also a fund taken from the public money, appropriated to the few parishes established there. Throughout New England, Pennsylvania, and the other colonies, if I am not misinformed, though the church of England was the national church, yet it languished in great infirmity, having no other sup- port than the pew rents and voluntary assessments which now, under a very different regimen, supply adequate resources for all the occasions of an es- tablishment which has no rich, and no very poor pastorates. The whole of these vast regions, by a gross or- dinance of colonial misrule, were attached to the London diocess. Most of the incumbents, it may be supposed, those especially supported by tythes, at such a distance from the diocesan, were supine and licentious. As soon as the revolution put a stop to their stipends, they generally ceased to offi- ciate : and in Maryland and Virginia, particularly, the Methodists and Baptists stepped in to their de- serted places. The crisis for the church of Eng- land at this conjuncture, was vital. Several of its ministers at first joined their compatriots for the independence declared. But few endured unto the end of the struggle. When the enemy were in &5 possession oF Philadelphia, then the capital of the country, where Congress sat, and that inimitable assembly was driven to resume its deliberations at the village of Yorktown, they elected for their chaplain, a clergyman of the church of England, who had been expelled his home in this city by its capture. Every ingenuous mind will do justice to the predicament in which such an election placed an American pastor of the English church. The cause of independence, to which he was attached was in ruin ; the government forced from its seat, the army routed and disheartened, the country prostrate and nearly subdued by a triumphant enemy in undisputed occupation of the capital. The chaplain elected by Congress under such ©ircumstances proved worthy of their confidence. Without other attendant, protection, or encour- agement, than the consciousness of a good cause, he repaired to the retreat of his country's ab- ject fortunes, to offer daily prayers from the bosom of that immortal assembly which never despaired of them, to the almighty providence, by which they were preserved and prospered. The chaplain of Congress, at Yorktown, has been rewarded for those days of trial. Already, in the compass of his own life, and ministry, he is at the head of the ten bishoprics into which the American church of England has since then ex- panded in the United States, with three hundred and fifty clergymen, about seven hundred churches, a theological seminary, and every other assurance of 56 substantial prosperity. Within liislife time there vvaS but one, and at the commencement of his ministry but three episcopnl churches in Philadelphia, and they in jeopardy of the desecration from which they were saved by his patriotic example and pious influence. It would be an unjust and unacceptable homage, however, tohim, not to declare that the intrinsic tem- perance and resource of popular government mainly contributed to the preservation of the English church in America, where it has since advanced far more than in the mother country, during the same period, and where it is probably destined to flourish greatly beyond the English example. Of this there can be no doubt if it thrives henceforth as it has done heretofore: for under the presidency of a single prelate, still in the effective performance of all the duties of a good bishop, and a good citizen, the American church of England, without a particle of political support, has, as we have seen, extended itself. Within a few years a million of pounds sterling- were appropriated by parliament, on the special re- commendation of the crov\Ti of Great Britain, for the. repair and construction of churches; with views doubtless to political as much as to religious consequences. I venture to predict that within the period to elapse from that appropriation to its expenditure, a larger sum of money will have been raised in the United States by voluntary subscrip- tion, and expended for similar purposes and to greater effect. The Roman catholic church grows as vigorously 57 as any other in the soil and atmosphere of America. The late (first) archbishop of that church, likewise adhered with unshaken and zealous constancy to the cause of the American revolution : and indeed, served for it in a public station. His illustrious relative is one of the three signers of a charter, destined to have more influence on mankind than any uninspired writing, who have lived to enjoy its developements during half a century; in which pe- riod, all North and South America have been re- generated, and the most intelligent portions of Eu- rope quickened with the spirit of that political scripture. He periled a million of dollars when he pledged his fortune to the declaration of inde- pendence : as to the short sighted, the patriot priest might have seemed to risk his religion when he abjured European allegiance. But neither of them has had reason to regret the effects of self-govern- ment on a faith of which they have both, at all times, been the American pillars and ornaments. From a mere mission in 1790, the Roman catholic establishment in the United States, has spread into an extended and imposing hierarchy ; consisting of a metropolitan see, and ten bishoprics, con- taining between eighty and a hundred churches, some of them the most costly and splendid ecclesi- astical edifices in the country, superintended by a- bout one hundred and sixty clergymen. The remo- test quarters of the U. States are occupied by these flourishing establishments ; from the chapels at Damascotti (in Maine) and at Boston, to those of St. Augustine in Florida, and St. Louis in Mis- 58 souri. Thefe are catholic seminaries at Bardstown and Frankfort in Kentucky, a catholic clerical se- minary in Missouri, catholic colleges at St. Louis and New Orleans, where there is likewise a catho- lic Lancasterian school, two catholic charity schools at Baltimore, two in the District of Columbia, a catholic seminary and college at Baltimore, a ca- tholic college in the District of Columbia, a catholic seminary at Emmitsburg in Maryland, a catholic free school and Orphans' asylum in Philadelphia. These large contributions to education, are not, however, highly respectable and cultivated as many of them are, the most remarkable characteristics of the American Roman catholic church. It is a cir- cumstance pregnant with reflections and results, that the Jesuits, since their suppression in Europe, have been established in this country. In 1801, by a brief of pope Pius the seventh, this society, with the concurrence of the emperor Paul, was es- tablished in Russia under a general authorised to resume and follow the rule of St. Ignatius of Loy- ola ; which power was extended in 1806, to the United States of America, with permission to preach, educate youth, administer the sacraments, &c. with the consent and approbation of the ordi- diiiary. In 1807, a noviciate was opened at George- town college in the District of Columbia, which continued to improve till 1814, when, being deemed sufficiently established, the congregation was for- mally organised by a papal bull. This society now consists of twenty-six fathers, ten scholastics in theology, seventeen scholarships in philosophy, S9 rhetoric, and belles lettres, fourteen scholastics in the noviciate, twenty-two lay -brothers out of, and four lay-brothers in, the noviciate ; some of whom are dispersed throughout the United States, occu- pied in missionary duties, and the cure of souls. This statement is enough to prove the marvellous radication of the strongest fibres of the Roman Ca- tholic church in our soil. But the argument does not stop here. The oldest catholic literary esta- blishment in this country, is the catholic college just mentioned, which was founded immediately after the revolution, by the incorporated catholic clergy of Maryland, now capable of containing two hun- dred resident students, furnished with an extensive and choice library, a philosophical and chemical apparatus of the latest improvement, and professor- ships in the Greek, Latin, French and English lan- guages, mathematics, moral and natural philoso- phy, rhetoric, and belles lettres. This institution, I have mentioned, was put in 1805, under the di- rection of the society of Jesuits : and that nothing might be wanting to the strong relief in whjch the subject appears, the college thus governed, was by act of Congres^ of the United States of America, raised to the rank of a University, and empowered to confer degrees in any of the faculties. Thus, since the suppression of the order of Jesuits, about the time of the origin of the American revolution, has that celebrated brotherhood of propagandists been restored in the United States, and its principal and most operative institution organised and eleva- vated by an act of our national Legislature. ^ 60 In like manner, the Sulpitian monks have been incorporated by act of the legislature of the State of Maryland, in the administration of the flour- ishing Catholic seminary at Baltimore. Still more remains, however, to be made known : For so si- lent and unobtrusive is religious progress, when neither announced nor enforced by political power, that it is probable, that many of these curious de- tails may be new to some of those who now hear them mentioned. Those relisrious houses and re- treats, which have been rended from their ancient seats in so many parts of Europe — monasteries and convents — are sprouting up and casting their un- cultivated fragrance throughout the kindlier glebes and wilds of America. Even where corruption and abuse had exposed them to destruction, learn- ing: turned with sorrow from the abomination of their desolation, and charity wept over the downfall of her ancient fanes. But here, where corruption and abuse can hardly exist in self supported reli- gious institutions — what have we to apprehend from these chaste and pious nurseries of education and alms ? What may we not hope, on the con- trary, for the mind, from their consecration and ex- tension ? In the oldest religious house in America, that of the female Carmelites, near Port Tobacco, in Maryland, the established number of inmates is always complete. The convent of St. Mary's, at Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, contains fifty nuns, having under their care a day school, at which, upwards of a hundred poor girls are educa- ted. The convent of the Sisters of Charity of St / 61 Joseph, incorporated by the Legislature of Mary- land, at Emmittsburg in that State, consists of fifty-nine sisters, inchiding novices, with fifty-two young ladies under their tuition, and upwards of forty poor children. A convent of Ursulines, at Boston, is yet in its infancy, consisting of a prioress, six sisters, and two novices, who undertake to in- struct those committed to their charge in every polite accomplishment, in addition to the useful branches of female education. The Emmittsburg Sisters of Charity, have a branch of their convent for the benefit of female orphan children, establish- ed in the city of New York, where the Roman Catholics are said to have increased in the last twen- ty years, from 300 to 20,000. The church of St. Augustine, in Philadelphia, belongs to the Au- gustine monks, by whom it was built. There is also a branch of the Emmittsburg Sisters of Charity in this city, consisting of several pious and well in- formed ladies, who superintend the education of or[ han children. The Daughters of Charity, have another branch in Kentucky, where there are, like- wise, a house of the order of Apostolines, lately es- tablished by the Pope at Rome, a cloister of Lo- retto, and another convent. In the State of Mis- souri, there is a convent of religious ladies at the village of St. Ferdinand, where a noviciate is seated, of five novices and several postulants, with a thriv- ing seminary, largely resorted to by the young ladies of that remote region, and also a day school for the poor. In New Orleans, there is a convent ofUrsuline nuns, of ancient and affluent endowment, I 62 containing fifteen or sixteen professed nuns, and a number of novices and postulants. Tlie ladies of the Heart of Jesus, are about founding a second es- tablishment for education at Opelousas. I uill ter- minate these curious, I hope not irksome, particu- lars, by merely addint^, that in Maine and Ken- tucky, there are tribes of Indians attached to the Roman Catholic worship, whose indefatigable min- isters have always been successful in reclaiming those aborigines of this continent. Vincennes, the chief town of Indiana, where there is now a Ro- man Catholic chapel, was once a station of the Je- suits for this purpose. Upon the whole I do not think that we can reckon less than eight thousand places of worship, and five thousand ecclesiastics in the United States, besides twelve theological seminaries, and many religious houses, containing, the former, about five hundred, and the latter three hundred votaries ; all self-erected and sustained by voluntary rontribu- tion, and nearly all within the last half century. If this unequalled increase of churches and pastors, and worshippers, attests the prosperity of religion, we may rest assured of its w'elfare without tythesor political support : and we need not fear its decline from the ascendancy of republicanism. In proving the existence and magnitude of the American church, I have incidentally, I hope suffi- ciently, explained its character. For the most part well educated, well informed, and well employed, eloquent, unpensioned, self-sustained, trusting to their own good works, and relying on no court 63 favour or individual interest for advancement, ex empt from that parasite worldly- mindedness which the honest Massillon, even when preaching before Louis XIV. denounced as the canker of political relij^ion, the American clergy are necessarily called upon to think, to read, to write, to preach, andoffici* ate more than the European. i\ccordingly the divi- nity of the American church, if I am not mistaken, is much more active at this time, and its literature more efficient than that of England. Indeed it is hardly to be accounted for, that with the great in- ducements, means and opportunities of the dignita- ries of the English church, the mind is at present so litde benefited by their contributions to its enlarge- ment. I by no means design to speak disrespectful- ly of personages of whom I know little more than their titles ; nor do I call in question their learning, their piety, or even their partial usefulness. But assuredly it is fair to infer some radical defect in the system, when of all the modern English bench of bishops and arch-bishops there are very few, I believe, at present in any way known to lite- rature, not one distinguished for eloquence, and on that noble theatre, the house of peers, who ever heard of their performances? Relying on political protection, they seem to have lost the stimulus which urges their American brethren to incessant labours for the furtherance of religion, by eloquent sermons, by contributions to clerical literature, and by the ardent exercise of all their duties. The Roman Catholics boast of numerous converts from protest- antism in Europe. Where is the spirit of Tillot- ^ 6l! son and Sherlock, the Enghsh successors of the Chrysostoms and the Bazils ? Not in England at present. The works of the great fathers of the EngUsh church, those wells of doctrine as of Ian- guage undefiled, appear to be much more likely to be replenished and perpetuated in America. In this review, I have of course abstained from all polemic and various other delicate considera- tions connected with it : confining myself to the actual progress of religion as indicative of the ten- dency of the mind on that subject in this country. Anti-trinitarians and Jesuits, convents, and quakers, all grow and thrive together. The most imposing Roman catholic cathedral, and a considerable Unita- rian church are built within the sound of each others service ; and neither the intelligence nor the tranquillity of the community has suffered by their neighbourhood. There may be those who think in- deed that the growth is inordinate, that the establish- ments are on a scale of expense and influence dis- proportioned to our numbers, our principles, and even our independence. But to all such suggestions the answer is, that while the whole is spontaneous, there can be nothing to apprehend. My undertaking will be unfinished, if I do not explain the political and physical causes of the re- sults, to which attention has been invited. But that task, I may not attempt on this occasion, if ever. It is said to be the American fault, to expend itself in details, instead of reasoning by generalisation, I am very sensible of this, with many other faults, in this discourse, in which, scarcely any thing more ^^ 65 r is attempted than the collection of facts. But, however imperfect the performance, my views will be accomplished, if the glimpses thus afforded should induce some qualified person to examine and explain the subject philosophically. The opera- tions of American institutions on the human un- derstanding, are a noble study for the labours of a life. The most intelligent portions of mankind, are animated by their impulses ; which already actuate, and, before long, must regulate the destinies of the world. The first settlement of this continent was from England, in a state of revolution, when all minds were exercised with new ideas of religious and political liberty. The associates of Pym and Hampden, and Raleigh, Penn and Locke, founded our institutions. A republican empire, really repre- sentative, always as ii were, in a state of temperate revolution, has been ever since exciting and evolving the great principles of free agency. Our simple and peaceable, but irresistible, religion and politics, are inoffensively reforming the brilliant abuses, which feudal and chivalric barbarism have rivetted on the nations of Europe. This rouses detraction against the whole elements, moral, physical, and intellectual, as well as political, of our existence. Naturalists, and statists, philosophers, historians, ambassadors, poets, priests, nobles, tourists, jour- nalists — I speak with precision to this catalogue — have in vain sentenced this country to degradation. It already ranks vviih communities highly refined before America was discovered. France and England were enjoying Augustan ages, when the <«, 66 place where we are met to discourse of literature and science, was a wilderness. But one hundred and forty years have elapsed, since the patriarch of Pennsylvania first landed on these shores, and sowed them with the germs of peace, toleration, and self- government. Since when, a main employment has been to reclaim the forests for habitation. It is not yet half a century since the United States were politically emancipated ; it is only since the late war that they have begun to be intellectually independent. Colonial habits and reverence still rebuke and counteract intellectual enterprise. Education, the learned professions, the arts, scientific and mechani- cal, legislation, jurisprudence, literature, society — the mind in a word — require time to be freed from Kuropean pupilage. It was not in a spirit of hostility to any other country, that I undertook to shew what has been already done in this ; but by that review to en- coura8:e further and keener exertions. To those who will inquire and reflect, the en- couragement of philosophy is as strong as the in- stinct of patriotism. But the empire of habit and of prejudice is in strong opposition to the supre- macy of thought and reason. There was a time when it was not considered disaffection to be ashamed of our country, nor disloyalty to despair of it, when we re-colonised ourselves. But within the last ten years, especially, the mind of America, has thought for itself, piercing the veil of European beau ideal. Still less, however, thm national disparap-ement 67 was national vanity the shrine of my sacrifice. Comparative views are indispensable. I might have compared America now with America forty years ago, which would have presented a striking and enlivening contrast. But I preferred the bolder view of America compared with Europe, disclaim- ing, however, invidious comparisons, which have been studiously avoided. The cause asserted is of too high respect to be defended by panegyric, or avenged by invective. The truth is an ample vin- dication. Let us strive to refute discredit by constant improvement. Let our intellectual motto be, that naught is done while aught remains to be done : and our study to prove to the world, that the best patronage of religion, science, literature, and the arts, of whatever the mind can achieve, is SELF-GOVERNMENT. .9 ir %