The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-02-09
For the National Era.
GERMANY AND ENCHANTING. !.

We Germans are patient people; and this
patience has been most signally exhibited
through the almost unbrOken silence with
which we have stood the sclfglorifcations
which have characterized nearly every histori-
cal article on England, which has appeared
with reference to the primitive institutions of
the United States
England" Mother Country" "Anglo-
Saxonism," and English Liberty" have been
the themes and the phrases upon which reams
of foolscap have been written over, until it
looks like desperate undertaking to remind
American readers that to full one-third of the
Whlte population of this country, there is a
4" Germany" and "Fatherland" Still more
daring must it be to assert, as | now do that
in the words of one of my old professors, Anglo
Saxonism and English liberty very often are
.. "Mere phrases Verba STUNT"
la your paper of the 10Th January, gentle
man from London has these words occurring
in his article:
"True it is that Germany had it's Diets
Spain and Portugal their Cortes, France its
States General but the existence of all of them
was ephemeral. The Parliament of England
has never ceased to exist, except during the
transient intcrre gnum of Cromwell, and it may
fairly claim the credit of having sustained the
political spirit of Europe and contributed to
States"
10 your paper of the III h instant, he again
says:
sin the United States great experiment is
being tried, IN the science of Government, and
| Europe anxiously looks at every movement on
| its various platforms. But how can the true
| Democrat, however gifted and sincere, perfect
| his own institutions unless he has carefully
| traced the errors of monarchies and aristocra-
oies And where will he find more instruction
than IN The history of the race from tohich has
forefathers sPrung!"
ii the latter clause means, as it undoubtedly
docs, that English history in particular, is to
be the text book of our studies, | Join ISSUE
unless indeed it be with q view to avoiding
nearly every shade of their Government; for
then | agree Might not some one in reply to
Anglicanism, assert that in every case except
ing few only in which We have followed Eng
land, we have gone wrong, while the most sue
cessful steps of reform we have ever made in
this country were those in which we abolish
ed something English! Nay, might he not
go further and assert that every American
statesman in the United States, to whom Eng
fish institutions have been a model, has gone,
or will go, to his grave doomed man? And,
again, might be not point to the history of the
United States, and affirm that the statesmen
whose names live and will live brightest in
the memory of our people, are those which
never lost their Americanism in reading Black
stone, and for whom the continent of Europe
| had opened its fountains of wisdom? Aud if
| called upon to give instances for the foregoing
afhrrnations, he might nsme the English
ganlzation OF our regular army. Ditto, navy in
cluong ocean steamships and to English COM
mon law, or chaneery procedure, in courts.
Need he remind you, that the few germs Of the
English Colonial System, which have crept into
our Territorial System, arc especially the send
ing amongst them of politicians for Governors
and Judges So, we all call the worst part of
their organization
Where are the English notions of protective
tariffs navigation laws, national banks, of
game laws &c.? Where are, in public estima
ton. Hamilton or Webster Has any man
left a deeper impress upon our institutions than
jefferson, and at what fountains did he get his
knowiedgea Our political axis is our Federal
system, and what can We learn about 1T In
England! Is it not the great vice OF our
Supreme Court, that, in all its decisions, 1t has
looked to English precedents and to English
courts. Those decisions were made, as apph-
cable to an English system of Government;
but is it uncourteous to our judges to suppose
that having learned their law at English COM
mon law schools, they have not been careful,
nor perhaps willing, enough to scan very closely
whether they really apply to Government
such as ours? Is such q scrutiny not too great
q task under the circumstances What, ask,
has led to the fearful enlargement Of the judi