New-York daily tribune., 1858-04-20
TIE PHnOSOPHY OF AMERICAN ROW
DYISM.
couesponeencs q Tie Y. 7. Trituns.


the msnners become imsged every Winter oy our
Senators and Representatives 10 Congress "ho'o
IL able 10 DO this, will confer great favor upon
European republicans, in whose eyes we seem as
Jet scarcely entered upon a cAreer OF c!vl!za.on
was introduced the other day to aidy (~ao had nal
uraly hem puch impressed by the stories OF Vio-
euce enscted in our legislative halls. as belonging
| TO New. York. She gave me courteous welcome
ard by wsy Of being complimentary remarked, tla'
",he believed that New-York formed one oi Inc
4" mort eriii.ed portions of the United States.
astntd of course sans prast, for how is It possi'
bic to get into the heads of people here that tae
puerlle and brutal ruffanisn which so frequently
characterizts our legislative assemblies, d"e'
not fairly represent most degraded and
intellectual average ON the part oi the
people For my part, / have long SINCE
given over every effort in this direction, being
content to accept the evidence Of facts that we are
in respect to our actual manners, very much oehnd
the European standard, and to conhne my nope
for better results to the farof and uncompronsed
future 1t is the habit of Americans, when pressed
on these points, 10 attribute the phenomena III
question to the influence Of Slavery. But the nlel'
| lgent foreigner always replies: " can see now
Slavery must infalbly corrupt the slave-master
| heart, by fomentng al its barblrous remains o.
pride and the ust Of dominiOn but tie evils we are
discus, ing are not confined TO Slave territory 40
doubt Slavery produces positively or negatVey WIZ
in your Legislative halls immense deal OF ndecency
| TO call il by the mildest word. But these Congres
siOnsl incidents by means constitute the main
! body of the Offense in question, though they are
what chiefly arrest the eye of Europeans. 1nere
in the United States phase of life which appa-
rently grows out Of your political institutions for It
| is coextensive with them, and which you denoml-
nate by word peculiar to yourselves-nameiy'
| R0wdy ism This is the feature Of your social lie
which gives to well-dispOsed Europeans the sad
| dest augury Of your future career Judging from
| our point of view, we cannot but anticipate the
unlimited increase of this spirit, nor help dreading
consequently the speedy downfall Of the most prom
| ising empire the sun ever yet shone upon.
ain heartily sick, therefore, of endeayoring to
soothe these growing apprehensions by the old Pas-
ter OF Slavery. prefer to admit, from the outset,
that the evil is vastly deeper that inheres in fact
| in our democratic policy, and that what It exacts
accordingly in all who would rightly estimate both
it and the future which is intimately dependent
Gpon it, is a far prOfOunder view of that policy
than any European, cOnversant only with European
conceptions OF human destiny, Is ever likely to take
The great Provdential difference between Amerl-
can and European life and manners lies In this,
that in America the devil is let loose. to roam
henceforth where he will; while in Europe he has
always been kept cunnngly bound, or allowed to
dspOrt himself only within well-deined c0nyen-
tonal limits, the limits Of established Church and
State. l do not hesitate to call this difference
Providential, because one familiar with the AS
pect of Providence, as il is lumnously reflected in
history, can fail to see that, though it may never
succeed in making the devil saint, it is yet event
ually certain to make him gentleman; to which
end it il absolutely necessary that he be free. What
necessarily strikes me in these European lattudes
is the low and skulking attitude which the Devil
hebituay assumes, or, IN other words, the aoJect
and creeping form under which the sef-0ve natu-
raj TO the human heart is content habitually to ex-
hibit itself Sef-lOve is of course, every whit as
active here as with us and greatly more malignant,
because being in chains to the exigencies of Church
and State, it never dreams of any possible publ
issues, such flibustering, &c, which 1t vastly
prefers and therefore all the more resOlutey
browses on the tender herbage of the private heart,
by turning men into drunkards, liars, swlndlers,
adulterers and murderers. European society dl-
vides itself into two casses-a governing and gov
erned one--and resolutely swears by the Pope and
Policeman that the life of man shall never outgr0w
that limitation. The consequence is, that the da-
bOlc or progressive force IL man-Whlch Is sell
love-is kept hopelessly imprisoned, and rendered
sure therefore, to break chains whenever 1t can,
and ruth out into every fercest form OF orgle and
debauch. Thus the great evil of European society
is not that the upper classes are immersed IN IRA
ditiOnal system of petty lying and keeping up OF false
pretenses, and of hypocritcal regard for their ne,
rors and the 10 classes immersed Ill traditional
system of petty punderng and aduteration of goods,
and hypocrtical seryility toward their masters.
These things are bad enough in all conscience but
the deplorsbe thing that they breed vastly greater
evils, by thus shutting up, under the plea OF pubic
order mans natural self-lOye to the fixed and mig
card dimensions of custom. This is the reason why
the European devil has turned out such beasty
fellow. aud such standing opprobrlum to the Wis
dom which governs the world. For, first OF all.
the devil must live; and, if he be allowed no sphere
of fexpansiOn in the public life OF man, II everything
in that life be reduced to the nexible mold OF rou-
tine; it, for example, the duchess OF TINS age can do
no more than repeat the stereotyped sefshnesses of
the duchess of past age, or the grocer OF to-day
do no more than repeat the petty aduterations and
pilferipg of the grocer of yesterday, and so FORTH
ad infntum why then, of course, our natural self
love. which is the devil must seek its needful ex
pansion in the private realm, that is by fomentng
vice and crime or opening the dram-shOp and
brothel. and delugipg the community with every in
fernal fruit Of drunkenness, gambling lasciylous-
ness, fraud and murder.
Now castyour glance across the water 10 America.
You doubtless observe q technical Church and
State there, a quasi altar and quasi throne.
But then il s not to be lost sight Of for moment
that cur Church and State are in the srictest
of the words mere practical reductio Gd absurdum
of the European institutions. They are sort of
huge Rabelaisan carcature OF those Institutions
For they both alike disavOw that principle of fxity
or authoritative establishment which constitutes the
sole conservative element Of the European institu
ti,ns They both alike confess themselves popu
larly constituted, and hence, though they preserve
nominal resemblance TO the European institutions,