New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-11-27
THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT.

The social, and especially the political institu-
tons Of the United States, have, for the whole
of the current century, been the subject in
Europe, not merely Of curious speculation, but
of the deepest interest. We have been regarded
az engaged in trying a great experiment, lnyolv-
ing not merely the future fate and welfare of
this Western continent, but the hopes and pros
poets of the whole human race Is it possible
for o Government to be permanently maintained
without privileged classes, without o standing
army, and without either hereditary or self
appointed rulers? Is the democratic principle OF
equal rights, general suffrage, and government by
a majority, capable of being carried into practi
cal operation, and that, too, over large extent
of country!
The more popuous and wealthy the United
States have become and the higher the position
to which they have risen in the scale of national
Importance, with the greater confidence has it
been maintained, on the ono hand, that our in
situations rest on o solid aud permanent basis,
and on the other, that they are destitute of
inherent strength and cohesion, and that the
time of explosion and disruption is rapidly ap
preaching.
1t cannot be doubted that the news of the
present extraordinary position of affairs in the
Southern States, consequent upon the result OF
the late Presidential election, will produce among
| the European advocates of democratic govern.
ment and popular rights very serious alarms as
| to what is to become Of US; while, among the
| advocates of monarchy and aristocracy, the
threatened secession of the Cotton, if not of the
| entire body of the Slaveholding States, will be
regarded as the first step toward the entire
breakdown of our whole system Of republican
government.
1t ought, however, TO be borne in mind that
the threatened disruption Of the Union does not
originate at all from the democratic element of
our politics or social condition. 1t is the element
of negro slavery, confined exclusively to por-
tion only, and that the smaller portion, of the
States, that has given occasion to all the exist
ing trouble. This element of negro slavery not
only conflicts with the democratic idea by strip
ping the negro population of all rights whatso-
ever; at the same time it parslyzes and degrades
the great mass of the white population; so that,
whatever may be- the letter of constitutions and
laws, il creates narrow aristOcracy, which, in
the local affairs of the Saveholdng States, has
every thing its own way. Not content to rule at
home, this slavehoding aristocracy now under
takes to dictate to the other States also not
merely their laws and their Presidential cand-
dates, but even their opinions on questions of
religion and morals so far, at least as
the question Of slayeholding is concerned
1t is not the development of democratic IDEAS
or institutions that has brought on the present
difficulties; it is the collision which has taken
place between democracy on the one hand, and
this foreign element and doubly aristocratical in.
stitution of negro slavery ON the other Sap.
pose it should turn out that, under these circnm
stances, the Sluyeholding States should determine
to separate from the Union. That might prove
the incompatibility of Slavery with the we'll
working of q Government based on democratic
principles but it would be very far from proving.
or even indicating, the failure of our American
experiment. Whatever happened to the slave
holding States after this separation, in the broad
extent of the Free Labor States the experiment