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France, with its Gascon, Breton, and I know not how many other remains of the languages spoken by the ancient races which were once scattered over its territory, the case is still worse.* Nor does either Germany or Italy present the uniformity of speech that distinguishes the millions of the United States, with the exception of the newlyarrived foreigners: an uniformity that extends even to pronunciation, and the absence of provincial accent and phraseology. A well-educated American who has seen much of his country may, indeed, distinguish the Southern from the Northern modes of pronouncing certain vowels; he may recognize by certain shades of sound, if I may so express myself, the Northern or Southern origin of his countrymen: but these differences are too slight to be readily perceived by a foreigner.

Generally speaking, the pronunciation of well-educated Americans is precisely that given in the best orthoëpical authorities of England; and our best speakers adopt the well-established changes in pronunciation that from time to time gain ground there. A few words, however, are universally pronounced in a manner different from what prevails in England. Either and neither, for example, are pronounced eether and neether, not ither and nither, nor will our lawyers probably ever learn to say lien for leen. There is a very perceptible difference of accent between the English and Americans, particularly those of the Eastern or New England States. There is also a difference of tone; in some of the States there is more of a nasal inflexion of the voice than one hears in England.

English literature has an immense circulation in America; a circumstance which may be an advantage in one sense, and a disadvantage in another. We are not wanting, however, in authors of unquestionable merit in every branch of literature, art, and science. Still, if a literature of our own creation be indispensable to the possession of a national character, we must abandon all claim to it.

It may be added, that we have no fashions of our own. We follow the modes of Paris. But in this respect, Germans, Russians, Italians, and English, without any abatement of their claims to national character, do the same.

Amalgamation takes place, also, by intermarriages, to an extent elsewhere quite unexampled; for though the Anglo-Saxon race has an almost undisputed possession of the soil in New England, people are everywhere else to be met with in whose veins flows the mingled blood of English, Dutch, German, Irish, and French.

* I have been informed that there are twelve distinct languages and patois spoken in France, and that interpreters are needed in courts of justice within a hundred miles of Paris!

Nor has the assimilation of races and languages been greater than that of manners, customs, religion, and political principles. The manners of the people, in some places less, in others more refined, are essentially characterized by simplicity, sincerity, frankness, and kindness. The religion of the overwhelming majority, and which may therefore be called national, is, in all essential points, what was taught by the great Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. With respect to politics, with whatever warmth we may discuss the measures of the government, but one feeling prevails with regard to our political institutions themselves. We are no propagandists: we hold it to be our duty to avoid meddling with the governments of other countries; and though we prefer our own political forms, would by no means insist on others doing so too. That government we believe to be the best for any people, under which they live most happily, and are best protected in their right of person, property, and conscience; and we would have every nation to judge for itself what form of ment is best suited to secure for it these great ends.

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Assuredly there is no country that possesses a press more free, or where, notwithstanding, public opinion is more powerful; but on these points we shall have more to say in another part of this work.

The American people, taken as a whole, are mainly characterized by perseverance, earnestness, kindness, hospitality, and self-reliance, that is, by a disposition to depend upon their own exertions to the utmost, rather than look to the government for assistance. Hence, there is no country where the government does less, or the people more. In a word, our national character is that of the Anglo-Saxon race, which still predominates among us in consequence of its original preponderancy in the colonization of the country, and of the energy which forms its characteristic distinction.

Has the reader ever heard Haydn's celebrated oratorio of the Creation performed by a full orchestra? If so, he can not have forgotten how chaos is represented at the commencement by all the instruments sounded together without the least attempt at concord. By-and-by, however, something like order begins, and at length the clear notes of the clarionet are heard over all the others, controlling them into harmony. Something like this has been in America the influence of the Anglo-Saxon language, laws, institutions, and CHAR

ACTER.

But if, when it is alleged that we have no national character, it be meant that we have not originated any for ourselves, it may be asked, What nation has? All owe much to those from whom they have sprung; this, too, has been our case, although what we have inherited from our remote ancestors has unquestionably been much mod

ified by the operation of political institutions which we have been led to adopt by new circumstances, and which, probably, were never contemplated by the founders of our country.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ROYAL CHARTERS.

FEW points in the colonial history of the United States are more interesting to the curious inquirer, than the royal charters, under which the first settlement of the original thirteen States took place.

These charters were granted by James I., Charles I., Charles II., James II., William and Mary, and George I. They were very diverse, both in form and substance. Some were granted to companies, some to single persons, others to the colonists themselves. Most of them preceded the foundation of the colonies to which they referred: but in the cases of Rhode Island and Connecticut, the territories were settled first; while Plymouth colony had no crown charter at all, nor had it even a grant from the Plymouth Company in England, until the year after its foundation.

The ordinary reader can be interested only in the charters granted by the crown of England; those from proprietary companies and individuals, to whom whole provinces had first been granted by the crown, can interest those readers only who would study the innumerable lawsuits to which they gave occasion. Such in those days was the utter disregard for the correct laying down of boundaries, that the same district of country was often covered with two or more grants, made by the same proprietors, to different individuals; thus furnishing matter for litigations, which lasted in some colonies more than a century; and sometimes giving rise to lawsuits even at the present day.

The royal charters afford us an amusing idea of the notions with respect to North American geography, entertained in those days by the sovereigns of England, or by those who acted for them. The charter of Virginia included not only those vast regions now comprised in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan: but the northern and southern bounding lines, if extended according to the terms of the charter, would have terminated, the one in the Pacific Ocean, and the other in Hudson's Bay; yet, by the same charter, they were both to terminate at the "South Sea," as the Pacific Ocean was then called.

The North Carolina and Georgia charters conveyed to the colonists provinces that were to extend westward to the "South Sea."

The Massachusetts and Connecticut charters also made these colonies reach to the South Sea; for it appears never to have entered the royal head that they must thus have interfered with the claims of Virginia. New York, which they must also have traversed, seems not to have been thought of, though claimed and occupied at the time by the Dutch. Indeed, considering the descriptions contained in their charters, it is marvelous that the colonies should ever have ascertained their boundaries. Looking at the charter of Massachusetts, for example, and comparing it with that State as laid down on our maps, we are amazed to think by what possible ingenuity it should have obtained its existing boundaries, especially that on the north-east. Still more confounding does it seem that Massachusetts should have successfully claimed the territory of Maine, and yet have had to relinquish that of New Hampshire.

The charter granted to William Penn for Pennsylvania was the clearest of all, yet it was long matter of dispute whether or not it included Delaware. On the other hand Delaware was claimed by Maryland, and with justice, if the charter of the latter province were to be construed literally. Still, Maryland did not obtain Delaware.

Such charters, it will be readily supposed, must have led to serious and protracted disputes between the colonies themselves. Many of these disputes were still undetermined at the commencement of the war of the Revolution; several remained unadjusted long after the achievement of the national independence; and it was only a few years ago that the last of the boundary questions was brought to a final issue, before the Supreme Court of the United States.

After the Revolution, immense difficulties attended the settlement of the various claims preferred by the Atlantic States to those parts of the West which they believed to have been conveyed to them by their old charters, and into which the tide of emigration was then beginning to flow. Had Virginia successfully asserted her claims, she would have had an empire in the Valley of the Mississippi sufficient, at some future day, to counterbalance almost all the other States put together. North Carolina and Georgia also laid claim to territories of vast extent. The claims of Connecticut and Massachusetts directly conflicted with those of Virginia. Hence it required a great deal of wisdom and patience to settle all these claims, without endangering the peace and safety of the confederacy. All, at length, were adjusted, except that of Georgia, and it, too, was arranged at a later date. Virginia magnanimously relinquished all her claims in the West; a spontaneous act, which immediately led to the estab

lishment of the State of Kentucky, followed in due time by the foundation of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, in what was called the North-western Territory. The relinquishment by North Carolina of her claims west of the Allegheny Mountains, led to the creation of the State of Tennessee. But Connecticut refused to abandon her claim to the north-eastern part of Ohio, often called to this day New Connecticut, without receiving from the General Government a handsome equivalent in money, which has been safely invested, and forms the basis of a large capital, set apart for the support of the common schools of the State.* Georgia also ceded her claims in the West to the General Government, on the condition that it should obtain for her from the Indians a title to their territory lying to the east of the Chattahoochee River, now the western boundary of that State. Out of the cession thus made by Georgia, have been formed the States of Alabama, and Mississippi.

The United States have had to struggle with still more serious difficulties, originating in the old royal charters. Little regard was paid to the prior claims of the Indians, in the extensive grants made by those charters, directly or indirectly, to the colonists. The pope had set the example of giving away the Aborigines with the lands they occupied, or, rather, of giving away the land from under them; and although, in all the colonies founded by our English ancestors in America, there was a sort of feeling, that the Indians had some claims on the ground of prior occupation, yet these, it was thought, ought to give place to the rights conferred by the royal charters. The col onists were subject to the same blinding influence of selfishness that affects other men, and to this we are to ascribe the importunity with which they urged the removal of the Indians from the lands conveyed by the royal charters, and which they had long been wont to consider and to call their own. In no case, indeed, did the newcomers seize upon the lands of the aboriginal occupants, without some kind of purchase; yet unjustifiable means were often employed to induce the latter to cede their claims to the former, such as excessive importunity, the bribery of the chiefs, and sometimes even threats. Thus, although with the exception of lands obtained by right of conquest in war, I do not believe that any whatever was obtained without something being given in exchange for it, yet I fear that the golden rule was sadly neglected in many of those transactions. In Pennsylvania and New England, unquestionably, greater fairness was shown than in most, if not all the other colonies; yet even there, full justice, according to that rule, was not always practised. Indeed, in many cases, it was difficult to say what exact justice implied. * Amounting to more than two millions of dollars.

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