435
Europe.[1] But they believe themselves to be empoverished because their wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbours; and they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly come into collision with a power greater than their own:[2] Thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their passions, than in their interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the maintenance of the union. If kings and peoples had only had their true interests in view, ever since the beginning of the world, the name of war would scarcely be known among mankind.
Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the most serious dangers that threaten them, since it tends to create in some of the confederate states that over-excitement which accompanies a rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in others, those feelings of envy, mistrust, and regret, which usually attend upon the loss of it. The Americans contemplate this extraordinary and hasty progress with exultation; but they would be wiser to consider it with sorrow and alarm. The Americans of the United States must inevitably become one of the greatest nations in the world; their offset will cover almost the whole of North America; the continent which they inhabit is their dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them to take possession of it so soon? Riches, power, and renown, cannot fail to be theirs at some future time; but they rush upon their fortune as if but a moment remained for them to make it their own.
I think I have demonstrated, that the existence of the present confederation depends entirely on the continued assent of all the confederates; and, starting from this principle, I have inquired into the causes which may induce any of the states to separate from the others. The Union may, however, perish in two different ways: one of the confederate states may choose to retire from the compact,
- ↑ The population of a country assuredly constitutes the first element of its wealth. In the ten years (1820-'30) during which Virginia lost two of its representatives in congress, its population increased in the proportion of 13.7 per cent.; that of Carolina in the proportion of 15 per cent.; and that of Georgia 51.5 per cent. (See the American Almanac, 1832, p. 162.) But the population of Russia, which increases more rapidly than that of any other European country, only augments in ten years at the rate of 9.5 per cent.; of France at the rate of 7 per cent.; and of Europe in general at the rate of 4.7 per cent. (See Maltebrun, vol. vi., p. 95.)
- ↑ It must be admitted, however, that the depreciation which has taken place in the value of tobacco, during the last fifty years, has notably diminished the opulence of the southern planters; but this circumstance is as independent of the will of their northern brethren, as it is of their own.
