University of Virginia Library

WHAT SHALL WE BE?

It has been said, even by some of our friends, that we, as a
nation, have no manners of our own; and again, that the manners
of the roughest among our western settlers are the only natural and
simply expressive ones as yet developed among us. Those who
would disparage us and our republican theory and practice, insist
that these rough, negligent, uncivil manners are the proper growth
of our institutions, and must more and more characterize us as a
people, except so far as we imitate the over-polished nations of the
old world. It is argued that a state of things so fluctuating in the
matter of individual wealth—where the continual subdivision of property
must forever prevent the social ascendancy of any class which
might serve as a reservoir of elegance, and a standard for the general
manners—must tend towards a barbarous arrogance, and the lack
of those accomplishments and amenities which, in aristocratic countries,
being cultivated by the privileged classes who desire to dignify
their leisure, serve as an example to those immediately below those
classes, and so on, through the descending scale, as an incentive to
all.

If we allow that such prognostics are well founded, it must be
after conceding that there is no standard of manners less fluctuating
than Fashion—that there are no rules of behavior of universal
application—that, in short, imitation is our only resort. This is too
weak and narrow, nay, too vulgar an idea to be entertained for a
moment. What! can we believe that the progress of society—the
approach of the human race in knowledge and goodness to the
Image in which it was made—is left at the mercy of a few persons—
not the wisest or best—who call themselves the World! Has this
class ever yet been selected by Providence as the immediate instrument
of any of its great designs for the good of the whole? Has
it not always rather been a merely tolerated excrescence on the body
politic, destined to be gradually absorbed as the great whole
advances to perfect health? We cannot grant that this soi-disant
world is empowered to give laws on any subject more important
than the tie of a cravat, the depth of a curtsey, or the dividing line
between two shades of the same color, one of which shall be
“exquisite,” while the other is “horrid.” We can allow its judgment
in a dispute among milliners, which can make her patient look most
unlike nature, or between two mantua-makers, who shall produce
the best resemblance to the inhuman figures in a French print of
the fashions. If a question arise as to what extent of arrogance in
a lady may be lawful, and how far she may go without being considered
an encroacher upon others' rights of haughtiness, we are
willing the “world” should decide, being the party interested; or
if we would know how to crush the young aspiring of some heart
heaven-directed toward the living Truth, we shall certainly ask its
advice. But in ascertaining the principles on which, if at all, the
great human family may be indeed a house of brothers, we must
look further and higher for authority. All the maxims of this same

`world' are short sighted and ignoble, content with reference to the
single day that is passing, and that only as far as itself is concerned.
For the eternal Future and the undistinguished crowd it cares
nothing; its timidity and indolence shun the thought of the one,
its selfish feebleness cannot afford any recognition of the other.

It is strange that we Americans should bow as we do to any such
self-appointed tribunal. The foundations of this great country of
ours—of which we are, under certain circumstances, apt to boast a
little more than is becoming—were laid in professions of equality
and brotherhood, which it required a good deal of philosophy even
to adopt, still more to put in honest practice. But we did adopt
them, and not by the acclamations of a few demagogues, as so many
specious measures are adopted, but by the concurrent impulse of the
whole national mind, under the guidance of the wise and good men
sent by Heaven to our aid in that fateful moment. We adopted, as
a people, sentiments which derive their origin and their sanction
from Christianity, and this when we were suffering under the legitimate
effects of opposite ones. We had learned, by sad contrast,
what precious things were justice and humanity, and fellow-feeling,
and we chose them for our watchwords—a choice whose sincerity
many a vaunt since that day of trial and enthusiasm has attested.

Our nation, as a nation is less satisfied than formerly with the
wisdom of the original choice. Far from growing less democratic,
we become every year more so. No step backwards is considered
possible, even by the most anxious conservative. Every modification
of the law tends to a stricter and more literal equality of rights and
privileges. It requires all the power of the South, exerted with the
energy of a life-struggle, to keep even the blacks in a degraded caste,
so all pervasive is the influence of our political creed upon our social
practice. For the first time since the creation, is exhibited the
spectacle of an equality almost Christian. The servant is as his

master, and in truth is sometimes not a little disposed to change
places with him; indeed if it were not for daily importations from
monarchial countries, we of the North should have no servants at
all. The continual subdivision of property by law, where primogeniture
has no privileges, obliges the sons or grandsons of the rich to
exert themselves for the acquisition of the means of life, and so puts
them at least on a level with the descendants of the poor—generally
rather below them in the capacity to acquire, since habits of frugality
and self-denial are much more likely to result in competence, than
the more indulgent ones which wealth begets.

This state of things has had a marked effect on our character and
manners as individuals. We are a good-natured and brotherly
people; we like to be closely bound together by ties of family, and
neighborhood, business, church, and politics. A man must be very
contemptible or odious, if, after he has once been respected or liked
among us, any misfortune happening to him is not felt with sympathy
by the public; and remedied as far as may be. I do not
mean that misfortunes happening to individuals are felt as they
ought to be in a community of Christians, who are bound by their
allegiance to their Master, to consider the suffering of one member
as the suffering of the whole body; but I have often thought that
there was more public sympathy and generous aid to the unfortunate
here than I had ever heard of or been able to discover any
where else. At the West, if a man's house burn down, his neighbors
immediately join and build him another; and not content with
this, scour the country for forty miles round, if necessary, to stock it
with comforts. If a poor woman die and leave helpless little ones,
somebody is sure to adopt them and bring them up, not on the cold
pittance of a grudging charity, but as sons and daughters. And in
spite of the keenness of business-competition, so inimical to some of

the virtues, where is found so warm a mercantile sympathy as in our
great commercial cities?

Why then should there be any Americans who desire to return to
the hollow and unchristian tone of society which is the inevitable
result of unjust and unrighteous social distinctions? As a nation,
we have put our hand to the plough and cannot look back if we
would; we have chosen a path which our sons and daughters may
pursue with firmness and dignity, leading the great procession in
whose ranks all mankind are now so anxious to enrol themselves.
Wherever we go, we are looked upon as the representatives of the
principle of self-government. Our actions and even our manners,
are examined as tests both of the soundness of our political maxims,
and the sincerity and intelligence with which we adopt them. We
cannot persuade any body to consider our national ideas as a
separate thing from our national manners. We have voluntarily
placed all spurious dignity out of our reach by the most solemn acts
of renunciation; making it forever disgraceful in an American
citizen to claim for himself any honor which he has not earned.
Some foreigner has said that the only aristocracy of the United
States was to be found in the families of our revolutionary heroes,
civil and military; but the nation ignores even these claims, if the
descendant show in his own character no mark of the worthiness of
his ancestry. We have absolutely no sinecures, even of fame; every
man must earn whatever consideration he enjoys. The richest men
the country has ever possessed, have stood exactly where they
deserved to stand, in public estimation, their wealth passing for
nothing, or worse than nothing, in the account. Our Presidents,
after they have fulfilled their term of office as public servants, retire
into the ranks of common men, without the least vestige of their
kingly power clinging to them, even in the shape of the smallest

provision for their wants, which might place them above the necessity
of exertion. If they or their families should claim any peculiar
position in society on account of past honors, the whole country
would deride their folly and inconsistency. Yet there are not wanting
those among us who, with no claim beyond a little wealth—and
that too, depending on a mercantile basis, proverbially fleeting,—
attempt to imitate on a small scale the aristocratic insolence which
they observe in the English; forsake the true and wholesome notions
of kindness and consideration for others in which their parents were
educated, and practice the coldness, the disregard, the egotism, which
have been the natural growth of society in which caste has been
recognized for thousands of years.

The true glory of the American character at home or abroad, is
simplicity, truth, kindness, and a strict regard to the rights and feelings
of others. Whenever the conventional standards of other
nations conflict with these, they should be repudiated by us, however
fascinating they may seem to our pride. An Englishman may
with less blame be self-inclosed, haughty and overbearing. He has
not only been taught pride, but he has been taught to be proud of
his pride; while if an American be mis-proud, he has but his own
perverse littleness of soul to blame. Not only do individual Englishmen
and Englishwomen indulge themselves in a lofty and self-forgetful
tone, but the oracles of the nation, the very pulpits, encourage
the unholy illusion. “Condescension” is preached as a virtue to
the rich, “submission” and “deference” to the poor. A late number
of the Quarterly Review, in a series of remarks on the subject of
governesses, which are intended to be highly humane and generous
in their tone, after describing a governess as “a being who is our
equal in birth, manners and education, but our inferior in worldly
wealth,” remarks—“The line which severs a governess from her

employers is not one which will take care of itself, as in the case of
a servant. If she sits at table she does not shock you—if she opens
her mouth she does not distress you—her appearance and manner
are likely to be as good as your own—her education rather better
there is nothing upon the face of the thing to stamp her as having
been called to a different state of life from that in which it has
pleased God to place you, and therefore the distinction has to be
kept up by a factitious barrier.” “She is a burden and restraint
in society, as all must be who are placed ostensibly at the same
table, and yet are forbidden to help themselves or to be helped to
the same viands.”(!) “She must to all intents and purposes live
alone, or she transgresses that invisible but rigid line which alone
establishes the distance between herself and her employers.” This
state of things is so entirely according to the reviewer's view of right,
that he adds a protest against being suspected of “a hope, even a
wish” to see it remedied. “We must ever keep them in a sort of
isolation, for it is the only means for maintaining that distance which
the reserve of English manners, and the decorum of English families
exact.” If these be the teachers what are we to expect of the
taught! Can Americans adopt such sentiments and copy such
manners without belying their parentage and renouncing the principles
which made them what they are? Shall Christian men and
women among us be dazzled by English splendor into forgetfulness
of the odious and unfeeling worldliness implied in such views of life?
The account of wretchedness, insanity and death, which are the portion
of a dreadful percentage of English governesses from this one cause
of wounded feeling, should be read in connection with the reviewer's
cool speculations on the subject, in order to obtain a just idea of the
dreadful self-forgetfulness into which people may run who prefer the
pampering of their pride to the practice of justice and humanity.
And after reading this, every American can draw his own conclusions
as to the desirableness of transplanting to our soil this root of
bitterness, sin and ruin.

A marked difference between the manners of Englishmen and
Americans, is shown in their respective behavior under provocation
or injury. An American is at least as quick to feel an intentional
insult as another man;—at least as prompt in resenting it as a Christian
man may lawfully be. But if a servant misbehave, or if some
dispute arise, it will not be natural to him to resort to his fist
or his boot; and if he should, in a momentary gust of passion,
so far forget himself, he will not boast of the feat afterwards, complacently
constituting himself judge, jury, and executioner in his own
case, without for a moment suspecting that the question of right and
wrong may have had two sides. But for an Englishman to act thus
is nothing remarkable, though he will take care that the abused person
is in a position to be silenced or bought off with a bribe, which
no American could be. The rights of others operate as a complete
restraint upon such outbursts of passion with us.

I would not be understood to mean that in England the law is
not made to protect the inferior in such cases, or that Englishmen
are worse natured than other men. I am speaking of manners, as
modified by certain social peculiarities. The injured party may
claim redress at the law, but the law, interpreted under the powerful
influence of social prejudice, is not a very safe resort for the poor
man, who is ruined if he fail to establish his charge; and, practically,
the superior in fortune does indulge his temper more freely, from
knowing that any ordinary injury can be compensated in money,
which could never be the case in the United States.

Female imitation of English aristocratic manners among us, is
generally confined to matters of dress, show, equipage and fashions

of seeing company. We do not imitate our neighbors where they
are most worthy of imitation—in their solid and elegant cultivation;
in their national habit of ample exercise in the open air, or the excellently
simple and healthy treatment of children. Our ambition is
limited to matters connected with “style,” and whatever tends to
the establishment of distinctions in society. We go to the French
for dress, and to the English for manners—a wise choice if it were
necessary to ape any body; how much wiser would be a firm and
modest originality; a simplicity founded upon principle; moderation
in expense, for the express purpose of being liberal where
liberality is honorable; plainness of dress, resulting at once from
good taste and from religious self-denial, for the sake of others to
whom our flaunting array may be a mortification or a snare; plainness
of living, lest our splendor should separate between us and the
good to whom God has not seen fit to give riches; a direct truthfulness
of speech, as far from the language of unmeaning compliment
as from the rudeness which bespeaks want of sympathy. In short,
should we not, as a nation, be happier and more respectable, if we
carried out, heartily but quietly, in our habits and manners, the
grand and simple ideas to which our country owes her position
among the nations of the earth?

Can any one believe that we should sink in the world's estimation
by living consistently? Are our ambassadors treated with less consideration
than those of other powers, when they appear in republican
simplicity in the midst of stars and orders? They have the
reality of respect, however unwillingly rendered. Franklin appeared
at the most splendid court in Europe in his homely woollen hose;
was he the man of least consideration there? The notion of
republican equality was new then, and this outward plainness was
understood to be its proper interpretation; but the power of mind

was never more fully recognized. Europe is attempting to follow us
to our own ground—why should we wish to go back to hers? She
has long ago reached what we seem to be striving after—the height
of luxurious and ungodly living—and proved its unsatisfactory emptiness.
When we compete with her here, we place ourselves at disadvantage;
for we cannot equal her, in centuries of effort. Artificial
manners were in her the natural growth of a thousand circumstances;
in us they are contrary to the natural course of things, and
a mere aping of what dazzles us. Would we might rather fall in
love with truth and heartiness!

The impossibility of equalling an old and highly refined nation in
the realities of splendor, is a reason which should operate on our
pride, at least. We may purchase a fac simile of the furniture and
equipage of an English Duke; we may buy his cook and give his
dinners; or we may provide scenery, dresses and decorations for his
duchess's soirée or reception—but what have we done towards reflecting
the style of his household? Where is the high breeding,
the self-poise, the at-home air, among these things? If we would
make a dinner party the expense of which should vie with the City
feast at a coronation, where shall we find the company? Among
worthy merchants and lawyers, or members of congress, or judges?
Have not some of our greatest men—I may say all our greatest men
—been of the simplest tastes and habits? Where can we find a
man whose conversation would be of the least value, who would not
prefer visiting where style was a secondary matter? And surely a
splendid feast without elegant conversation is a mortifying sight.
Even in England, where splendor is inbred, every body groans over
a grand dinner; in America the burthen is intolerable, both to
entertainers and sufferers.

Do not let us adopt any artificial and un-American customs with

the desire to imitate, or the hope to rival, our English neighbors.
Our imitation will be crude and vapid; our rivalry ridiculous. They
could much more profitably imitate us in the simplicity which we
despise, and not a few of their best spirits desire to see some
approach to such a state of things, in the hope of averting the ills
which threaten their prosperity and grandeur. They feel that their
safety lies in lessening the gulf which lies between the privileged
classes and “the people.” Now we are “the people,” and we cannot
be any body else. To attempt it were as vain as for a soldier to
step out of the ranks in order to appear to better advantage. With
us, the good of one is the good of all. We have a grand position
as independent Americans; we sink at once into an inferior one,
when we imitate any body. The whole range of cultivation lies
before us; we can inform and refine our minds to any extent, and
spend our fortunes according to the tastes thus imbibed. We may
live liberally and even elegantly, without renouncing the dignified
simplicity which draws its maxims and habits from the proprieties
of things, and not from the conventionalisms of people in the Old
World; we may become the patrons of Art, because we love and
understand it, not because somebody else with money patronizes Art,
and we do not like to be behindhand; we may exercise hospitality
in the true spirit—that which excludes the idea of emulation, and
thinks only of social pleasure and kindness. And we can do all this
without even inquiring what will English or French Mrs. Grundy
say, or hampering ourselves with a set of rules and notions, which,
whatever may have been their propriety where they grew up, are to
us the very killers of healthy enjoyment, enemies of the poetry of
life. The tameness which is the result of imitation is dreadful.
Whoever among us speaks his honest sentiments always acknowledges
that our tone of society is dull and uninteresting; and this is
partly owing to the incessant pursuit of money; partly to a disregard
of æsthetic cultivation; but principally to a want of naturalness—a
spirit of imitation, which prompts us to be always in the
rear of some model, without the least judgment or taste. We lack
individuality; and although the English possess it in a large measure,
—as from their great self-esteem they might be expected to do—yet
we can never acquire it by copying their manners.

Let us inquire for a moment what were the seeds of the fashionable
manners we are so fond of imitating—those which we please
ourselves with calling aristocratic. Mr. D'Israeli says of the days
of King James I.—`As a historian, it would be my duty to show
how incredibly gross were the domestic language and the domestic
familiarities of kings, queens, lords and ladies, which were much like
the lowest of our populace.' Sir John Harrington gives an account
of `a masque given during the visit of the king of Denmark in
England, at which the ladies who were to have performed could not
stand from intoxication, and their Majesties of Denmark and England,
were both carried to bed by their attendants.' The ladies of
the court of Charles I., drank, gamed and swore; enacted jokes of
which often the wit was as questionable as the propriety; rode in
the park; sailed on the Thames; visited the theatres in men's
attire; frequented masquerades, etc.' What was fashionable for
gentlemen, we learn from Ben Jonson; `Look you, sir, now you
are a gentleman, you must carry a more exalted presence; change
your mood and habit to a more austere form; be exceeding proud,
stand upon your gentility, and scorn every man.' `The fashion is,
when any stranger comes in amongst them, they all stand up and
stare at him, as if he were some unknown beast, brought out of
Africk. You must be impudent enough, sit down, and use no
respect; when any thing is propounded above your capacity, smile

at it, make two or three faces at it, and it is excellent; though you
argue a whole day in silence thus, and discourse nothing but laughter,
'twill pass. Only, now and then give fire, discharge a good full
oath, and offer a great wager, and 'twill be admirable.' Lady Townley
enumerates among the delightful privileges of a married woman
of fashion, that she may `have men at her toilet, invite them to
dinner, appoint them a party in a stage-box at a play, engross the
conversation there, call 'em by their Christian names, talk louder than
the players, etc.' In later times, the Princess of Wales, mother of
George III., said, that `such was the universal profligacy, such the
character and conduct of the young people of distinction, that she
was really afraid to have them near her children.'

It is to be observed that, while the character of the `fashionable
world,' was thus unprincipled and degraded, examples of the highest
virtue were not wanting, elsewhere, in close proximity to these
beacons of folly and vice. Each age shows us splendid examples,
in both sexes, but they do not belong to the class which exalts
fashion into an aim of life. It requires no unjust severity to say, that
in that class there are no such examples. Why—if the pattern of
virtue be not lost—if it inspire compatriots and contemporaries—
why is one particular class beyond the reach of its influence, so completely
that by no accident is any one of its members ever found
eminent in the ranks of goodness? The question needs no answer,
but we may ask what worthy reason there can be for our ambition
to belong to a body thus inferior in aims and deficient in moral
power.

We might fill out these hints, and bring down a succession of
pictures even to the present day, but there is no occasion. Public
sentiment has made such advances that open grossness is not tolerated
in our day, in any rank of society. But the spirit of what is

called fashionable life is the same; its foundation is the same in the
most important particular, viz: in maintaining that the whims and
foolish devices of a few idle wealthy people shall be the standard of
manners and customs—a principle which casts discredit upon all
that men have agreed in considering wise and good, even where it
does not lead to an open abrogation of the essentials of morality.
This is the true vice of Fashion—not that it is frivolous—not that
it sacrifices too much to mere beauty, or mere pleasure—not that it
leads to imprudent or even dishonest expenditure; but that it virtually
sets aside the ancient and only standards of right, in favor of
a code of laws as weak and mean as they are fluctuating.

It is a wonder that any considerable class of persons has ever
been found willing to become the humble imitators of mere folly
and arrogance; a still greater wonder that such a class should exist
among us. Let us hope that a better understanding of ourselves
and our position will bring us back, at no very distant day, to a
more sagacious estimate of ton. Our ton should be that of true and
honorable simplicity—the simplicity, not of ignorance, but of principle—the
ton of kindliness and universal consideration, of intelligence,
of industry, of respect for probity and delicacy, in whatever
station found.

It is the apparent refinement of fashionable people that tempts
many, who do not perceive that an appearance of refinement often
covers real coarseness. Refinement of soul is one thing; mere outward
delicacy quite another; but the young, the thoughtless and the
feeble-minded are apt to overlook the distinction. True delicacy
is often found in the humblest ranks of life, horrible coarseness in the
highest. Let us learn to judge of things as they are, disregarding
all false glare.

Here, as in all other cases, we find in the Bible, a rule suited to
our needs: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if
there be any virtue and any praise, think on these things.” Is this
the groundwork of the fashionable code?