be the tribes
of inhabitants in those states, whatever part of the world may have been
their birthplace, or that of their fathers, however broken may be their
language, however servile or noble their employments, however exalted or
despised their state, all are declared to be bound together by equal
political obligations.... In that self-governing country all are held to
have an equal interest in the principles of its institutions and to be
bound in equal duty to watch their workings." Miss Martineau was also
impressed with the passion of Americans for land ownership and
contrasted the United States favorably with England where the tillers of
the soil were either tenants or laborers for wages.

=Adverse Criticism.=--By no means all observers and writers were
convinced that America was a success. The fastidious traveler, Mrs.
Trollope, who thought the English system of church and state was ideal,
saw in the United States only roughness and ignorance. She lamented the
"total and universal want of manners both in males and females," adding
that while "they appear to have clear heads and active intellects,"
there was "no charm, no grace in their conversation." She found
everywhere a lack of reverence for kings, learning, and rank. Other
critics were even more savage. The editor of the _Foreign Quarterly_
petulantly exclaimed that the United States was "a brigand
confederation." Charles Dickens declared the country to be "so maimed
and lame, so full of sores and ulcers that her best friends turn from
the loathsome creature in disgust." Sydney Smith, editor of the
_Edinburgh Review_, was never tired of trying his caustic wit at the
expense of America. "Their Franklins and Washingtons and all the other
sages and heroes of their revolution were born and bred subjects of the
king of England," he observed in 1820. "During the thirty or forty
years of their independence they have done absolutely nothing for the
sciences, for the arts, for literature, or even for the statesmanlike
studies of politics or political economy.... In the four quarters of the
globe who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks
at an American picture or statue?" To put a sharp sting into his taunt
he added, forgetting by whose authority slavery was introduced and
fostered: "Under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is
every sixth man a slave whom his fellow creatures may buy and sell?"

Some Americans, while resenting the