k unkindly, to speak unpatriotically, if any of us
even felt so. Sure enough, America is a great, and in many respects a
blessed and hopeful phenomenon. Sure enough, these hardy millions of
Anglo-Saxon men prove themselves worthy of their genealogy; and, with
the axe and plough and hammer, if not yet with any much finer kind of
implements, are triumphantly clearing out wide spaces, seedfields for
the sustenance and refuge of mankind, arenas for the future history of
the world; doing, in their day and generation, a creditable and cheering
feat under the sun. But as to a Model Republic, or a model anything, the
wise among themselves know too well that there is nothing to be said.
Nay the title hitherto to be a Commonwealth or Nation at all, among the
[Gr.] _ethne_ of the world, is, strictly considered, still a thing
they are but striving for, and indeed have not yet done much towards
attaining. Their Constitution, such as it may be, was made here,
not there; went over with them from the Old-Puritan English
workshop ready-made. Deduct what they carried with them from England
ready-made,--their common English Language, and that same Constitution,
or rather elixir of constitutions, their inveterate and now, as it
were, inborn reverence for the Constable's Staff; two quite immense
attainments, which England had to spend much blood, and valiant sweat of
brow and brain, for centuries long, in achieving;--and what new elements
of polity or nationhood, what noble new phasis of human arrangement, or
social device worthy of Prometheus or of Epimetheus, yet comes to light
in America? Cotton crops and Indian corn and dollars come to light;
and half a world of untilled land, where populations that respect the
constable can live, for the present _without_ Government: this comes
to light; and the profound sorrow of all nobler hearts, here uttering
itself as silent patient unspeakable ennui, there coming out as vague
elegiac wailings, that there is still next to nothing more. "Anarchy
_plus_ a street-constable:" that also is anarchic to me, and other than
quite lovely!

I foresee, too, that, long before the waste lands are full, the very
street-constable, on these poor terms, will have become impossible:
without the waste lands, as here in our Europe, I do not see how he
could continue possible many weeks. Cease to brag to me of America, and
its model institutions and constitutions. To men in their sleep there
is nothing granted in this