lity of the South being mostly with the democratic party, while
those of the North were on the side of their opponents; but to this rule
there were considerable exceptions. Foreigners could not understand
this; and their conclusion was that the masses had their own way in
America, and that property was at their mercy, as it is said by some
writers to have been at the mercy of the democracy of Athens.[J] We
were said to have established universal suffrage, when in fact suffrage
was limited in every State, and in some States essentially limited, the
abuses that from time to time occurred happening in great towns for the
most part. Most citizens were legal voters in the larger number of the
States; but this was owing, not altogether to the liberal character of
our polity or legislation, but to the general prosperity of the country,
which made tax-paying easy and intelligence common, and hence caused
myriads of men to take a warm interest in politics who in other
countries never would have thought of troubling themselves about
politics, save in times of universal commotion. The political appearance
presented by the country was that of a democracy, beyond all question.
America seemed to be a democratic flat to the foreigner. To him the
effect was much the same as follows from looking upon a map. Look upon a
map, and there is nothing but flatness to be seen, the most perfect
equality between all parts of the earth. There are neither mountains nor
villages, neither elevations nor chasms, nothing but conventional marks
to indicate the existence of such things. The earth is a boundless
plain, on which the prairie is as high as Chimborazo. The observer of
the real earth knows that such is not the case, and that inequality is
the physical world's law. So was it here, to the foreign eye. All
appeared to be on the same level, when he looked upon us from his home;
but when he came amongst us, he found that matters here differed in no
striking respect from those of older nations. Yet so wedded were
foreigners to the notion that we were all democrats, and that here the
majority did as it pleased them to do, that, but a short time before his
death,--which took place just a year before the beginning of the
Secession movement,--Lord Macaulay wrote a letter in which he expressed
his belief that we should fall because of a struggle between the rich
and the poor, for which we had provided by making suffrage universal! He
could not have been mo