rance, although it forms so large a portion of the whole, should no
more be taken into the account in speaking of the national qualities,
than the slaves of Carolina should be included in an estimate of the
character of the Carolinians, there is, notwithstanding this mannerism,
a personal independence here, that certainly does not exist with us. The
American goes and comes when he pleases, and no one asks for a passport;
he has his political rights, talks of his liberty, swaggers of his
advantages, and yet does less as he pleases, even in innocent things,
than the Frenchman. His neighbours form a police, and a most troublesome
and impertinent one it sometimes proves to be. It is also unjust, for
having no legal means of arriving at facts, it half the time condemns on
conjecture.

The truth is, our institutions are the result of facts and accidents,
and, being necessarily an imitative people, there are often gross
inconsistencies between our professions and our practice; whereas the
French have had to struggle through their apprenticeship in political
rights, by the force of discussions and appeals to reason, and theory is
still too important to be entirely overlooked. Perhaps no people
understand the _true_ private characters of their public men so little
as the Americans, or any people so well as the French. I have never
known a distinguished American, in whom it did not appear to me that his
popular character was a false one; or a distinguished Frenchman, whom
the public did not appear to estimate very nearly as he deserved to be.
Even Napoleon, necessary as he is to the national pride, and dazzling as
is all military renown, seems to me to be much more justly appreciated
at Paris than anywhere else. The practice of meddling can lead to no
other result. They who wish to stand particularly fair before the
public, resort to deception, and I have heard a man of considerable
notoriety in America confess, that he was so much afraid of popular
comments, that he always acted as if an enemy were looking over his
shoulder. With us, no one scruples to believe that he knows all about a
public man, even to the nicest traits of his character; all talk of him,
as none should talk but those who are in his intimacy, and, what between
hypocrisy on his part--an hypocrisy to which he is in some measure
driven by the officious interference with his most private
interests--and exaggerations and inventions, that ingenious tyrant,
public op