afterward gave it. In 1830 the social fruits of these heavy conditions
could be seen in the life of the people. Free speech was lost.

"I know no country," says Tocqueville, who was here in 1831, "in which
there is so little independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in
America." Tocqueville recurs to the point again and again. He cannot
disguise his surprise at it, and it tinged his whole philosophy and his
book. The timidity of the Americans of this era was a thing which
intelligent foreigners could not understand. Miss Martineau wrote in her
Autobiography: "It was not till months afterwards that I was told that
there were two reasons why I was not invited there [Chelsea] as
elsewhere. One reason was that I had avowed, in reply to urgent
questions, that I was disappointed in an oration of Mr. Everett's; and
another was that I had publicly condemned the institution of slavery. I
hope the Boston people have outgrown the childishness of sulking at
opinions not in either case volunteered, but obtained by pressure. But
really, the subservience to opinion at that time seemed a sort of
mania."

The mania was by no means confined to Boston, but qualified this period
of our history throughout the Northern States. There was no literature.
"If great writers have not at present existed in America, the reason is
very simply given in the fact that there can be no literary genius
without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in
America," wrote Tocqueville. There were no amusements, neither music nor
sport nor pastime, indoors or out of doors. The whole life of the
community was a life of the intelligence, and upon the intelligence lay
the weight of intellectual tyranny. The pressure kept on increasing, and
the suppressed forces kept on increasing, till at last, as if to show
what gigantic power was needed to keep conservatism dominant, the
Merchant Province put forward Daniel Webster.

The worst period of panic seems to have preceded the anti-slavery
agitations of 1831, because these agitations soon demonstrated that the
sky did not fall nor the earth yawn and swallow Massachusetts because of
Mr. Garrison's opinions, as most people had sincerely believed would be
the case. Some semblance of free speech was therefore gradually
regained.

Let us remember the world upon which the young Emerson's eyes opened.
The South was a plantation. The North crooked the hinges of the knee
where thrift might follow f