ackwoods; and steamboats have established daily
means of communication between the different points of the coast. An
inland navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down
the rivers of the country. *u And to these facilities of nature and art
may be added those restless cravings, that busy-mindedness, and love
of pelf, which are constantly urging the American into active life,
and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses the
country in every direction; he visits all the various populations of the
land; and there is not a province in France in which the natives are
so well known to each other as the 13,000,000 of men who cover the
territory of the United States.

[Footnote t: In 1832, the district of Michigan, which only contains
31,639 inhabitants, and is still an almost unexplored wilderness,
possessed 940 miles of mail-roads. The territory of Arkansas, which
is still more uncultivated, was already intersected by 1,938 miles of
mail-roads. (See the report of the General Post Office, November 30,
1833.) The postage of newspapers alone in the whole Union amounted to
$254,796.]

[Footnote u: In the course of ten years, from 1821 to 1831, 271
steamboats have been launched upon the rivers which water the valley
of the Mississippi alone. In 1829 259 steamboats existed in the United
States. (See Legislative Documents, No. 140, p. 274.)]

But whilst the Americans intermingle, they grow in resemblance of each
other; the differences resulting from their climate, their origin, and
their institutions, diminish; and they all draw nearer and nearer to the
common type. Every year, thousands of men leave the North to settle in
different parts of the Union: they bring with them their faith, their
opinions, and their manners; and as they are more enlighthned than the
men amongst whom they are about to dwell, they soon rise to the head of
affairs, and they adapt society to their own advantage. This continual
emigration of the North to the South is peculiarly favorable to the
fusion of all the different provincial characters into one national
character. The civilization of the North appears to be the common
standard, to which the whole nation will one day be assimilated.

The commercial ties which unite the confederate States are strengthened
by the increasing manufactures of the Americans; and the union which
began to exist in their opinions, gradually forms a part of their
habits: the course