s, the feelings of superiority
they uniformly excite, have as naturally led to jealousy of the rising
importance of our hemisphere. You may smile at the suggestion, but I do
not remember a single European in whom, under proper opportunities, I
have not been able to trace some lingering feeling of the old notion of
the moral and physical superiority of the man of Europe over the man of
America. I do not say that all I have met have betrayed this prejudice,
for in not one case in ten have I had the means to probe them; but such,
I think, has uniformly been the case, though in very different degrees,
whenever the opportunity has existed.

Though the mountain, or the purely rural population, here, possess more
independence and frankness of manner than those who inhabit the towns
and advanced valleys, neither has them in so great a degree, as to leave
plausible grounds for believing that the institutions are very
essentially connected with the traits. Institutions may _depress men
below_ what may be termed the natural level of feeling in this respect,
as in the case of slavery; but, in a civilized society, where property
has its influence, I much question if any political regulations can
raise them above it. After allowing for the independence of manner and
feeling that are coincident to easy circumstances, and which is the
result of obvious causes, I know no part of America in which this is not
also the fact. The employed is, and will be everywhere, to a certain
point, dependent on his employer, and the relations between the two
cannot fail to bring forth a degree of authority and submission, that
will vary according to the character of individuals and the
circumstances of the moment.

I infer from this that the general aspects of society, after men cease
to be serfs and slaves, can never be expected to vary essentially from
each other, merely on account of the political institutions, except,
perhaps, as those institutions themselves may happen to affect their
temporal condition. In other words, I believe that we are to look more
to property and to the absence or presence of facilities of living, for
effects of this nature, than to the breadth or narrowness of
constituencies.

The Swiss, as is natural from their greater antiquity, richer
recollections, and perhaps from their geographical position, are more
national than the Americans. With us, national pride and national
character exist chiefly in the classes that lie be