An Address on the Influence of the Federative Republican System of Government Upon Literature and the Development of Character [pp. 261-282]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
yet in this age of ardor and enterprise, constructed
either a canal or rail road to the ocean, or even to any
intermediate point. If our federative system contained
within its borders a city thus wealthy and populous,
and so well situated, can there be a doubt that it would
long ere this have sent its rail roads and canals not only
to the ocean, but in all probability to the Rhine and the
Danube, to the Rhone, the Garonne, and the Mediterranean.
This spirit of improvement, under the hitherto benign
protection of our government, is already abroad in the
land. New York and Pennsylvania have already executed works which rival in splendor and grandeur the
boasted monuments of Egypt, Rome or China, and far
excel them in usefulness and profit. The states of the
south and west too are moving on in the same noble
career. And our own Virginia, the Old Dominion, has
at last awakened f-rom her inglorious repose, and is
pushing forward with vigor her great central improvemnent, destined soon to pass the Blue Ridge and Alleghany ranges of mountains, and thus to realize the fable
of antiquity, which represented the sea-gods as driving
their herds to pasture on the mountains.
"Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos
Visere montes."
One certain effect of our great systems of improvement must be the rearing up of large towns throughout
our country. I know full well that great cities are
cursed with great vices. The worst specimens of the
human character, squalid poverty, gorgeous, thoughtless
luxury, misery and anxiety, are all to be found in them.
But we find, at the same time, the noblest and most virtuous specimens of our race on the same busy, bustling
theatre. Mind is here brought into collision with mindintellect whets up intellect-the energy of one stimulates the energy of another-and thus we find all the
great improvements originate here. It is the cities
which constitute the great moving power of society;
the country population is much more tardy in its action,
and thus becomes the regulator to the machinery. It is
the cities which have hurried forward the great revolutions of modern times, " whether for weal or woe." It
is the cities which have made the great improvements
and inventions in mechanics and the arts. It is the
great cities which have pushed every department of
literature to the highest pitch of perfection. It is the
great cities alone which can build up and sustain hospitals, asylums, dispensaries-which can gather together
large and splendid libraries, form literary and philosophical associations, assemble together bands of literati,
who stimulate and encourage each other. In fine, it is
the large cities alone which can rear utip and sustain a
mere literary class. When there shall arise in this
country, as there surely will, some eight or ten cities of
the first magnitude, we shall then find the opprobrium
which now attaches to us, of having no national literature, wiped away; and there are no doubt some
branches of science which we are destined to carry to a
pitch of perfection which can be reached no where else.
Where, for example, can the great moral, political, and
economical sciences be studied so successfully as here?
And this leads me at once to the consideration of the
operation of the state or federative system of government, which I regard as the most beautiful feature in our
political system, and that which is calculated to produce the most beneficial influence both on the progress
of science, and on the development of character.
It has been observed, under all great governments
acting over wide spread empires, that both the arts and
iterature qtuickly come to a stand, and most generally
begin to decline afterwards. In fact, Mr. Hume makes
the bold assertion in his Essays, " that when the arts and
sciences come to perfection in any state, from that mnoment they naturally or rather necessarily decline, and
seldom or never revive in that nation where they formerly flourished." His remark is certainly much more
applicable to large monarchical governments than to sucl
a system as ours. Itn large countries, wvith great national
governments, there will be quickly formed in literature
as perfect a despotism as exists in politics. Some few
great geniuses will arise, explore certain departments of
literature, earn an imperishable reputation, die, and bequeath to posterity in their writings a model ever after
to be imitated, and for that very reason never to be
excelled. And thus it is that certain standard authors
establish their dominion in the world of letters, and
impose a binding law on their successors, who, it has
been well said, do nothing more than transpose the
incidents, new-name the characters, and paraphrase the
sentiments of their great prototypes. It is known that
under the Roman emperors, even as late as the time of
Justinian, Virgil was called the poet, by way of distinction, throughout the western empire, while Homer
received the same appellation in the eastern empire.
l'I'ese two poets were of undisputed authority to all
their successors in epic poetry.
We are told that in the vast empire of China, speaking but one language, governed by one law, and consequently moulded into one dull homogeneous character,
this literary despotism is still more marked. When the
authority of a great teacher, like that of Confucius, is
once established, the doctrine of passive obedience to
such authority is just as certainly enforced upon sueceeding literati as the same doctrine towards the monarch is enforced on the subject. Now all this has a
tendency to cramp genius, and paralyze literary effort.
The developing genius of the modern world was
arrested in the career of invention at least, and the
imagination was tamed down by the servile imitation
of the ancients immediately after the revival of letters.
And perhaps one of the greatest benefits conferred on
learning by the reformation, consisted of the new impulse that was suddenly communicated to the human
mind-an impulse that at once broke asunder the bonds
which the literature of the ancient world had rivettedset free the mind after directing it into a new career of
inquiry and investigation, unshackled even by the Latin
language, which had so long robbed the vernacular
tongues of Europe of the honors justly due to theln
from the literati of the age.*
* I would not by any means be understood as advancing the
opinion that the language and literature of the ancients have
been always an impediment to the progress of modern literature.
On the contrary, at the revival of letters, the moderns were an
almost immeasurable distance in the rear of the ancients. Ancient literature then became a power, by which the moderns
were at once elevated to the literary level of antiquity; but
when once we had reached that point, all farther exclusive devotion to the learning and the language of antiquity became hurtful to the mind by the trammels which it imposed. The study
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