MARYLAND

The women of this city have a great reputation, and truly they deserve it. I saw a quantity of very pretty ones. They dress well, are very attractive, and excessively coquettish, though I am persuaded that this coquetry is not very dangerous for them and that it's a path in which they well know how to stop. I did however see a little Miss Randolp[h], roguish as a demon, and more giddy than a May-bug, who, I believe, will be guilty of some follies, were it only from malice, when she shall have cast her choice on some one as ready as she to commit them.

The following day we enjoyed a spectacle of another kind: we had a very fine horse race. Every year at Baltimore there are races of this sort which last three or four days. On this occasion all the finest horses of Virginia and New York State are brought together, to compete. The meet takes place in an enclosure situated at two leagues from the city; in other respects things pass exactly as in our races of the Champ de Mars.

The following day we enjoyed a spectacle of another kind: we had a very fine horse race. Every year at Baltimore there are races of this sort which last three or four days.

On this occasion all the finest horses of Virginia and New-York State are brought together, to compete. The meet takes place in an enclosure situated at two leagues from the city; in other respects things pass exactly as in our races of the Champ de Mars. The day I speak of, I saw five horses race against each other. They had to cover a distance of four miles, that is to say, a league and a third. The two horses which distinguished themselves among the five are Black Maria, a New-York mare, and Trifle, a small Virginia mare. The latter bears a name which portrays her very well: truly she has the air of a bagatelle. She is so slender, so slight, and appears so weak, that one would believe she would fall at the first gallop; she is as it were transparent, her muscles are visible through her skin; it always seemed to me she was going to break like glass. None the less she twice in succession took the prize, which was 4,000 francs.

Black Maria, whose name recalled to me the one of Beaumont la Chartre, lost, but with honor. The first time Trifle covered the four miles in seven minutes, and the second time in eight minutes, minus a few seconds. Between the first and second run there was but a half-hour interval. The horses in this country are not of a breed peculiar to America. There were no horses in this region before the Europeans came; so this was one of the things that caused the Indians the most astonishment. The horses I saw run are of Arab stock. Here at the meets there is one thing that we never see at home, and that's a trotting race, which always follows the main race. In this country they have a breed of trotters who are really extraordinary and against whom the English horses find it impossible to compete to advantage.

But that's enough of horses, let us come to the men. We were charmed by those of Baltimore. The week that we spent in that city was a real carnival; we went from feast to banquet steadily. Not a single day did we dine at our inn; it was a series of new galas.

[written] Nov. 8, 1831

(Pierson, p. 490)

Mr. Brown is a distinguished lawyer and a rich planter from Louisiana. He was ambassador in France for eight years.

We were speaking of the Quakers and he said to me:

"It is a great pity that the Quakers decided to wear a ridiculous dress, and to forbid in all circumstances resistance to oppression. Their doctrine otherwise is admirable. Of all the religious sects they are the only one that has always practiced tolerance and Christian charity to the full extent. Amusements are forbidden to Quakers; their money has nothing to do; doing good is their only pleasure. Unfortunately their numbers are diminishing and they are also divided among themselves. For a long time they professed the doctrine that it is works and not beliefs that bring salvation: but later they abandoned that salutary principle; today they form two distinct churches, one of which comes very close to the Unitarians' standpoint, and like them denies the divinity of Christ."

"While we are on the subject of religion," I said, "tell me what I am to think about the religious basis in this country. Is religion only superficial? Or is it deeply rooted in men's hearts? Is it a belief or a political doctrine?"

"I think," said Mr. Brown, "that for the majority religion is something respected and useful rather than a proved truth. I think that in the depths of their souls they have a pretty decided indifference about dogma. One never talks about that in the churches; it is morality with which they are concerned. But in America I have not met any materialist; I am convinced that a firm belief in the immortality of the soul and in the theory of rewards and punishments is, one can assert, universal; that is the common ground on which all the sects meet. I have been a lawyer for twenty years, and I have always found great respect for the sanctity of an oath."

We spoke of New Orleans where he lived for twenty years. He said to me: "At New Orleans there is a class of women dedicated to concubinage: they are the colored women. Immorality is for them in some sort a professional duty which they perform faithfully. A colored girl is destined from her birth to be a white man's mistress. When she reaches nubile age, her mother is at pains to place her. It is a sort of temporary marriage. It usually lasts for several years, during which time it is seldom that there is a complaint of infidelity about a woman so attached. They pass like that from hand to hand until they have made a sufficient fortune, when they marry for good a man in their own station, and send their daughters out into the same way of life."

"That," I said, "is a state of affairs very contrary to nature; it must cause great disruption in society."

"Not as much as you would suppose," answered Mr. Brown. "The rich young men are very dissolute, but immorality is restricted to the sphere of colored women. The white women of French and American extraction are very chaste in their ways. They are virtuous because, in the first place, I suppose, they like virtue, and then because the colored women are not so; to have a lover would be to become like one of them."

"Is it true," I asked, "that there is a great difference in character between the Americans of the North and of the South?"

"An immense difference," answered Mr. Brown. "The Americans of the North are all full of intelligence and activity; the joys of the heart hardly play any part in their existence. They are cold, calculating, and reserved. The Americans of the South, on the other hand, are open and
eager; habits of command give them a certain hauteur and an altogether aristocratic susceptibility to points of honor. They are much disposed to idleness and look on work as degrading."

"Does it not often happen in America," I said some other time to Mr. Brown, 'that the people make mistakes in their choice?"

"Yes, that is frequent," he replied.

Then yet another time Mr. Brown said to me: "It is an odd thing, at New Orleans the colored men always make common cause with the whites against the blacks."

(Tocqueville, p. 60)

It is above all the Catholics who were the first, after the foundation of Maryland, to establish practical tolerance in matters of religion. Up to that time all the sects had claimed it for themselves without granting it to others. The Quakers were burnt in England. They took refuge among the Presbyterians of Boston who themselves had fled from persecution in the motherland. And they were hanged.

(Tocqueville, p. 225)

***

One of the chief reasons that support morals in America among all above the simple people, is the spirit of equality which prevails there. Even with us, where morals are more relaxed, a man of the upper classes who dishonored a girl of the same classes, or who, introduced into the family by the trust of the parents, debauched their daughter, that man would be lost in reputation. Now that upper class in America includes everyone who has something to live on and has had a decent education.

(Tocqueville, p. 157)

(Tocqueville, p. 157)

At Baltimore it is an association that provides the prizes at the races, established the race-course and manages the race-meetings.

(Tocqueville, p. 220)

He said to us: "I think the constitution of Maryland is the most democratic in America. No property qualification is demanded for the electors. Any man who is a citizen of the United States and has been living for a year in the Republic is an elector."

"Do you not find," I said, "that this universal suffrage has disadvantages?"

"There are some," said Mr. Latrobe. "The choices are not always good. It has been noticed that we have fewer able men in our Legislature than the Virginians have in theirs.

"But," I answered, "since your Legislature is so democratic, is it not true then that Maryland is the place in the United States where the spirit of aristocracy is most in evidence?"

Mr. Latrobe answered: "Our outward habits have indeed kept an aristocratic cast which is found neither in our laws nor in our political practice. So there is more luxury here than anywhere else: in the streets you see four-horse carriages, jackets, something like liveries; the members of different families are distinguished by names of estates."

"Formerly your laws, like your manners, were aristocratic?"

"Yes, Maryland was founded by English nobles, and moreover the first emigrants professed the Catholic religion which itself is favorable to aristocracy. So they divided the territory into greta estates; but America does not at all favor the existence of great landed fortunes, and the landowners were never able to get large incomes from their lands. Up to the Revolution however Maryland had the appearance of an English county; birth was as much valued there as on the other side of the Atlantic; all the power was in the hands of the great families."

"What changed this state of affairs?"

"The law of inheritance. With equal shares, fortunes were quickly divided up. Some families, that of Charles Carroll for instance, having only one representative during several generations, kept their fortunes, but in general the great estates have been divided into a thousand fragments. With the small landowners and commercial industry, democracy was born. You see what progress it has made."

"But how have the members of the great families put up with this change? What is their position over against the people, and what do the people think of them?"

"The people has not, as you seem to think, any hostility against the members of the old families. It shows no discrimination against them in appointments to all the offices. On their side the members of the old families do not show any hostility against the present order. This state of affairs is due to two circumstances; when war broke out with Great Britain, the great families of Maryland zealously supported the cause of independence.

"They shared the passion of the people and led them on the field of battle. After the war of Independence the political question dividing people was concerned with the Constitution. The nation was split between the Federalists who wanted to give the Union a very strong central power, and the Democrats or Republicans who wanted to keep almost complete independence for the States. The latter party, which won in the end, was the most popular. Now it happened that the Maryland aristocrats, from love of power and a wish to keep their local importance, almost all supported it. So these were two great occasions on which they went with the people and won rights for them.

"I was speaking just now of Federalists and Republicans and told you that in the end the Republicans carried off the victory. That is to say that they came to power in the end. For the rest, once in charge of the government, they managed things in almost all respects in the same way as their adversaries would have done. They allowed a central power, a standing army, a navy. ... [dots in manuscript] Oppositions never can govern with the principles that have brought them to power. Now, to put the matter truthfully, there are no parties in the United States; everything turns on questions of personalities. There are those who have got power and those who want to have it; the "ins" and "outs." "

"What class is most usually elected by the people?"

"Lawyers. The United States are ruled by lawyers. It is they who hold almost all the offices. The President is a military man, but look at all his ministry; there is not one minister who is not a lawyer. The lawyers here have even more preponderance than in the rest of the Union, because here it is the custom before an election for the candidates to address the people. We often see the eloquence of one of them carry an election by surprise against an opponent whose real merit should have decided the matter."

"Is there still slavery in Maryland?"

"Yes. But we are making great efforts to get rid of it. The law allows the export of slaves and does not allow their import. Cultivating wheat we can very easily do without the blacks. It is perhaps even an economy."

"Is enfranchisement allowed?"

"Yes, but we often find that enfranchisement brings great evil in its train, and that the freed Negro finds himself more unhappy and unable to help himself than the slave. One odd thing is that west of the Chesapeake, the Negro population is increasing faster than the white, whereas to the east of that bay the opposite is true. I think the reason is that the west is divided into great estates which have no attraction for the hard working, free population.

"Baltimore, which now has a population of 80,000, did not have thirty houses at the time of the Revolution. What then has made the city grow so fast?"

"First as a result of our Revolution; then the ruin of San Domingo which sent many French families as refugees to us and gave us the victualling of the colony, and finally the wars of the French Revolution in Europe. England was at war with the whole continent and ruled the seas; we became Europe's manufacturer."

"Is it true that there are great differences between Americans of the North and those of the South?"

"Yes, at Baltimore we think we can recognize a Yankee in the street, and even an inhabitant of New York or of Philadelphia."

"But what are the principle traits that distinguish the North from the South?"

"I would express the difference like this: what distinguishes the North is the spirit of enterprise; what distinguishes the South is the spirit of chivalry. The manners of a Southerner are frank and open; he is excitable, even irritable, and very ticklish on a point of honor. The New Englander is cold, calculating and patient. As long as you are staying with a Southerner, you are made welcome, and he shares all the pleasures of his house with you. The Northerner, when he has received you, begins to think whether he can do business with you."

(Having painted this spirited portrait, Mr. Latrobe seemed to be afraid that he had been talking too frankly to us, and he added several details to diminish the effect.)

"But your present legislation, your law of inheritance among other things, should change the look of your society?"

"Yes, we used to have a race of landowners living on their estates. In general those were the most distinguished people in the country. They had received an excellent education, and had the manners and standards of the English upper classes. We still have a certain number of these "gentleman farmers;" but the law of inheritance and democracy are killing them. In two or three generations they will have disappeared."

"Do you not regret that it should be so?"

"Yes, from some points of view. In general that class was a seedbed of distinguished people for the legislature and the army. They were our best statesmen and our finest characters. All the great men of the Revolution came, in the South, from that class. But nonetheless I am inclined to think that, all things considered, the new order is better. Our upper classes now are less remarkable, but the people is more enlightened; there are fewer distinguished men, but more general happiness. In a word we are daily getting more like New England.

"Now New England, in spite of all I was saying to you about it, is well ahead of
us in everything to do with the economy of society. I think that the whole American continent must model itself one day on New England. What hastens this tendency is the perpetual flow of people from the North to the South. Their will to grow rich and their spirit of enterprise are continually driving them among us. Little by little all trade and control over society is falling into their hands."

"Do you think you could do without slaves in Maryland?"

"Yes, I am convinced of it. Slavery is in general an expensive way of farming, and it is more so with certain crops. Thus wheat-farming requires many laborers, but only twice in the year, at sowing time and at harvest. Slaves are useful at those two seasons. For the rest of the year they must be fed and kept without, one may say, employing them. Besides, on a farm with slaves there are always a multitude of women and children who must be fed without being employed. So generally speaking slavery is worth nothing in wheat growing country. And that applies to the greater part of Maryland. In the South where the crop from the plantations is very large, one can employ slaves."

"But if sugar and coffee are more profitable crops than corn, and if slave labor for agriculture is more expensive than free, it surely follows that the Southerners can keep their slaves, but it also follows that they would get a better return from their lands if they cultivated them themselves or employed free labor?"

"No doubt, but in the South the white man cannot, without getting ill or dying, do what the black does easily. Besides there are certain crops that are raised much more economically by slaves than by free workers. Tobacco for instance Tobacco needs continual attention; one can employ women and children in cultivating it. In a country where labor is as expensive as it is in America, it would be difficult to grow tobacco without slaves: it is a crop admirably suited for slave labor. Tobacco is the only Southern crop grown in Maryland. People will end by giving up growing it in proportion as slavery disappears.

"It would be better to lose that source of income than to keep it. All that I have been telling you just now is not only my own opinion, it is an expression of public opinion. Over the last fifteen years there has been a complete revolution in people's attitude to this matter. Fifteen years ago one was not allowed to say that slavery could be abolished in Maryland; now no one disputes that."

"Do you not think that the law of inheritance should have a great influence on the existence of slavery?"

"Yes, immense. The division of properties multiplies small fortunes and quickly creates a class of white laborers who start competing with the slaves. Everywhere in Maryland where properties have been divided up, slavery has disappeared and the white population has developed
extraordinarily."

"In Maryland do you have a code for the blacks?"

"No. The penal code applies to both races. There are however some offenses which can only be committed by a black. A black for instance, even if free, cannot carry arms. A black slave cannot buy or sell on his own account without the written permission of his master. Free blacks cannot come together for meetings."

"Do enfranchised blacks have political rights?"

"None. The law gives them them in Pennsylvania, but in practice they do not use them any more than with us."

"Is it true that public education in Maryland is infinitely less advanced than in New England?"

"Yes. We have only just set out on the road along which the Northerners have been going for two hundred years. We find the chief obstacle in the sentiments of the people themselves. A curious thing has long happened and still happens with us: the enlightened classes of the population feel the need for public education and work ceaselessly to spread it. But the people, who still does not see the need to give their money to attain this object, does not re-elect to office those who thus work for their welfare in spite of themselves."

"Do you realize that what you are saying is a very strong argument against the principle of the sovereignty of the people?"

"No, at least not in my view. The people is often blind and falls into incredible mistakes. But I have always found that it ends up by understanding its own interests. And then it does more than the strongest power could do. So in public education it has long been impossible for us to do anything; but now public opinion begins to turn to our side. The impulse has been given and nothing will now stop it."

"How do the Catholics in America prosper?"

"They are increasing extraordinarily and are pursuing a very skilful policy. The Catholics are the only congregation that is never divided about doctrine. They march united like a single man. For the last twenty years they have very skillfully diverted all their efforts towards education. They have established seminaries and colleges. The best educational institutions in Maryland are Catholic. They have even colleges in other States. These colleges are full of Protestants.

"There is perhaps no young man in Maryland who has received a good education who has not been brought up by the Catholics. Although they are very careful not to speak of their beliefs to their pupils, you realize that they always exercise a certain influence. They have also very cleverly directed their chief attention to the education of women. They think that where the mother is Catholic, the children will almost always become such. Generally their bishops in America are able men."

"What are the doctrines of the American Catholics about the question of Church government?"

"They recognize the Pope's right to appoint the bishops, and the bishops' right to appoint the parish priests. As to matters of faith they think that only an Ecumenical Council presided over by the Pope has a right to pronounce."