342 ADVANCES IN A POPULAR DIRECTION. 



prosperity, and freedom from great convulsions, has 

 served to recommend such free institutions to the nations 

 on the Continent, and to make them an object of desire 

 at least to the mass of their people. 



But if the progress of democratic feeling in the United 

 States should degenerate into the absurdities of the Red 

 Republicans, of the impracticable perfectionists of Ger 

 many, or of the disunited patriots of modern Italy if it 

 should appear that even an educated people cannot be 

 safely trusted with entire political power, then not only 

 will progress in a popular direction be stopped among 

 us, but we shall feel inclined to retrace our steps, and 

 shall be in danger of obeying the solicitations of the 

 more despotic Governments of Europe, rather than those 

 of the more liberal race to which we belong. 



At present, the influence of the United States upon 

 the British mind is decidedly strong in favour of advances 

 in a popular direction 5 and the appearance of things in 

 the States generally, and in Washington, the seat of 

 Government, leads to the idea that this influence will 

 increase for some years to come, and that the political 

 power of the masses among us will, by little and little, 

 be still further enlarged. 



It may be said that the seeds of disunion are already 

 scattered throughout the Confederacy, and that, should 

 a separation take place, such a shock would be given to 

 the popular power as would much arrest the tendency to 

 assimilation between them and ourselves. 



But the existence of two, or even three, powerful 

 republics instead of one however much it might lessen 

 the apprehension with which other independent countries 

 look forward to the future growth of a vast dominant 

 power, swayed by popular impulse, and wielding the 

 resources of a hundred millions of men would certainly 

 not lessen the influence of North America in recom 

 mending freer institutions to the people of Europe. 



