The clocks in America—there rendered so famous by Sam Slick—instead of the moral lessons inculcated by the dials in this country, such as “Time flies,” etcetera, teach one more suited to American feeling:—“Time is money!”

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And in this opinion I find that I am borne out by an American writer, who says—“It is true, indeed, that the American government, which, as first set up, was properly republican—that is, representation in a course of salutary degrees, and with salutary checks upon the popular will, on the powers of legislation, of the executive, and the judiciary,—was assailed at an early period of its history, and has been assailed continuously down to the present time, by a power called democracy, and that this power has been constantly acquiring influence and gaining ascendency in the republic during the term of its history.”—(A Voice from America to England, by an American Gentleman, page 10.)

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One single proof may be given of the ruinous policy of the Jackson administration in temporising with the credit of the country. To check the export of bullion from our country, the Bank of England had but one remedy, that of rendering money scarce: they contracted their issues, and it became so. The consequence was, that the price of cotton fell forty dollars per bale. The crop of cotton amounted to 1,600,000 bales, which, at forty dollars per bale, was a loss to the southern planters of 64,000,000 of dollars.

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A curious proof of this system of hoarding, which immediately took place upon the bank stopping payment, was told me by a gentleman from Baltimore. He went into a store to purchase, as he often had done, a canvas shot-bag, and to his surprise was asked three times the former price for it. Upon his expostulating, the vendors told him, that the demand for them by the farmers and other people who brought their produce to market, and who used them to put their specie in, was so great, that they could hardly supply them.

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“On the whole, I cannot help considering it a mistake to suppose that slavery has been abolished in the Northern States of the Union. It is true, indeed, that in these States the power of compulsory labour no longer exists; and that one human being within their limits can no longer claim property in the thews and sinews of another. But is this all that is implied in the boon of freedom? if the word mean anything, it must mean the enjoyment of equal rights, and the unfettered exercise in each individual of such powers and faculties as God has given. In this true meaning of the word, it may be safely asserted that this poor degraded class are still slaves—they are subject to the most grinding and humiliating of all slaveries, that of universal and unconquerable prejudice. The whip, indeed, has been removed from the back of the negro; but the chains are still upon his limbs, and he bears the brand of degradation on his forehead. What is it but the mere abuse of language to call him free, who is tyrannically deprived of all the motives to exertion which animate other men? The law, in truth, has left him in that most pitiable of all conditions—a masterless slave.”—Hamilton’s Men and Manners in America.

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Miss Martineau, who is not always wrong, in her remarks upon pauperism in the United States, observes:– “The amount, altogether, is far from commensurate with the charity of the community; and it is to be hoped that the curse of a legal charity will be avoided in a country where it certainly cannot become necessary within any assignable time. I was grieved to see the magnificent Pauper Asylum near Philadelphia, made to accommodate, luxuriously, 1,200 persons; and to have its arrangements pointed out to me, as yielding more comforts to the inmates than the labourer could secure at home by any degree of industry and prudence.”

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Diary in America, Series One

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Diary in America, Series Two