Note 319 — Chapter X

"A strongly-marked distinction exists between the Southern and Northern Americans. The two extremes are formed by the New Englanders[320] and the Virginians. The former are certainly the more respectable. They are industrious, frugal, enterprising, regular in their habits, pure in their manners, and strongly impressed with sentiments of religion. The name Yankee, which we apply as one of reproach and derision to Americans in general, is assumed by them as their natural and appropriate designation.[321] It is a common proverb in America, that a Yankee will live where another would starve. Their very prosperity, however, with a certain reserve in their character, and supposed steady attention to small gains, renders them not excessively popular with those among whom they settle. They are charged with a peculiar species of finesse, called 'Yankee tricks,' and the character of being 'up to every thing' is applied to them, we know not exactly how, in a sense of reproach. The Virginian planter, on the contrary, is lax in principle, destitute of industry, eager in the pursuit of rough pleasures, and demoralized by the system of negro slavery, which exists in almost a West Indian form. Yet, with all the Americans who attempt to draw the parallel, he seems rather the favorite. He is frank, open-hearted, and exercising a splendid hospitality. Both Cooper and Judge Hall report him as a complete gentleman; by which they evidently mean, not the finished courtier, but the English country gentleman or squire, though the opening afforded by the political constitution of his country causes him to cultivate his mind more by reading and inquiry. A large proportion of the most eminent and ruling statesmen in America—Washington, Jefferson, Madison—were Virginians. Surrounded from their infancy with ease and wealth, accustomed to despise, and to see despised, money on a small scale, and no laborious exertions made for its attainment, they imbibe from youth the habits and ideas of the higher classes. Luxurious living, gaming, horse-racing, cock-fighting, and other rough, turbulent amusements, absorb a great portion of their life. Although, therefore, the leisure enjoyed by them, when well improved, may have produced some very elevated and accomplished characters, they can not, taken at the highest, be considered so respectable a class as their somewhat despised northern brethren; and the lower ranks are decidedly in a state of comparative moral debasement."—Murray, vol. ii., p. 394.