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TO M. GUSTAVE DE BEAUMONT. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2 [1861]

Edition used:

Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated from the French by the translator of Napoleon’s Correspondence with King Joseph. With large Additions. In Two Volumes (London: Macamillan, 1861). 2 vols.

Part of: Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, 2 vols.

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TO M. GUSTAVE DE BEAUMONT.

Bonn, August 6, 1854.

. . . We are still at Bonn. . . . I am working hard; and I hope, if I do not succeed in acquiring a thorough knowledge of Germany, at least to have some idea of the things which I ought most to know. It would be impossible to treat a foreigner with more attention than has been shown to me; they have even made an exception in my favour to the general regulation, that all books must be returned to the Public Library at this season of the year, and no new ones lent. We have been intimately received by many families, whom we like very much. There are certainly attractive elements in German domestic life; but will these men, who are so estimable and so distinguished in private life, ever become citizens? When I see how long they have submitted to absolute power; the mildness of its rule, the absence of all the traditions of liberty in the habits of the people; the centralization, the universal appetite for places, and the universal dependence; I ask myself if these men will ever be very different from what they now are? nevertheless, there seems to be a general feeling of instability in the country.

I had, the other day, an interesting conversation with a Prussian just returned from the United States, where he had been ambassador for ten years. His chief business was to attend to the emigration. He astonished me by saying that last year the number of emigrants from Germany to the United States reached the extraordinary amount of 140,000, and that they continue to arrive at the same rate. Formerly, none but the poor emigrated; but now there go many families in easy and even wealthy circumstances. I asked him from whence these emigrants went, and what were their motives. Few comparatively go from Prussia. Among the whole 140,000, there were only 10,000 Prussians, but most of these were well educated and comfortably off; the remainder were chiefly from the little States in the centre of Germany; many from Baden, Wirtemberg, and Bavaria. All these Germans (so said my informant), bring with them to the United States their German ideas, and, to a certain extent, keep them. They preserve their language; they do not mix much with the natives; they usually live together; and though, in the long run, they catch some of the political habits of the Americans, they always remain a distinct and foreign element. Altogether, what he told me confirmed my old opinion, that the rapid introduction into the United States of men not of the Anglo-Saxon race is the great danger to be feared in America—a danger which renders the final success of democratic institutions a problem as yet unsolved. I forgot to tell you that my informant attributed the departure of most of the German families to the pressing invitations of their relations and friends in America. But what German motive caused the emigration of those friends and relations? I could not get him to answer clearly this question, which is of great importance.

I saw the other day Henry Reeve, who is taking the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle; I returned with him to Aix to say good-bye to Lamoricière. Your friends, Sir George and Lady Theresa Lewis, arrived here yesterday. They came to see us immediately, and we talked of you; they will spend some days here, and we shall see them again to-day.