Consider . . . .

From Jean de Crevecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer" regarding the American scene:

"... It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords, who possess everything, and of a herd of people who have nothing.  Here are no aristocratical families, not courts, no kings, no bishop, no ecclesiastical domination, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one, no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. . . . [They are] united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws without dreading their power, because they are equitable. . . . There is a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now called Americans have arisen. . . . .  In this great asylum, the poor of Europe have by some means met together. . . . Alas, two thirds of them had no country. . . .  Everything has tended to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system . . . .  The laws, stamping on them the symbol of adoption. . . .

17