They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and
affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their
warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of
these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders
an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of
friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded
up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to
them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for
whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.
These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole
people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their
growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which
endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of
their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told.
It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself
mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the
popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable
brood of evils, is Universal Distrust.
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