Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/30

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That there are many discourteous people in America we may be sure; and as aristocracy is apt to beget the rudeness of insolence, so democracy is apt to beget the rudeness of self-assertion. But though a student may not be a very shrewd observer of manners, or entitled to much attention on that subject, I must say, that wherever I went in America, whether I was among friends or strangers, I found myself among a kind and essentially courteous people. Never, when seeking information, or any of those good offices which a man in a strange country is sure to need, did I fail to meet with politeness and attention. No doubt to secure courtesy in America you must cordially accept equality; but in what community is it not necessary cordially to accept the leading principle of society if you wish to be courteously treated? Manners in a certain sense are free. You are not required to put on a dress coat when you dine with a friend. But as a general rule, it did not seem to me that there was among Americans a want of mutual respect, or an unwillingness to pay reasonable deference to real social claims of any kind. In truth, equality is the necessary condition of courtesy in the proper sense of the word. Where there is a difference of social rank there may be condescension on one side and homage on the other; but courtesy can only exist between equals. The respect for women in America is notoriously carried to a height which some observers have even pronounced to be absurd, and injurious to the grace of the female character itself; though if this be so, like other exaggerations of untrained sentiment, it will find its level in course of time. I have been told that among the rural democracy of New England you may see the rudiments of finer manners than aristocracy ever produced. He who told me this was an