Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/82

76 between popular opinion and positive law is one reason, since under a union so close there is danger that the latter may be colored by motives that have no sufficient foundation in justice. It is vain to boast of liberty, if the ordinances of society are to receive the impression of sectarianism, or of a provincial and narrow morality.

Another motive peculiar to the country, for freeing the mind from prejudice, is the mixed character of the population. Natives of different sections of the United States, and of various parts of Europe are brought in close contact, and without a disposition to bear with each other's habits, association becomes unpleasant, and enmities are engendered. The main result is to liberalize the mind, beyond a question, yet we see neighborhoods, in which oppressive intolerance is manifested by the greater number, for the time being, to the habits of the less. This is a sore grievance, more especially, when, as is quite frequently the case, the minority happen to be in possession of usages that mark the highest stage of civilization. It ought never to be forgotten, therefore, that every citizen is entitled to indulge without comment, or persecution, in all his customs and practices that are lawful and moral. Neither is morality to be regulated by the prejudices of sects, or social classes, but it is to be left strictly to the control of the laws, divine and human. To assume the contrary is to make prejudice, and prejudice of a local origin too, more imperious than the institutions. The justice, not to say necessity of these liberal concessions, is rendered more apparent when we remember that the parties meet as emigrants on what may be termed neutral territory, for it would be the height of presumption for the native of New York, for instance, to insist on his own peculiar customs, customs that other portions of the country perhaps