Observations by the French author François-René de Chateaubriand, from his 1791 trip to America, as recorded in his book Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, reviewed in National Review, December 19, 2022:
“So long as liberty produces gold, an industrial republic performs wonders; but when the gold is spent or exhausted, the republic loses this love of liberty that is founded not on moral sentiment but originates in a thirst for profit and a passion for industry.”
“The enormous imbalance of wealth is a more serious threat to the spirit of equality than any other.”
“In America, men amuse themselves by leaping into Niagara Falls to the cheering of fifty thousand planters: half-savages who laugh only at the sight of pain and death.”
Same as it ever was.
“So long as liberty produces gold, an industrial republic performs wonders; but when the gold is spent or exhausted, the republic loses this love of liberty that is founded not on moral sentiment but originates in a thirst for profit and a passion for industry.”
“The enormous imbalance of wealth is a more serious threat to the spirit of equality than any other.”
“In America, men amuse themselves by leaping into Niagara Falls to the cheering of fifty thousand planters: half-savages who laugh only at the sight of pain and death.”
Same as it ever was.