Dickens in America, 1842

In the mid Nineteenth Century, Charles Dickens charged Americans with incivility, arrogance, and a predilection for violence, specifically, about anti-democratic policies such as slavery. In his book, American Notes, Dickens criticized the American culture for what he opined as an excessive worship of money. Dickens account of his first visit to America in January 1842 produced one of the first British viewpoints that demonstrated that an Englishman did not have to be an aristocrat to distrust the American rhetoric.
Dickens believed that Europe was more civilized than America. Additionally, Dickens believed that America was more advanced than Europe because of the American approach to democracy. Dickens surmised that slavery was an abhorrent condition which he fiercely denounced in the later chapters of American Notes. Marxism identified free labor with capitalism and America’s economy was certainly sustained with both cheap and free labor. Whereas in England, capitalism had evolved out of feudalism, the principles and practices based on the ownership of lands belonging to nobility and aristocrats. On the other hand, America had developed capitalism through a slave based society and the distinct difference between England and America was free labor which offered an enormous resource, an endowment unmatched by England.
Dickens further argued, “The upholders of slavery in America --of the atrocities of which system I shall not write one word for which I have not ample proof and warrant --may be divided into three great classes” (Dickens, American Notes, 250). He asserted that the slave-owners financially benefitted from owning slaves, simultaneously, slave-owner’s were afraid of their slaves. Second, Dickens offers the explanation that the owners, breeders, users, buyers, and sellers of slaves ignored the atrocities of an institutionalized system of slavery. Finally, he questioned the integrity and morality of the genteel Americans as they stood silently on the sidelines and allowed slavery to flourish. Dickens asserts, “Slavery is not a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to be found . . . ; nor can the indignant tide of honest wrath stand still, . . . it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent among a host of guilty (Dickens, American Notes, 256).
Dickens falls short of explaining how European Americans had stolen Indians' land and the enslaved African’s. The English colonies and immigrants to America were equally responsible for the confiscated Indian lands and slavery. These acts are the foundation of America's rhetoric framing exceptionalism and an unequaled economy during the Nineteenth Century. Without free Indian land and unconscionable slavery, the economic and political development of America as it is written, becomes unimaginable. The Indian land was the principal means of production in America and slavery sustained the continued development.
In fairness, Dickens overlooked and minimized the American experience. It was a challenging and proud time for an immigrant, settler, or entrepreneur. Hence, Dickens was unable to conceive American exceptionalism. However, he recognized that the forefathers, by almost all accounts, were genuinely sincere in their efforts to establish the foundation for democracy in America by writing into law the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Through American Notes, Dickens reminded Nineteenth Century Americans that a country does not prove its greatness through proclamation. Dickens put forth standards of ethics, and suggested that Americans could achieve those ideals and acknowledge the humor of pigs in the streets, spitting tobacco, and the importance of becoming less boastful about America.