step forward toward democratic institutions which Whigs had long lauded
in America, the latter country had progressed to manhood suffrage, or as
nearly all leading Englishmen, whether Whig or Tory, regarded it, had
plunged into the rule of the mob. The result was a rapid lessening in
Whig ruling-class expression of admiration for America, even before long
to the complete cessation of such admiration, and to assertions in Great
Britain that the Reform of 1832 was "final," the last step toward
democracy which Britain could safely take. It is not strange that the
books and reviews of the period from 1830 to 1840, heavily stress the
dangers and crudity of American democracy. They were written for what
was now a nearly unanimous British reading public, fearful lest Radical
pressure for still further electoral reform should preach the example of
the United States.

Thus after 1832 the previous sympathy for America of one section of the
British governing class disappears. More--it is replaced by a critical,
if not openly hostile attitude. Soon, with the rapid development of the
power and wealth of the United States, governing-class England, of all
factions save the Radical, came to view America just as it would have
viewed any other rising nation, that is, as a problem to be studied for
its influence on British prosperity and power. Again, expressions in
print reflect the changes of British view--nowhere more clearly than in
travellers' books. After 1840, for nearly a decade, these are devoted,
not to American political institutions, but to studies, many of them
very careful ones, of American industry and governmental policy.

Buckingham, one-time member of Parliament, wrote nine volumes of such
description. His work is a storehouse of fact, useful to this day to the
American historical student[18]. George Combe, philosopher and
phrenologist, studied especially social institutions[19]. Joseph Sturge,