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by Alexis de Tocqueville

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Title: American Institutions And Their Influence

Author: Alexis de Tocqueville

Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8690]
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           AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR INFLUENCE.

                               by

                     Alexis de Tocqueville.




                           with notes,
                               by
                      Hon. John C. Spencer.

       *       *       *       *       *

     Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851,
                     by A. S. Barnes & Co.,
           In the Clerk's Office of the District Court
                  of the United States for the
                 Southern District of New York.

       *       *       *       *       *



                         ADVERTISEMENT.

The American publishers of M. de Tocqueville's "Democracy in
America," have been frequently solicited to furnish the work in a
form adapted to seminaries of learning, and at a price which
would secure its more general circulation, and enable trustees of
School District Libraries, and other libraries, to place it among
their collections. Desirous to attain these objects, they have
consulted several gentlemen, in whose judgment they confided, and
particularly the editor of the American editions, to ascertain
whether the work was capable of abridgment or condensation, so as
to bring the expense of its publication within the necessary
limits. They are advised that the nature of the work renders it
impossible to condense it by omitting any remarks or
illustrations of the author upon any subject discussed by him,
even if common justice to him did not forbid any such attempt;
and that the only mode of reducing its bulk, is to exclude wholly
such subjects as are deemed not to be essential.

It will be recollected that the first volume was originally
published separately, and was complete in itself. It treated of
the influence of democracy upon the political institutions of the
United States, and exhibited views of the nature of our
government, and of their complicated machinery, so new, so
striking, and so just, as to excite the admiration and even the
wonder of our countrymen. It was universally admitted to be the
best, if not the first systematic and philosophic view of the
great principles of our constitutions which has been presented to
the world. As a treatise upon the spirit of our governments, it
was full and finished, and was deemed worthy of being introduced
as a text-book in some of our Seminaries of Learning. The
publication of the first volume alone would therefore seem to be
sufficient to accomplish in the main the objects of the
publishers above stated.

And upon a careful re-examination of the second volume, this
impression is confirmed. It is entirely independent of the first
volume, and is in no way essential to a full understanding of the
principles and views contained in that volume. It discusses the
effects of the democratic principle upon the tastes, feelings,
habits, and manners of the Americans; and although deeply
interesting and valuable, yet the observations of the author on
these subjects are better calculated for foreign countries than
for our own citizens. As he wrote for Europe they were necessary
to his plan. They follow naturally and properly the profound
views which had already been presented, and which they carry out
and illustrate. But they furnish no new developments of those
views, nor any facts that would be new to us.

The publishers were therefore advised that the printing of the
first volume complete and entire, was the only mode of attaining
the object they had in view. They have accordingly determined to
adopt that course, intending, if the public sentiment should
require it, hereafter to print the second volume in the same
style, so that both may be had at the same moderate price.

A few notes, in addition to those contained in the former
editions, have been made by the American editor, which upon a
reperusal of the volume seemed useful if not necessary: and some
statistical results of the census of 1840 have been added, in
connection with similar results given by the author from returns
previous to that year.



                PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

The following work of M. DE TOCQUEVILLE has attracted great
attention throughout Europe, where it is universally regarded as
a sound, philosophical, impartial, and remarkably clear and
distinct view of our political institutions, and of our manners,
opinions, and habits, as influencing or influenced by those
institutions. Writers, reviewers, and statesmen of all parties,
have united in the highest commendations of its ability and
integrity. The people, described by a work of such a character,
should not be the only one in Christendom unacquainted with its
contents. At least, so thought many of our most distinguished
men, who have urged the publishers of this edition to reprint the
work, and present it to the American public. They have done so
in the hope of promoting among their countrymen a more thorough
knowledge of their frames of government, and a more just
appreciation of the great principles on which they are founded.

But it seemed to them that a reprint in America of the views of
an author so well entitled to regard and confidence, without any
correction of the few errors or mistakes that might be found,
would be in effect to give authenticity to the whole work, and
that foreign readers, especially, would consider silence, under
such circumstances, as strong evidence of the accuracy of its
statements. The preface to the English edition, too, was not
adapted to this country, having been written, as it would seem,
in reference to the political questions which agitate Great
Britain. The publishers, therefore, applied to the writer of
this, to furnish them with a short preface, and such notes upon
the text as might appear necessary to correct any erroneous
impressions. Having had the honor of a personal acquaintance
with M. DE TOCQUEVILLE while he was in this country; having
discussed with him many of the topics treated of in this book;
having entered deeply into the feelings and sentiments which
guided and impelled him in his task, and having formed a high
admiration of his character and of this production, the writer
felt under some obligation to aid in procuring for one whom he
ventures to call his friend, a hearing from those who were the
subjects of his observations. These circumstances furnish to his
own mind an apology for undertaking what no one seemed willing to
attempt, notwithstanding his want of practice in literary
composition, and notwithstanding the impediments of professional
avocations, constantly recurring, and interrupting that strict
and continued examination of the work, which became necessary, as
well to detect any errors of the author, as any misunderstanding
or misrepresentation of his meaning by his translator. If the
same circumstances will atone in the least for the imperfections
of what the editor has contributed to this edition, and will
serve to mitigate the severity of judgment upon those
contributions, it is all he can hope or ask.

The NOTES are confined, with very few exceptions, to the
correction of what appeared to be misapprehensions of the author
in regard to some matters of fact, or some principles of law, and
to explaining his meaning where the translator had misconceived
it. For the latter purpose the original was consulted; and it
affords great pleasure to bear witness to the general fidelity
with which Mr. REEVE has transferred the author's ideas from
French into English. He has not been a literal translator, and
this has been the cause of the very few errors which have been
discovered: but he has been more and better: he has caught the
spirit of M. DE TOCQUEVILLE, has understood the sentiment he
meant to express, and has clothed it in the language which M. DE
TOCQUEVILLE would have himself used, had he possessed equal
facility in writing the English language.

Being confined to the objects before mentioned, the reader will
not find any comments on the theoretical views of our author. He
has discussed many subjects on which very different opinions are
entertained in the United States; but with an ability, a candor,
and an evident devotion to the cause of truth, which will commend
his views to those who most radically dissent from them. Indeed,
readers of the most discordant opinions will find that he
frequently agrees with both sides, and as frequently differs from
them. As an instance, his remarks on slavery will not be found
to coincide throughout with the opinions either of abolitionists
or of slaveholders: but they will be found to present a masterly
view of a most perplexing and interesting subject, which seems to
cover the whole ground, and to lead to the melancholy conclusion
of the utter impotency of human effort to eradicate this
acknowledged evil. But on this, and on the various topics of the
deepest interest which are discussed in this work, it was thought
that the American readers would be fully competent to form their
own opinions, and to detect any errors of the author, if such
there are, without any attempt of the present editor to enlighten
them. At all events, it is to be hoped that the citizens of the
United States will patiently read, and candidly consider, the
views of this accomplished foreigner, however hostile they may be
to their own preconceived opinions or prejudices. He says:
"There are certain truths which Americans can only learn from
strangers, or from experience." Let us, then, at least listen to
one who admires us and our institutions, and whose complaints,
when he makes any, are, that we have not perfected our own
glorious plans, and that there are some things yet to be amended.
We shall thus furnish a practical proof, that public opinion in
this country is not so intolerant as the author may be understood
to represent it. However mistaken he may be, his manly appeal to
our understandings and to our consciences, should at least be
heard. "If ever," he says, "these lines are read in America, I
am well assured of two things: in the first place, that all who
peruse them will raise their voice to condemn me; and, in the
second place, that very many of them will acquit me at the bottom
of their consciences." He is writing on that very sore subject,
the tyranny of public opinion in the United States.

Fully to comprehend the scope of the present work, the author's
motive and object in preparing it should be distinctly kept in
view. He has written, not for America, but for France. "It was
not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity," he says,
"that I have examined America: my wish has been to find
instruction, by which we might ourselves profit."--"I sought the
image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character,
its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what
_we_ have to hope or fear from its progress." He thinks
that the principle of democracy has sprung into new life
throughout Europe, and particularly in France, and that it is
advancing: with a firm and steady march to the control of all
civilized governments. In his own country, he had seen a recent
attempt to repress its energies within due bounds, and to prevent
the consequences of its excesses. And it seems to be a main
object with him, to ascertain whether these bounds can be relied
upon; whether the dikes and embankments of human contrivance can
keep within any appointed channel this mighty and majestic
stream. Giving the fullest confidence to his declaration, that
his book "is written to favor no particular views and with no
design of serving or attacking any party," it is yet evident that
his mind has been very open to receive impressions unfavorable to
the admission into France of the unbounded and unlimited
democracy which reigns in these United States. A knowledge of
this inclination of his mind will necessarily induce some caution
in his readers, while perusing those parts of the work which
treat of the effects of our democracy upon the stability of our
government and its administration. While the views of the
author, respecting the application of the democratic principle,
in the extent that it exists with us, to the institutions of
France, or to any of the European nations, are of the utmost
importance to the people and statesmen of those countries, they
are scarcely less entitled to the attention of Americans. He has
exhibited, with admirable skill, the causes and circumstances
which prepared our forefathers, gradually, for the enjoyment of
free institutions, and which enable them to sustain, without
abusing, the utmost liberty that was ever enjoyed by any people.
In tracing these causes, in examining how far they continue to
influence our conduct, manners, and opinions, and in searching
for the means of preventing their decay or destruction, the
intelligent American reader will find no better guide than M. DE
TOCQUEVILLE.

Fresh from the scenes of the "three days" revolution in France,
the author came among us to observe, carefully and critically,
the operation of the new principle on which the happiness of his
country, and, as he seems to believe, the destinies of the
civilized world, depend. Filled with the love of liberty, but
remembering the atrocities which, in its name, had been committed
under former dynasties at home, he sought to discover the means
by which it was regulated in America, and reconciled with social
order. By his laborious investigations, and minute observations
of the history of the settlement of the country, and of its
progress through the colonial state to independence, he found the
object of his inquiry in the manners, habits, and opinions, of a
people who had been gradually prepared, by a long course of
peculiar circumstances, and by their local position, for
self-government; and he has explained, with a pencil of light,
the mystery that has baffled Europeans and perplexed Americans.
He exhibits us, in our present condition, a new, and to
Europeans, a strange people. His views of our political
institutions are more general, comprehensive, and philosophic
than have been presented by any writer, domestic or foreign. He
has traced them from their source, democracy--the power of the
people--and has steadily pursued this foundation-principle in all
its forms and modifications: in the frame of our governments, in
their administration by the different executives, in our
legislation, in the arrangement of our judiciary, in our manners,
in religion, in the freedom and licentiousness of the press, in
the influence of public opinion, and in various subtle recesses,
where its existence was scarcely suspected. In all these, he
analyzes and dissects the tendencies of democracy; heartily
applauds where he can, and faithfully and independently gives
warning of dangers that he foresees. No one can read the result
of his observations without better and clearer perceptions of the
structure of our governments, of the great pillars on which they
rest, and of the dangers to which they are exposed: nor without a
more profound and more intelligent admiration of the harmony and
beauty of their formation, and of the safeguards provided for
preserving and transmitting them to a distant posterity. The
more that general and indefinite notions of our own liberty,
greatness, happiness, &c., are made to give place to precise and
accurate knowledge of the true merits of our institutions, the
peculiar objects they are calculated to attain or promote, and
the means provided for that purpose, the better will every
citizen be enabled to discharge his great political duty of
guarding those means against the approach of corruption, and of
sustaining them against the violence of party commotions. No
foreigner has ever exhibited such a deep, clear, and correct
insight of the machinery of our complicated systems of federal
and state governments. The most intelligent Europeans are
confounded with our _imperium in imperio_; and their
constant wonder is, that these systems are not continually
jostling each other. M. DE TOCQUEVILLE has clearly perceived,
and traced correctly and distinctly, the orbits in which they
move, and has described, or rather defined, our federal
government, with an accurate precision, unsurpassed even by an
American pen. There is no citizen of this country who will not
derive instruction from our author's account of our national
government, or, at least, who will not find his own ideas
systematised, and rendered more fixed and precise, by the perusal
of that account.

Among other subjects discussed by the author, that of the
_political influence_ of the institution of trial by jury,
is one of the most curious and interesting. He has certainly
presented it in a light entirely new, and as important as it is
new. It may be that he has exaggerated its influence as "a
gratuitous public school;" but if he has, the error will be
readily forgiven.

His views of religion, as connected with patriotism, in other
words, with the democratic principle, which he steadily keeps in
view, are conceived in the noblest spirit of philanthropy, and
cannot fail to confirm the principles already so thoroughly and
universally entertained by the American people. And no one can
read his observations on the union of "church and state," without
a feeling of deep gratitude to the founders of our government,
for saving us from such a prolific source of evil.

These allusions to topics that have interested the writer, are
not intended as an enumeration of the various subjects which will
arrest the attention of the American reader. They have been
mentioned rather with a view of exciting an appetite for the
whole feast, than as exhibiting the choice dainties which cover
the board.

It remains only to observe, that in this edition the
constitutions of the United States and of the state of New York,
which had been published at large in the original and in the
English edition, have been omitted, as they are documents to
which every American reader has access. The map which the author
annexed to his work, and which has been hitherto omitted, is now
for the first time inserted in the American edition, to which has
been added the census of 1840.



                      TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.

       *       *       *       *       *

PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.
Introduction.

                           CHAPTER I.
Exterior form of North America.

                           CHAPTER II.
Origin of the Anglo-Americans, and its Importance in Relation to
  their future Condition.
    Reasons of certain Anomalies which the Laws and Customs of the
      Anglo-Americans present.

                          CHAPTER III.
Social Condition of the Anglo-Americans.
    The striking Characteristic of the social Condition of the
      Anglo-Americans is its essential Democracy.
    Political Consequences of the social Condition of the
      Anglo-Americans.

                           CHAPTER IV.
The Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America.

                           CHAPTER V.
Necessity of examining the Condition of the States before that of
  the Union at large.
    The American System of Townships and municipal Bodies.
    Limits of the Townships.
    Authorities of the Township in New England.
    Existence of the Township.
    Public Spirit of the Townships of New England.
    The Counties of New England.
    Administration in New England.
    General Remarks on the Administration of the United States.
    Of the State.
    Legislative Power of the State.
    The executive Power of the State.
    Political Effects of the System of local Administration in
      the United States.

                           CHAPTER VI.

Judicial Power in the United States, and its Influence on
  Political Society.
    Other Powers granted to the American Judges.

                          CHAPTER VII.
Political Jurisdiction in the United States.

                          CHAPTER VIII.
The federal Constitution.
    History of the federal Constitution.
    Summary of the federal Constitution.
    Prerogative of the federal Government.
    Federal Powers.
    Legislative Powers.
    A farther Difference between the Senate and the House of
      Representatives.
    The executive Power.
    Differences between the Position of the President of the
      United States and that of a constitutional King of France.
    Accidental Causes which may increase the Influence of the
      executive Government.
    Why the President of the United States does not require the
      Majority of the two Houses in Order to carry on the
      Government.
    Election of the President.
    Mode of Election.
    Crisis of the Election.
    Re-Election of the President.
    Federal Courts.
    Means of determining the Jurisdiction of the federal Courts.
    Different Cases of Jurisdiction.
    Procedure of the federal Courts.
    High Rank of the supreme Courts among the great Powers
      of the State.
    In what Respects the federal Constitution is superior to that
      of the States.
    Characteristics which distinguish the federal Constitution of
      the United States of America from all other federal
      Constitutions.
    Advantages of the federal System in General, and its special
      Utility in America.
    Why the federal System is not adapted to all Peoples, and
      how the Anglo-Americans were enabled to adopt it.

                           CHAPTER IX.
Why the People may strictly be said to govern in the United
  States.

                           CHAPTER X.
Parties in the United States.
    Remains of the aristocratic Party in the United States

                           CHAPTER XI.
Liberty of the Press in the United States.

                          CHAPTER XII.
Political Associations in the United States.

                          CHAPTER XIII.
Government of the Democracy in America.
    Universal Suffrage.
    Choice of the People, and instinctive Preferences of the
      American Democracy.
    Causes which may partly correct the Tendencies of the
      Democracy.
    Influence which the American Democracy has exercised on
      the Laws relating to Elections.
    Public Officers under the control of the Democracy in America.
    Arbitrary Power of Magistrates under the Rule of the American
      Democracy.
    Instability of the Administration in the United States.
    Charges levied by the State under the rule of the American
      Democracy.
    Tendencies of the American Democracy as regards the Salaries
      of public Officers.
    Difficulties of distinguishing the Causes which contribute to
      the Economy of the American Government.
    Whether the Expenditure of the United States can be compared
      to that of France.
    Corruption and vices of the Rulers in a Democracy, and
      consequent Effects upon public Morality.
    Efforts of which a Democracy is capable.
    Self-control of the American Democracy.
    Conduct of foreign Affairs, by the American Democracy.

                          CHAPTER XIV.
What the real Advantages are which American Society derives
  from the Government of the Democracy.

    General Tendency of the Laws under the Rule of the American
      Democracy, and Habits of those who apply them.
    Public Spirit in the United States.
    Notion of Rights in the United States.
    Respect for the Law in the United States.
    Activity which pervades all the Branches of the Body politic
      in the United States; Influence which it exercises upon
      Society.

                           CHAPTER XV.
Unlimited Power of the Majority in the United States, and its
  Consequences.
    How the unlimited Power of the Majority increases in America,
      the Instability of Legislation inherent in Democracy.
    Tyranny of the Majority.
    Effects of the unlimited Power of the Majority upon the
      arbitrary Authority of the American public Officers.
    Power exercised by the Majority in America upon public
      Opinion.
    Effects of the Tyranny of the Majority upon the national
      Character of the Americans.
    The greatest Dangers of the American Republics proceed from
      the unlimited Power of the Majority.

                          CHAPTER XVI.
Causes which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority in the United
  States.
    Absence of central Administration.
    The Profession of the Law in the United States serves to
      Counterpoise the Democracy.
    Trial by Jury in the United States considered as a political
      Institution.

                          CHAPTER XVII.
Principal Causes which tend to maintain the democratic Republic
  in the United States.
    Accidental or providential Causes which contribute to the
      Maintenance of the democratic Republic in the United
      States.
    Influence of the Laws upon the Maintenance of the democratic
      Republic in the United States.
    Influence of Manners upon the Maintenance of the democratic
      Republic in the United States.
    Religion considered as a political Institution, which
      powerfully Contributes to the Maintenance of the democratic
      Republic among the Americans.
    Indirect Influence of religious Opinions upon political
      Society in the United States.
    Principal Causes which render Religion powerful in America.
    How the Instruction, the Habits, and the practical Experience
      of the Americans, promote the Success of their democratic
      Institutions.
    The Laws contribute more to the Maintenance of the democratic
      Republic in the United States than the physical
      Circumstances of the Country, and the Manners more than the
      Laws.
    Whether Laws and Manners are sufficient to maintain
      democratic Institutions in other Countries beside America.
    Importance of what precedes with respect to the State of
      Europe.

                         CHAPTER XVIII.
The present and probable future Condition of the three Races
  which Inhabit the Territory of the United States.
    The present and probable future Condition of the Indian
      Tribes which Inhabit the Territory possessed by the Union.
    Situation of the black Population in the United States, and
      Dangers with which its Presence threatens the Whites.
    What are the Chances in favor of the Duration of the American
      Union, and what Dangers threaten it.
    Of the republican Institutions of the United States, and what
      their Chances of Duration are.
    Reflections on the Causes of the commercial Prosperity of the
      United States.
    Conclusion.

Appendix

       *       *       *       *       *

                          INTRODUCTION.

Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my
stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than
the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the
prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the
whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public
opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims
to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed.

I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far
beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and
that it has no less empire over civil society than over the
government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, the
ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not
produce.

The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I
perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact
from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point
at which all my observations constantly terminated.

I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined
that I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the
New World presented to me. I observed that the equality of
conditions is daily advancing towards those extreme limits which
it seems to have reached in the United States; and that the
democracy which governs the American communities, appears to be
rapidly rising into power in Europe.

I hence conceived the idea of the book which is now before the
reader.

It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is
going on among us; but there are two opinions as to its nature
and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident,
which as such may still be checked; to others it seems
irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient,
and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.

Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago,
when the territory was divided among a small number of families,
who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of the
inhabitants; the fight of governing descended with the family
inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only
means by which man could act on man; and landed property was the
sole source of power.

Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded, and
began to exert itself; the clergy opened its ranks to all
classes, to the poor and the rich, the villain and the lord;
equality penetrated into the government through the church, and
the being who, as a serf, must have vegetated in perpetual
bondage, took his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and
not unfrequently above the heads of kings.

The different relations of men became more complicated and more
numerous, as society gradually became more stable and more
civilized. Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and the order
of legal functionaries soon rose from the obscurity of the
tribunals and their dusty chambers, to appear at the court of the
monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in their ermine and
their mail.

While the kings were ruining themselves by their great
enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private
wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce.
The influence of money began to be perceptible in state affairs.
The transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the
financier rose to a station of political influence in which he
was at once flattered and despised.

Gradually the spread of mental acquirements, and the increasing
taste for literature and art, opened chances of success to
talent; science became the means of government, intelligence led
to social power, and the man of letters took a part in the
affairs of the state.

The value attached to the privileges of birth, decreased in the
exact proportion in which new paths were struck out to
advancement. In the eleventh century nobility was beyond all
price; in the thirteenth it might be purchased; it was conferred
for the first time in 1270; and equality was thus introduced into
the government by the aristocracy itself.

In the course of these seven hundred years, it sometimes happened
that, in order to resist the authority of the crown, or to
diminish the power of their rivals, the nobles granted a certain
share of political rights to the people. Or, more frequently the
king permitted the lower orders to enjoy a degree of power, with
the intention of repressing the aristocracy.

In France the kings have always been the most active and the most
constant of levellers. When they were strong and ambitious, they
spared no pains to raise the people to the level of the nobles;
when they were temperate or weak, they allowed the people to rise
above themselves. Some assisted the democracy by their talents,
others by their vices. Louis XI. and Louis XIV. reduced every
rank beneath the throne to the same subjection; Louis
XV. descended, himself and all his court, into the dust.

As soon as land was held on any other than a feudal tenure, and
personal property began in its turn to confer influence and
power, every improvement which was introduced in commerce or
manufacture, was a fresh element of the equality of conditions.
Henceforward every new discovery, every new want which it
engendered, and every new desire which craved satisfaction, was a
step toward the universal level. The taste for luxury, the love
of war, the sway of fashion, the most superficial, as well as the
deepest passions of the human heart, co-operated to enrich the
poor and to empoverish the rich.

From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the
source of strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to
consider every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every
new idea, as a germe of power placed within the reach of the
people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the grace of wit, the
glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all the gifts
which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned to
the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in the
possession of its adversaries, they still served its cause by
throwing into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests
spread, therefore, with those of civilisation and knowledge; and
literature became an arsenal, where the poorest and weakest could
always find weapons to their hand.

In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with
a single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which
has not turned to the advantage of equality.

The crusades and the wars of the English decimated the nobles,
and divided their possessions; the erection of communes
introduced an element of democratic liberty into the bosom of
feudal monarchy; the invention of firearms equalized the villain
and the noble on the field of battle; printing opened the same
resources to the minds of all classes; the post was organized so
as to bring the same information to the door of the poor man's
cottage and to the gate of the palace; and protestantism
proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to
heaven. The discovery of America offered a thousand new paths to
fortune, and placed riches and power within the reach of the
adventurous and the obscure.

If we examine what has happened in France at intervals of fifty
years, beginning with the eleventh century, we shall invariably
perceive that a twofold revolution has taken place in the state
of society. The noble has gone down on the social ladder, and
the _roturier_ has gone up; the one descends as the other
rises. Every half-century brings them nearer to each other, and
they will very shortly meet.

Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. Whithersoever
we turn our eyes, we shall discover the same continual revolution
throughout the whole of Christendom.

The various occurrences of national existence have everywhere
turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have aided it by
their exertions; those who have intentionally labored in its
cause, and those who have served it unwittingly--those who have
fought for it, and those who have declared themselves its
opponents--have all been driven along in the same track, have all
labored to one end, some ignorantly, and some unwillingly; all
have been blind instruments in the hands of God.

The gradual development of the equality of conditions is,
therefore, a providential fact, and it possesses all the
characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is
durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all
events as well as all men contribute to its progress.

Would it, then, be wise to imagine that a social impulse which
dates from so far back, can be checked by the efforts of a
generation?  Is it credible that the democracy which has
annihilated the feudal system, and vanquished kings, will respect
the citizen and the capitalist?  Will it stop now that it has
grown so strong and its adversaries so weak?

None can say which way we are going, for all terms of comparison
are wanting: the equality of conditions is more complete in the
Christian, countries of the present day, than it has been at any
time, or in any part of the world; so that the extent of what
already exists prevents us from foreseeing what may be yet to
come.

The whole book which is here offered to the public, has been
written under the impression of a kind of religious dread,
produced in the author's mind by the contemplation of so
irresistible a revolution, which has advanced for centuries in
spite of such amazing obstacles, and which is still proceeding in
the midst of the ruins it has made.

It is not necessary that God himself should speak in order to
disclose to us the unquestionable signs of his will; we can
discern them in the habitual course of nature, and in the
invariable tendency of events; I know, without a special
revelation, that the planets move in the orbits traced by the
Creator's fingers.

If the men of our time were led by attentive observation and by
sincere reflection, to acknowledge that the gradual and
progressive development of social equality is at once the past
and future of their history, this solitary truth would confer the
sacred character of a divine decree upon the change. To attempt
to check democracy would be in that case to resist the will of
God; and the nations would then be constrained to make the best
of the social lot awarded to them by Providence.

The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most
alarming spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so
strong that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that
it cannot be guided: their fate is in their hands; yet a little
while and it may be so no longer.

The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who
direct our affairs is to educate the democracy; to warm its
faith, if that be possible; to purify its morals; to direct its
energies; to substitute a knowledge of business for its
inexperience, and an acquaintance with its true interests for its
blind propensities; to adapt its government to time and place,
and to modify it in compliance with the occurrences and the
actors of the age.

A new science of politics is indispensable to a new world.

This, however, is what we think of least; launched in the middle
of a rapid stream, we obstinately fix our eyes on the ruins which
may still be descried upon the shore we have left, while the
current sweeps us along, and drives us backward toward the gulf.

In no country in Europe has the great social revolution which I
have been describing, made such rapid progress as in France; but
it has always been borne on by chance. The heads of the state
have never had any forethought for its exigencies, and its
victories have been obtained without their consent or without
their knowledge. The most powerful, the most intelligent, and
the most moral classes of the nation have never attempted to
connect themselves with it in order to guide it. The people have
consequently been abandoned to its wild propensities, and it has
grown up like those outcasts who receive their education in the
public streets, and who are unacquainted with aught but the vices
and wretchedness of society. The existence of a democracy was
seemingly unknown, when, on a sudden, it took possession of the
supreme power. Everything was then submitted to its caprices; it
was worshipped as the idol of strength; until, when it was
enfeebled by its own excesses, the legislator conceived the rash
project of annihilating its power, instead of instructing it and
correcting its vices; no attempt was made to fit it to govern,
but all were bent on excluding it from the government.

The consequence of this has been that the democratic revolution
has been effected only in the material parts of society, without
that concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and mariners,
which was necessary to render such a revolution beneficial. We
have gotten a democracy, but without the conditions which lessen
its vices, and render its natural advantages more prominent; and
although we already perceive the evils it brings, we are ignorant
of the benefits it may confer.

While the power of the crown, supported by the aristocracy,
peaceably governed the nations of Europe, society possessed, in
the midst of its wretchedness, several different advantages which
can now scarcely be appreciated or conceived.

The power of a part of his subjects was an insurmountable barrier
to the tyranny of the prince; and the monarch who felt the almost
divine character which he enjoyed in the eyes of the multitude,
derived a motive for the just use of his power from the respect
which he inspired.

High as they were placed above the people, the nobles could not
but take that calm and benevolent interest in its fate which the
shepherd feels toward his flock; and without acknowledging the
poor as their equals, they watched over the destiny of those
whose welfare Providence had intrusted to their care.

The people, never having conceived the idea of a social condition
different from its own, and entertaining no expectation of ever
ranking with its chiefs, received benefits from them without
discussing their rights. It grew attached to them when they were
clement and just, but it submitted without resistance or
servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable visitations of
the arm of God. Custom, and the manners of the time, had
moreover created a species of law in the midst of violence, and
established certain limits to oppression.

As the noble never suspected that any one would attempt to
deprive him of the privileges which he believed to be legitimate,
and as the serf looked upon his own inferiority as a consequence
of the immutable order of nature, it is easy to imagine that a
mutual exchange of good-will took place between two classes so
differently gifted by fate. Inequality and wretchedness were
then to be found in society; but the souls of neither rank of men
were degraded.

Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the
habit of obedience; but by the exercise of power which they
believe to be illegal, and by obedience to a rule which they
consider to be usurped and oppressive.

On one side were wealth, strength, and leisure, accompanied by
the refinement of luxury, the elegance of taste, the pleasures of
wit, and the religion of art. On the other were labor, and a
rude ignorance; but in the midst of this coarse and ignorant
multitude, it was not uncommon to meet with energetic passions,
generous sentiments, profound religious convictions, and
independent virtues.

The body of a state thus organized, might boast of its stability,
its power, and above all, of its glory.

But the scene is now changed, and gradually the two ranks mingle;
the divisions which once severed mankind, are lowered; property
is divided, power is held in common, the light of intelligence
spreads, and the capacities of all classes are equally
cultivated; the state becomes democratic, and the empire of
democracy is slowly and peaceably introduced into the
institutions and manners of the nation.

I can conceive a society in which all men would profess an equal
attachment and respect for the laws of which they are the common
authors; in which the authority of the state would be respected
as necessary, though not as divine; and the loyalty of the
subject to the chief magistrate would not be a passion, but a
quiet and rational persuasion. Every individual being in the
possession of rights which he is sure to retain, a kind of manly
reliance and reciprocal courtesy would arise between all classes,
alike removed from pride and meanness.

The people, well acquainted with its true interests, would allow,
that in order to profit by the advantages of society, it is
necessary to satisfy its demands. In this state of things, the
voluntary association of the citizens might supply the individual
exertions of the nobles, and the community would be alike
protected from anarchy and from oppression.

I admit that in a democratic state thus constituted, society will
not be stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be
regulated and directed forward; if there be less splendor than in
the halls of an aristocracy, the contrast of misery will be less
frequent also; the pleasures of enjoyment may be less excessive,
but those of comfort will be more general; the sciences may be
less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance will be less common; the
impetuosity of the feelings will be repressed, and the habits of
the nation softened; there will be more vices and fewer crimes.

In the absence of enthusiasm and of an ardent faith, great
sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a commonwealth by
an appeal to their understandings and their experience: each
individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his
fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that
if they are to assist he must co-operate, he will readily
perceive that his personal interest is identified with the
interest of the community.

The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less
glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the
citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity, and the
people will remain quiet, not because it despairs of melioration,
but because it is conscious of the advantages of its condition.

If all the consequences of this state of things were not good or
useful, society would at least have appropriated all such as were
useful and good; and having once and for ever renounced the
social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would enter into
possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford.

But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place of
those institutions, those ideas, and those customs of our
forefathers which we have abandoned.

The spell of royalty is broken, but it has not been succeeded by
the majesty of the laws; the people have learned to despise all
authority. But fear now extorts a larger tribute of obedience
than that which was formerly paid by reverence and by love.

I perceive that we have destroyed those independent beings which
were able to cope with tyranny single-handed; but it is the
government that has inherited the privileges of which families,
corporations, and individuals, have been deprived; the weakness
of the whole community has, therefore, succeeded to that
influence of a small body of citizens, which, if it was sometimes
oppressive, was often conservative.

The division of property has lessened the distance which
separated the rich from the poor; but it would seem that the
nearer they draw to each other, the greater is their mutual
hatred, and the more vehement the envy and the dread with which
they resist each other's claims to power; the notion of right is
alike insensible to both classes, and force affords to both the
only argument for the present, and the only guarantee for the
future.

The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without
their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has
adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions,
without understanding the science which controls it, and his
egotism is no less blind than his devotedness was formerly.

If society is tranquil, it is not because it relies upon its
strength and its well-being, but because it knows its weakness
and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it its life;
everybody, feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy
enough to seek the cure; the desires, the regret, the sorrows,
and the joys of the time, produce nothing that is visible or
permanent, like the passions of old men which terminate in
impotence.

We have, then, abandoned whatever advantages the old state of
things afforded, without receiving any compensation from our
present condition; having destroyed an aristocracy, we seem
inclined to survey its ruins with complacency, and to fix our
abode in the midst of them.

The phenomena which the intellectual world presents, are not less
deplorable. The democracy of France, checked in its course or
abandoned to its lawless passions, has overthrown whatever
crossed its path, and has shaken all that it has not destroyed.
Its control over society has not been gradually introduced, or
peaceably established, but it has constantly advanced in the
midst of disorder, and the agitation of a conflict. In the heat
of the struggle each partisan is hurried beyond the limits of his
opinions by the opinions and the excesses of his opponents, until
he loses sight of the end of his exertions, and holds a language
which disguises his real sentiments or secret instincts. Hence
arises the strange confusion which we are beholding.

I cannot recall to my mind a passage in history more worthy of
sorrow and of pity than the scenes which are happening under our
eyes; it is as if the natural bond which unites the opinions of
man to his tastes, and his actions to his principles, was now
broken; the sympathy which has always been acknowledged between
the feelings and the ideas of mankind, appears to be dissolved,
and all the laws of moral analogy to be abolished.

Zealous Christians may be found among us, whose minds are
nurtured in the love and knowledge of a future life, and who
readily espouse the cause of human liberty, as the source of all
moral greatness. Christianity, which has declared that all men
are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowledge
that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law. But, by a
singular concourse of events, religion is entangled in those
institutions which democracy assails, and it is not unfrequently
brought to reject the equality it loves, and to curse that cause
of liberty as a foe, which it might hallow by its alliance.

By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks
are turned to the earth more than to heaven; they are the
partisans of liberty, not only as the source of the noblest
virtues, but more especially as the root of all solid advantages;
and they sincerely desire to extend its sway, and to impart its
blessings to mankind. It is natural that they should hasten to
invoke the assistance of religion, for they must know that
liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality
without faith; but they have seen religion in the ranks of their
adversaries, and they inquire no farther; some of them attack it
openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it.

In former ages slavery has been advocated by the venal and
slavish-minded, while the independent and the warm-hearted were
struggling without hope to save the liberties of mankind. But
men of high and generous characters are now to be met with, whose
opinions are at variance with their inclinations, and who praise
that servility which they have themselves never known. Others,
on the contrary, speak in the name of liberty as if they were
able to feel its sanctity and its majesty, and loudly claim for
humanity those rights which they have always disowned.

There are virtuous and peaceful individuals whose pure morality,
quiet habits, affluence, and talents, fit them to be the leaders
of the surrounding population; their love of their country is
sincere, and they are prepared to make the greatest sacrifices to
its welfare, but they confound the abuses of civilisation with
its benefits, and the idea of evil is inseparable in their minds
from that of novelty.

Not far from this class is another party, whose object is to
materialise mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without
heeding what is just; to acquire knowledge without faith, and
prosperity apart from virtue; assuming the title of the champions
of modern civilisation, and placing themselves in a station which
they usurp with insolence, and from which they are driven by
their own unworthiness.

Where are we then?

The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of
liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate
subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach
independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all
progress, while men without patriotism and without principles,
are the apostles of civilisation and of intelligence.

Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our
own? and has man always inhabited a world, like the present,
where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius,
and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded
with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a
contempt of law; where the light thrown by conscience on human
actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer
forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?

I cannot, however, believe that the Creator made man to leave him
in an endless struggle with the intellectual miseries which
surround us: God destines a calmer and a more certain future to
the communities of Europe; I am unacquainted with his designs,
but I shall not cease to believe in them because I cannot fathom
them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity than his justice.

There is a country in the world where the great revolution which
I am speaking of seems nearly to have reached its natural limits;
it has been effected with ease and simplicity, say rather that
this country has attained the consequences of the democratic
revolution which we are undergoing, without having experienced
the revolution itself.

The emigrants who fixed themselves on the shores of America in
the beginning of the seventeenth century, severed the democratic
principle from all the principles which repressed it in the old
communities of Europe, and transplanted it unalloyed to the New
World. It has there been allowed to spread in perfect freedom,
and to put forth its consequences in the laws by influencing the
manners of the country.

It appears to me beyond a doubt, that sooner or later we shall
arrive, like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of
conditions. But I do not conclude from this, that we shall ever
be necessarily led to draw the same political consequences which
the Americans have derived from a similar social organization. I
am far from supposing that they have chosen the only form of
government which a democracy may adopt; but the identity of the
efficient cause of laws and manners in the two countries is
sufficient to account for the immense interest we have in
becoming acquainted with its effects in each of them.

It is not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I
have examined America; my wish has been to find instruction by
which we may ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine that I
have intended to write a panegyric would be strangely mistaken,
and on reading this book, he will perceive that such was not my
design: nor has it been my object to advocate any form of
government in particular, for I am of opinion that absolute
excellence is rarely to be found in any legislation; I have not
even affected to discuss whether the social revolution, which I
believe to be irresistible, is advantageous or prejudicial to
mankind; I have acknowledged this revolution as a fact already
accomplished or on the eve of its accomplishment; and I have
selected the nation, from among those which have undergone it, in
which its development has been the most peaceful and the most
complete, in order to discern its natural consequences, and, if
it be possible, to distinguish the means by which it may be
rendered profitable. I confess that in America I saw more than
America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its
inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in
order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress.

In the first part of this work I have attempted to show the
tendency given to the laws by the democracy of America, which is
abandoned almost without restraint to its instinctive
propensities; and to exhibit the course it prescribes to the
government, and the influence it exercises on affairs. I have
sought to discover the evils and the advantages which it
produces. I have examined the precautions used by the Americans
to direct it, as well as those which they have not adopted, and I
have undertaken to point out the causes which enable it to govern
society.

It was my intention to depict, in a second part, the influence
which the equality of conditions and the rule of democracy
exercise on the civil society, the habits, the ideas, and the
manners of the Americans; I begin, however, to feel less ardor
for the accomplishment of this project, since the excellent work
of my friend and travelling companion M. de Beaumont has been
given to the world.[Footnote:

This work is entitled, Marie, ou l'Esclavage aux Etats-Unis.

]  I do not know whether I have succeeded in making known what I
saw in America, but I am certain that such has been my sincere
desire, and that I have never, knowingly, moulded facts to ideas,
instead of ideas to facts.

Whenever a point could be established by the aid of written
documents, I have had recourse to the original text, and to the
most authentic and approved works.[Footnote:

Legislative and administrative documents have been furnished me
with a degree of politeness which I shall always remember with
gratitude. Among the American functionaries who thus favored my
inquiries I am proud to name Mr. Edward Livingston, then
Secretary of State and late American minister at Paris. During
my stay at the session of Congress, Mr. Livingston was kind
enough to furnish me with the greater part of the documents I
possess relative to the federal government. Mr. Livingston is
one of those rare individuals whom one loves, respects, and
admires, from their writings, and to whom one is happy to incur
the debt of gratitude on further acquaintance.

]  I have cited my authorities in the notes, and any one may
refer to them. Whenever an opinion, a political custom, or a
remark on the manners of the country was concerned, I endeavored
to consult the most enlightened men I met with. If the point in
question was important or doubtful, I was not satisfied with one
testimony, but I formed my opinion on the evidence of several
witnesses. Here the reader must necessarily believe me upon my
word. I could frequently have quoted names which are either
known to him, or which deserve to be so, in proof of what I
advance; but I have carefully abstained from this practice. A
stranger frequently hears important truths at the fireside of his
host, which the latter would perhaps conceal even from the ear of
friendship; he consoles himself with his guest, for the silence
to which he is restricted, and the shortness of the traveller's
stay takes away all fear of his indiscretion. I carefully noted
every conversation of this nature as soon as it occurred, but
these notes will never leave my writing-case; I had rather injure
the success of my statements than add my name to the list of
those strangers who repay the generous hospitality they have
received by subsequent chagrin and annoyance.

I am aware that, notwithstanding my care, nothing will be easier
than to criticise this book, if any one ever chooses to criticise
it.

Those readers who may examine it closely will discover the
fundamental idea which connects the several parts together. But
the diversity of the subjects I have had to treat is exceedingly
great, and it will not be difficult to oppose an isolated fact to
the body of facts which I quote, or an isolated idea to the body
of ideas I put forth. I hope to be read in the spirit which has
guided my labors, and that my book may be judged by the general
impression it leaves, as I have formed my own judgment not on any
single reason, but upon the mass of evidence.

It must not be forgotten that the author who wishes to be
understood is obliged to push all his ideas to their utmost
theoretical consequences, and often to the verge of what is false
or impracticable; for if it be necessary sometimes to quit the
rules of logic in active life, such is not the case in discourse,
and a man finds that almost as many difficulties spring from
inconsistency of language, as usually arise from consistency of
conduct.

I conclude by pointing out myself what many readers will consider
the principal defect of the work. This book is written to favor
no particular views, and in composing it I have entertained no
design of serving or attacking any party: I have undertaken not
to see differently, but to look farther than parties, and while
they are busied for the morrow, I have turned my thoughts to the
future.

       *       *       *       *       *




                     AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS.



                           CHAPTER I.


                 EXTERIOR FORM OF NORTH AMERICA.

North America divided into two vast regions, one inclining toward
  the Pole, the other toward the Equator.--Valley of the
  Mississippi.--Traces of the Revolutions of the Globe.--Shore
  of the Atlantic Ocean, where the English Colonies were
  founded.--Difference in the Appearance of North and of South
  America at the Time of their Discovery.--Forests of North
  America.--Prairies.--Wandering Tribes of Natives.--Their
  outward Appearance, Manners, and Language.--Traces of an
  Unknown People.


North America presents in its external form certain general
features, which it is easy to discriminate at the first glance.

A sort of methodical order seems to have regulated the separation
of land and water, mountains and valleys. A simple but grand
arrangement is discoverable amid the confusion of objects and the
prodigious variety of scenes.

This continent is divided, almost equally, into two vast regions,
one of which is bounded, on the north by the arctic pole, and by
the two great oceans on the east and west. It stretches toward
the south, forming a triangle, whose irregular sides meet at
length below the great lakes of Canada.

The second region begins where the other terminates, and includes
all the remainder of the continent.

The one slopes gently toward the pole, the other toward the
equator.

The territory comprehended in the first regions descends toward
the north with so imperceptible a slope that it may almost be
said to form a level plain. Within the bounds of this immense
tract of country there are neither high mountains nor deep
valleys. Streams meander through it irregularly; great rivers
mix their currents, separate and meet again, disperse and form
vast marshes, losing all trace of their channels in the labyrinth
of waters they have themselves created; and thus, at length,
after innumerable windings, fall into the polar seas. The great
lakes which bound this first region are not walled in, like most
of those in the Old World, between hills and rocks. Their banks
are flat, and rise but a few feet above the level of their
waters; each of them thus forming a vast bowl filled to the brim.
The slightest change in the structure of the globe would cause
their waters to rush either toward the pole or to the tropical
sea.

The second region is more varied on its surface, and better
suited for the habitation of man. Two long chains of mountains
divide it from one extreme to the other; the Allegany ridge takes
the form of the shores of the Atlantic ocean; the other is
parallel with the Pacific.

The space which lies between these two chains of mountains
contains 1,341,649 square miles.[Footnote:

Darby's "View of the United States."

]  Its surface is therefore about six times as great as that of
France.

This vast territory, however, forms a single valley, one side of
which descends gradually from the rounded summits of the
Alleganies, while the other rises in an uninterrupted course
toward the tops of the Rocky mountains.

At the bottom of the valley flows an immense river, into which
the various streams issuing from the mountains fall from all
parts. In memory of their native land, the French formerly
called this the river St. Louis. The Indians, in their pompous
language, have named it the Father of Waters, or the Mississippi.

The Mississippi takes its source above the limit of the two great
regions of which I have spoken, not far from the highest point of
the table-land where they unite. Near the same spot rises
another river,[Footnote:

Mackenzie's river.

] which empties itself into the polar seas. The course of the
Mississippi is at first devious: it winds several times toward
the north, whence it rose; and, at length, after having been
delayed in lakes and marshes, it flows slowly onward to the
south.

Sometimes quietly gliding along the argillaceous bed which nature
has assigned to it; sometimes swollen by storms, the Mississippi
waters 2,500 miles in its course.[Footnote:

Warden's "Description of the United States."

]  At the distance of 1,364 miles from its mouth this river
attains an average depth of fifteen feet; and it is navigated by
vessels of 300 tons burden for a course of nearly 500 miles.
Fifty-seven large navigable rivers contribute to swell the waters
of the Mississippi; among others the Missouri, which traverses a
space of 2,500 miles; the Arkansas of 1,300 miles; the Red river
1,000 miles; four whose course is from 800 to 1000 miles in
length, viz., the Illinois, the St. Peter's, the St. Francis, and
the Moingona; besides a countless number of rivulets which unite
from all parts their tributary streams.

The valley which is watered by the Mississippi seems formed to be
the bed of this mighty river, which like a god of antiquity
dispenses both good and evil in its course. On the shores of the
stream nature displays an inexhaustible fertility; in proportion
as you recede from its banks, the powers of vegetation languish,
the soil becomes poor, and the plants that survive have a sickly
growth. Nowhere have the great convulsions of the globe left
more evident traces than in the valley of the Mississippi: the
whole aspect of the country shows the powerful effects of water,
both by its fertility and by its barrenness. The waters of the
primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable mould in
the valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the right
shore of the river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the
husbandman had passed over them with his roller. As you approach
the mountains, the soil becomes more aim more unequal and
sterile; the ground is, as it were, pierced in a thousand places
by primitive rocks, which appear like the bones of a skeleton
whose flesh is partly consumed. The surface of the earth is
covered with a granitic sand, and huge irregular masses of stone,
among which a few plants force their growth, and give the
appearance of a green field covered with the ruins of a vast
edifice. These stones and this sand discover, on examination, a
perfect analogy with those which compose the arid and broken
summits of the Rocky mountains. The flood of waters which washed
the soil to the bottom of the valley, afterward carried away
portions of the rocks themselves; and these, dashed and bruised
against the neighboring cliffs, were left scattered like wrecks
at their feet.[Footnote:

See Appendix A.

]

The valley of the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most
magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man's abode; and
yet it may be said that at present it is but a mighty desert.

On the eastern side of the Alleganies, between the base of these
mountains and the Atlantic ocean, lies a long ridge of rocks and
sand, which the sea appears to have left behind as it retired.
The mean breadth of this territory does not exceed one hundred
miles; but it is about nine hundred miles in length. This part
of the American continent has a soil which offers every obstacle
to the husbandman, and its vegetation is scanty and unvaried.

Upon this inhospitable coast the first united efforts of human
industry were made. This tongue of arid land was the cradle of
those English colonies which were destined one day to become the
United States of America. The centre of power still remains
there; while in the backward States the true elements of the
great people, to whom the future control of the continent
belongs, are secretly springing up.

When the Europeans first landed on the shores of the Antilles,
and afterwards on the coast of South America, they thought
themselves transported into those fabulous regions of which poets
had sung. The sea sparkled with phosphoric light, and the
extraordinary transparency of its waters discovered to the view
of the navigator all that had hitherto been hidden in the deep
abyss.[Footnote:

Malte Brun tells us (vol. v., p. 726) that the water of the
Caribbean sea is so transparent, that corals and fish are
discernible at a depth of sixty fathoms. The ship seemed to
float in the air, the navigator became giddy as his eye
penetrated through the crystal flood, and beheld submarine
gardens, or beds of shells, or gilded fishes gliding among tufts
and thickets of seaweed.

]  Here and there appeared little islands perfumed with
odoriferous plants, and resembling baskets of flowers, floating
on the tranquil surface of the ocean. Every object which met the
sight, in this enchanting region, seemed prepared to satisfy the
wants, or contribute to the pleasures of man. Almost all the
trees were loaded with nourishing fruits, and those which were
useless as food, delighted the eye by the brilliancy and variety
of their colors. In groves of fragrant lemon-trees, wild figs,
flowering myrtles, acacias, and oleanders, which were hung with
festoons of various climbing-plants, covered with flowers, a
multitude of birds unknown in Europe displayed their bright
plumage, glittering with purple and azure, and mingled their
warbling in the harmony of a world teeming with life and
motion.[Footnote:

See Appendix B.

]

Underneath this brilliant exterior death was concealed. The air
of these climates had so enervating an influence that man,
completely absorbed by the present enjoyment, was rendered
regardless of the future.

North America appeared under a very different aspect; there,
everything was grave, serious, and solemn; it seemed created to
be the domain of intelligence, as the south was that of sensual
delight. A turbulent and foggy ocean washed its shores. It was
girded round by a belt of granitic rocks, or by wide plains of
sand. The foliage of its woods was dark and gloomy; for they
were composed of firs, larches, evergreen oaks, wild olive-trees,
and laurels.

Beyond this outer belt lay the thick shades of the central
forests, where the largest trees which are produced in the two
hemispheres grow side by side. The plane, the catalpa, the
sugar-maple, and the Virginian poplar, mingled their branches
with those of the oak, the beech, and the lime.

In these, as in the forests of the Old World, destruction was
perpetually going on. The ruins of vegetation were heaped upon
each other; but there was no laboring hand to remove them, and
their decay was not rapid enough to make room for the continual
work of reproduction. Climbing-plants, grasses and other herbs,
forced their way through the moss of dying trees; they crept
along their bending trunks, found nourishment in their dusty
cavities, and a passage beneath the lifeless bark. Thus decay
gave its assistance to life, and their respective productions
were mingled together. The depths of these forests were gloomy
and obscure, and a thousand rivulets, undirected in their course
by human industry, preserved in them a constant moisture. It was
rare to meet with flowers, wild fruits, or birds, beneath their
shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by age, the rushing
torrent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and the howling
of the wind, were the only sounds which broke the silence of
nature.

To the east of the great river the woods almost disappeared; in
their stead were seen prairies of immense extent. Whether nature
in her infinite variety had denied the germes of trees to these
fertile plains, or whether they had once been covered with
forests, subsequently destroyed by the hand of man, is a question
which neither tradition nor scientific research has been able to
resolve.

These immense deserts were not, however, devoid of human
inhabitants. Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered
among the forest shades or the green pastures of the prairie.
From the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Delta of the
Mississippi, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, these
savages possessed certain points of resemblance which bore
witness of their common origin: but at the same time they
differed from all other known races of men:[Footnote:

With the progress of discovery, some resemblance has been found
to exist between the physical conformation, the language, and the
habits of the Indians of North America, and those of the Tongous,
Mantchous, Moguls, Tartars, and other wandering tribes of Asia.
The land occupied by these tribes is not very distant from
Behring's strait; which allows of the supposition, that at a
remote period they gave inhabitants to the desert continent of
America. But this is a point which has not yet been clearly
elucidated by science. See Malte Brun, vol. v.; the works of
Humboldt; Fischer, "Conjecture sur l'Origine des Amricains;"
Adair, "History of the American Indians."

] they were neither white like the Europeans, nor yellow like
most of the Asiatics, nor black like the negroes. Their skin was
reddish brown, their hair long and shining, their lips thin, and
their cheek-bones very prominent. The languages spoken by the
North American tribes were various as far as regarded their
words, but they were subject to the same grammatical rules.
Those rules differed in several points from such as had been
observed to govern the origin of language.

The idiom of the Americans seemed to be the product of new
combinations, and bespoke an effort of the understanding, of
which the Indians of our days would be incapable.[Footnote:

See Appendix C.

]

The social state of these tribes differed also in many respects
from all that was seen in the Old World. They seemed to have
multiplied freely in the midst of their deserts, without coming
in contact with other races more civilized than their own.

Accordingly, they exhibited none of those indistinct, incoherent
notions of right and wrong, none of that deep corruption of
manners that is usually joined with ignorance and rudeness among
nations which, after advancing to civilisation, have relapsed
into a state of barbarism. The Indian was indebted to no one but
himself; his virtues, his vices, and his prejudices, were his own
work; he had grown up in the wild independence of his nature.

If, in polished countries, the lowest of the people are rude and
uncivil, it is not merely because they are poor and ignorant, but
that, being so, they are in daily contact with rich and
enlightened men. The sight of their own hard lot and of their
weakness, which are daily contrasted with the happiness and power
of some of their fellow creatures, excites in their hearts at the
same time the sentiments of anger and of fear: the consciousness
of their inferiority and of their dependence irritates while it
humiliates them. This state of mind displays itself in their
manners and language; they are at once insolent and servile. The
truth of this is easily proved by observation; the people are
more rude in aristocratic countries than elsewhere; in opulent
cities than in rural districts. In those places where the rich
and powerful are assembled together, the weak and the indigent
feel themselves oppressed by their inferior condition. Unable to
perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give
up to despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of
human nature.

This unfortunate effect of the disparity of conditions is not
observable in savage life; the Indians, although they are
ignorant and poor, are equal and free.

At the period when Europeans first came among them, the natives
of North America were ignorant of the value of riches, and
indifferent to the enjoyments which civilized man procures to
himself by their means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in
their demeanor; they practised an habitual reserve, and a kind of
aristocratic politeness.

Mild and hospitable when at peace, though merciless in war beyond
any known degree of human ferocity, the Indian would expose
himself to die of hunger in order to succor the stranger who
asked admittance by night at the door of his hut--yet he could
tear in pieces with his hands the still quivering limbs of his
prisoner. The famous republics of antiquity never gave examples
of more unshaken courage, more haughty spirits, or more
intractable love of independence, than were hidden in former
times among the wild forests of the New World.[Footnote:

We learn from President Jefferson's "Notes upon Virginia,"
p. 148, that among the Iroquois, when attacked by a superior
force, aged men refused to fly, or to survive the destruction of
their country; and they braved death like the ancient Romans when
their capital was sacked by the Gauls. Further on, p. 150, he
tells us, that there is no example of an Indian, who, having
fallen into the hands of his enemies, begged for his life; on the
contrary, the captive sought to obtain death at the hands of his
conquerors by the use of insult and provocation.

]  The Europeans produced no great impression when they landed
upon the shores of North America: their presence engendered
neither envy nor fear. What influence could they possess over
such men as we have described?  The Indian could live without
wants, suffer without complaint, and pour out his death-song at
the stake.[Footnote:

See "Histoire de la Louisiane," by Lepage Dupratz; Charlevoix,
"Histoire de la Nouvelle France;" "Lettres du Rev. G. Hecwelder;"
"Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," v. i.;
Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," pp. 135-190. What is said by
Jefferson is of especial weight, on account of the personal merit
of the writer, and of the matter-of-fact age in which he lived.

]  Like all the other members of the great human family, these
savages believed in the existence of a better world, and adored,
under different names, God, the Creator of the universe. Their
notions on the great intellectual truths were, in general, simple
and philosophical.[Footnote:

See Appendix D.

]

Although we have here traced the character of a primitive people,
yet it cannot be doubted that another people, more civilized and
more advanced in all respects, had preceded it in the same
regions.

An obscure tradition, which prevailed among the Indians to the
north of the Atlantic, informs us that these very tribes formerly
dwelt on the west side of the Mississippi. Along the banks of
the Ohio, and throughout the central valley, there are frequently
found, at this day, _tumuli_ raised by the hands of men. On
exploring these heaps of earth to their centre, it is usual to
meet with human bones, strange instruments, arms and utensils of
all kinds, made of a metal, or destined for purposes, unknown to
the present race.

The Indians of our time are unable to give any information
relative to the history of this unknown people. Neither did
those who lived three hundred years ago, when America was first
discovered, leave any accounts from which even an hypothesis
could be formed. Tradition--that perishable, yet ever-renewed
monument of the pristine world--throws no light upon the subject.
It is an undoubted fact, however, that in this part of the globe
thousands of our fellow-beings had lived. When they came hither,
what was their origin, their destiny, their history, and how they
perished, no one can tell.

How strange does it appear that nations have existed, and
afterward so completely disappeared from the earth, that the
remembrance of their very name is effaced: their languages are
lost; their glory is vanished like a sound without an echo; but
perhaps there is not one which has not left behind it a tomb in
memory of its passage. The most durable monument of human labor
is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

Although the vast country which we have been describing was
inhabited by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said, at
the time of its discovery by Europeans, to have formed one great
desert. The Indians occupied, without possessing it. It is by
agricultural labor that man appropriates the soil, and the early
inhabitants of North America lived by the produce of the chase.
Their implacable prejudices, their uncontrolled passions, their
vices, and still more, perhaps, their savage virtues, consigned
them to inevitable destruction. The ruin of these nations began
from the day when Europeans landed on their shores: it has
proceeded ever since, and we are now seeing the completion of it.
They seemed to have been placed by Providence amid the riches of
the New World to enjoy them for a season, and then surrender
them. Those coasts, so admirably adapted for commerce and
industry; those wide and deep rivers; that inexhaustible valley
of the Mississippi; the whole continent, in short, seemed
prepared to be the abode of a great nation, yet unborn.

In that land the great experiment was to be made by civilized
man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it
was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or
deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the
world had not been prepared by the history of the past.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER II.


      ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS AND ITS IMPORTANCE, IN
               RELATION TO THEIR FUTURE CONDITION.

Utility of knowing the Origin of Nations in order to understand
  their social Condition and their Laws.--America the only
  Country in which the Starting-Point of a great People has been
  clearly observable.--In what respects all who emigrated to
  British America were similar.--In what they differed.--Remark
  applicable to all the Europeans who established themselves on
  the shores of the New World.--Colonization of
  Virginia.--Colonization of New England.--Original Character of
  the first inhabitants of New England.--Their Arrival.--Their
  first Laws.--Their social Contract.--Penal Code borrowed from
  the Hebrew Legislation.--Religious Fervor.--Republican
  Spirit.--Intimate Union of the Spirit of Religion with the
  Spirit of Liberty.


After the birth of a human being, his early years are obscurely
spent in the toils or pleasures of childhood. As he grows up,
the world receives him, when his manhood begins, and he enters
into contact with his fellows. He is then studied for the first
time, and it is imagined that the germe of the vices and the
virtues of his maturer years is then formed.

This, if I am not mistaken, is a great error. We must begin
higher up; we must watch the infant in his mother's arms; we must
see the first images which the external world casts upon the dark
mirror of his mind; the first occurrences which he beholds; we
must hear the first words which awaken the sleeping powers of
thought, and stand by his earliest efforts, if we would
understand the prejudices, the habits, and the passions, which
will rule his life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be seen
in the cradle of the child.

The growth of nations presents something analogous to this; they
all bear some marks of their origin; and the circumstances which
accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise, affect the
whole term of their being.

If we were able to go back to the elements of states, and to
examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt not that
we should discover the primary cause of the prejudices, the
habits, the ruling passions, and in short of all that constitutes
what is called the national character: we should then find the
explanation of certain customs which now seem at variance with
prevailing manners, of such laws as conflict with established
principles, and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there
to be met with in society, like those fragments of broken chains
which we sometimes see hanging from the vault of an edifice, and
supporting nothing. This might explain the destinies of certain
nations which seem borne along by an unknown force to ends of
which they themselves are ignorant. But hitherto facts have been
wanting to researches of this kind: the spirit of inquiry has
only come upon communities in their latter days; and when they at
length turned their attention to contemplate their origin, time
had already obscured it, or ignorance and pride adorned it with
truth-concealing fables.

America is the only country in which it has been possible to
study the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where the
influence exercised on the future condition of states by their
origin is clearly distinguishable.

At the period when the people of Europe landed in the New World,
their national characteristics were already completely formed;
each of them had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had
already attained that stage of civilisation at which men are led
to study themselves, they have transmitted to us a faithful
picture of their opinions, their manners, and their laws. The
men of the sixteenth century are almost as well known to us as
our contemporaries. America consequently exhibits in the broad
light of day the phenomena which the ignorance or rudeness of
earlier ages conceals from our researches. Near enough to the
time when the states of America were founded to be accurately
acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently removed from
that period to judge of some of their results. The men of our
own day seem destined to see farther than their predecessors into
the series of human events. Providence has given us a torch
which our forefathers did not possess, and has allowed us to
discern fundamental causes in the history of the world which the
obscurity of the past concealed from them.

If we carefully examine the social and political state of
America, after having studied its history, we shall remain
perfectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law,
I may even say not an event, is upon record which the origin of
that people will not explain. The readers of this book will find
the germe of all that is to follow in the present chapter, and
the key to almost the whole work.

The emigrants who came at different periods to occupy the
territory now covered by the American Union, differed from each
other in many respects; their aim was not the same, and they
governed themselves on different principles.

These men had, however, certain features in common, and they were
all placed in an analogous situation. The tie of language is
perhaps the strongest and most durable that can unite mankind.
All the emigrants spoke the same tongue; they were all offsets
from the same people. Born in a country which had been agitated
for centuries by the struggles of faction, and in which all
parties had been obliged in their turn to place themselves under
the protection of the laws, their political education had been
perfected in this rude school, and they were more conversant with
the notions of right, and the principles of true freedom, than
the greater part of their European contemporaries. At the period
of the first emigrations, the parish system, that fruitful germe
of free institutions, was deeply rooted in the habits of the
English; and with it the doctrine of the sovereignty of the
people had been introduced even into the bosom of the monarchy of
the house of Tudor.

The religious quarrels which have agitated the Christian world
were then rife. England had plunged into the new order of things
with headlong vehemence. The character of its inhabitants, which
had always been sedate and reflecting, became argumentative and
austere. General information had been increased by intellectual
debate, and the mind had received a deeper cultivation. While
religion was the topic of discussion, the morals of the people
were reformed. All these national features are more or less
discoverable in the phisiognomy of those adventurers who came to
seek a new home on the opposite shores of the Atlantic.

Another remark, to which we shall hereafter have occasion to
recur, is applicable not only to the English, but to the French,
the Spaniards, and all the Europeans who successively established
themselves in the New World. All these European colonies
contained the elements, if not the development of a complete
democracy. Two causes led to this result. It may safely be
advanced, that on leaving the mother-country the emigrants had in
general no notion of superiority over one another. The happy and
the powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer
guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune. It
happened, however, on several occasions that persons of rank were
driven to America by political and religious quarrels. Laws were
made to establish a gradation of ranks; but it was soon found
that the soil of America was entirely opposed to a territorial
aristocracy. To bring that refractory land into cultivation, the
constant and interested exertions of the owner himself were
necessary; and when the ground was prepared, its produce was
found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a farmer at the
same time. The land was then naturally broken up into small
portions, which the proprietor cultivated for himself. Land is
the basis of an aristocracy, which clings to the soil that
supports it; for it is not by privileges alone, nor by birth, but
by landed property handed down from generation to generation,
that an aristocracy is constituted. A nation may present immense
fortunes and extreme wretchedness; but unless those fortunes are
territorial, there is no aristocracy, but simply the class of the
rich and that of the poor.

All the British colonies had then a great degree of similarity at
the epoch of their settlement. All of them, from their first
beginning, seemed destined to behold the growth, not of the
aristocratic liberty of their mother-country, but of that freedom
of the middle and lower orders of which the history of the world
has as yet furnished no complete example.

In this general uniformity several striking differences were
however discernible, which it is necessary to point out. Two
branches may be distinguished in the Anglo-American family, which
have hitherto grown up without entirely commingling; the one in
the south, the other in the north.

Virginia received the first English colony; the emigrants took
possession of it in 1607. The idea that mines of gold and silver
are the sources of national wealth, was at that time singularly
prevalent in Europe; a fatal delusion, which has done more to
impoverish the nations which adopted it, and has cost more lives
in America, than the united influence of war and bad laws. The
men sent to Virginia[Footnote:

The charter granted by the crown of England, in 1609, stipulated,
among other conditions, that the adventurers should pay to the
crown a fifth of the produce of all gold and silver mines. See
Marshall's "Life of Washington," vol. i., pp. 18-66.

] were seekers of gold, adventurers without resources and without
character, whose turbulent and restless spirits endangered the
infant colony,[Footnote:

A large portion of the adventurers, says Stith (History of
Virginia), were unprincipled young men of family, whom their
parents were glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent
bankrupts, or debauchees: and others of the same class, people
more apt to pillage and destroy than to assist the settlement,
were the seditious chiefs who easily led this band into every
kind of extravagance and excess. See for the history of Virginia
the following works:--

"History of Virginia, from the first Settlements in the year
1624," by Smith.

"History of Virginia," by William Stith.

"History of Virginia, from the earliest Period," by Beverley.

] and rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and
agriculturists arrived afterward; and although they were a more
moral and orderly race of men, they were in nowise above the
level of the inferior classes in England.[Footnote:

It was not till some time later that a certain number of rich
English capitalists came to fix themselves in the colony.

]  No lofty conceptions, no intellectual system directed the
foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely
established when slavery was introduced,[Footnote:

Slavery was introduced about the year 1620, by a Dutch vessel,
which landed twenty negroes on the banks of the river James. See
Chalmer.

] and this was the main circumstance which has exercised so
prodigious an influence on the character, the laws, and all the
future prospects of the south.

Slavery, as we shall afterward show, dishonors labor; it
introduces idleness into society, and, with idleness, ignorance
and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the
mind, and benumbs the activity of man. The influence of slavery,
united to the English character, explains the manners and the
social condition of the southern states.

In the north, the same English foundation was modified by the
most opposite shades of character; and here I may be allowed to
enter into some details. The two or three main ideas which
constitute the basis of the social theory of the United States,
were first combined in the northern British colonies, more
generally denominated the states of New England.[Footnote:

The states of New England are those situated to the east of the
Hudson; they are now six in number: 1. Connecticut; 2. Rhode
Island; 3. Massachusetts; 4. Vermont; 5. New Hampshire; 6. Maine.

]  The principles of New England spread at first to the
neighboring states; they then passed successively to the more
distant ones; and at length they embued the whole confederation.
They now extend their influence beyond its limits over the whole
American world. The civilisation of New England has been like a
beacon lit upon a hill, which, after it has diffused its warmth
around, tinges the distant horizon with its glow.

The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and all the
circumstances attending it were singular and original. The large
majority of colonies have been first inhabited either by men
without education and without resources, driven by their poverty
and their misconduct from the land which gave them birth, or by
speculators and adventurers greedy of gain. Some settlements
cannot even boast so honorable an origin: St. Domingo was founded
by buccaneers; and, at the present day, the criminal courts of
England supply the population of Australia.

The settlers who established themselves on the shores of New
England all belonged to the more independent classes of their
native country. Their union on the soil of America at once
presented the singular phenomenon of a society containing neither
lords nor common people, neither rich nor poor. These men
possessed, in proportion to their number, a greater mass of
intelligence than is to be found in any European nation of our
own time. All, without a single exception, had received a good
education, and many of them were known in Europe for their
talents and their acquirements. The other colonies had been
founded by adventurers without family; the emigrants of New
England brought with them the best elements of order and
morality, they landed in the desert accompanied by their wives
and children. But what most especially distinguished them was
the aim of their undertaking. They had not been obliged by
necessity to leave their country, the social position they
abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of subsistence
were certain. Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve their
situation, or to increase their wealth; the call which summoned
them from the comforts of their homes was purely intellectual;
and in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile, their object
was the triumph of an idea.

The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the
pilgrims, belonged to that English sect, the austerity of whose
principles had acquired for them the name of puritans.
Puritanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but it
corresponded in many points with the most absolute democratic and
republican theories. It was this tendency which had aroused its
most dangerous adversaries. Persecuted by the government of the
mother-country, and disgusted by the habits of a society opposed
to the rigor of their own principles, the puritans went forth to
seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, where they
could live according to their own opinions, and worship God in
freedom.

A few quotations will throw more light upon the spirit of these
pious adventurers than all we can say of them. Nathaniel
Morton,[Footnote:

"New England's Memorial," p. 13. Boston, 1826. See also
"Hutchinson's History," vol. ii., p. 440

] the historian of the first years of the settlement, thus opens
his subject:--

"GENTLE READER: I have for some length of time looked upon it as
a duty incumbent, especially on the immediate successors of those
that have had so large experience of those many memorable and
signal demonstrations of God's goodness, viz., the first
beginning of this plantation in New England, to commit to writing
his gracious dispensations on that behalf; having so many
inducements thereunto, not only otherwise, but so plentifully in
the Sacred Scriptures: that so, what we have seen, and what our
fathers have told us (Psalm lxxviii., 3, 4), we may not hide from
our children, showing to the generations to come the praises of
the Lord; that especially the seed of Abraham his servant, and
the children of Jacob his chosen (Psalm cv., 5, 6), may remember
his marvellous works in the beginning and progress of the
planting of New England, his wonders and the judgments of his
mouth; how that God brought a vine into this wilderness; that he
cast out the heathen and planted it; that he made room for it,
and caused it to take deep root; and it filled the land (Psalm
lxxx., 8, 9). And not onely so, but also that he hath guided his
people by his strength to his holy habitation, and planted them
in the mountain of his inheritance in respect of precious gospel
enjoyments: and that as especially God may have the glory of all
unto whom it is most due; so also some rays of glory may reach
the names of those blessed saints, that were the main instruments
and the beginning of this happy enterprise."

It is impossible to read this opening paragraph without an
involuntary feeling of religious awe; it breathes the very savor
of gospel antiquity. The sincerity of the author heightens his
power of language. The band, which to his eyes was a mere party
of adventurers, gone forth to seek their fortune beyond the seas,
appears to the reader as the germe of a great nation wafted by
Providence to a predestined shore.

The author thus continues his narrative of the departure of the
first pilgrims:--

"So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had
been their resting-place for above eleven years; but they knew
that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not
much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their
dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city
(Heb. xi., 16), and therein quieted their spirits. When they
came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready; and
such of their friends as could come with them, followed after
them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to
take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep
with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian
discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.
The next day they went on board, and their friends with them,
where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful
parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound among
them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches
pierced each other's heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers
that stood on the key as spectators could not refrain from tears.
But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away that were
thus loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his
knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them
with most fervent prayers unto the Lord and his blessing; and
then, with mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves
one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of
them."

The emigrants were about 150 in number, including the women and
the children. Their object was to plant a colony on the shores
of the Hudson; but after having been driven about for some time
in the Atlantic ocean, they were forced to land on that arid
coast of New England which is now the site of the town of
Plymouth. The rock is still shown on which the pilgrims
disembarked.[Footnote:

This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States.
I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of
the Union. Does not this sufficiently show that all human power
and greatness is in the soul of man?  Here is a stone which the
feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone
becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation, its very dust
is shared as a relic; and what is become of the gateways of a
thousand palaces?

]

"But before we pass on," continues our historian, "let the reader
with me make a pause, and seriously consider this poor people's
present condition, the more to be raised up to admiration of
God's goodness toward them in their preservation: for being now
passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in
expectation, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to
entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns to
repair unto to seek for succor; and for the season it was winter,
and they that know the winters of the country know them to be
sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous
to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.
Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate
wilderness, full of wilde beasts, and wilde men? and what
multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way
soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could
have but little solace or content in respect of any outward
object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance
with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country full of woods
and thickets represented a wild and savage hue; if they looked
behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed,
and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the
civil parts of the world."

It must not be imagined that the piety of the puritans was of a
merely speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the
course of worldly affairs. Puritanism, as I have already
remarked, was scarcely less a political than a religious
doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants landed on the barren
coast, described by Nathaniel Morton, than their first care was
to constitute a society, by passing the following act:[Footnote:

"New England Memorial," p. 37.

]--

"IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN!  We, whose names are underwritten, the
loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord King James, &c., &c.,
having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the
Christian faith, and the honor of our king and country, a voyage
to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia: do
by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God
and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a
civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and
furtherance of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances,
acts, constitutions, and officers, from time to time, as shall be
thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the
colony: unto which we promise all due submission and obedience,"
&c.[Footnote:

The emigrants who founded the state of Rhode Island in 1638,
those who landed at New Haven in 1637, the first settlers in
Connecticut in 1639, and the founders of Providence in 1640,
began in like manner by drawing up a social contract, which was
submitted to the approval of all the interested parties. See
"Pitkin's History," pp. 42, 47.

]

This happened in 1620, and from that time forward the emigration
went on. The religious and political passions which ravished the
British empire during the whole reign of Charles I., drove fresh
crowds of sectarians every year to the shores of America. In
England the stronghold of puritanism was in the middle classes,
and it was from the middle classes that the majority of the
emigrants came. The population of New England increased rapidly;
and while the hierarchy of rank despotically classed the
inhabitants of the mother-country, the colony continued to
present the novel spectacle of a community homogeneous in all its
parts. A democracy, more perfect than any which antiquity had
dreamed of, started in full size and panoply from the midst of an
ancient feudal society.

The English government was not dissatisfied with an emigration
which removed the elements of fresh discord and of future
revolutions. On the contrary, everything was done to encourage
it, and little attention was paid to the destiny of those who
sought a shelter from the rigor of their country's laws on the
soil of America. It seemed as if New England was a region given
up to the dreams of fancy, and the unrestrained experiments of
innovators.

The English colonies (and this is one of the main causes of their
prosperity) have always enjoyed more internal freedom and more
political independence than the colonies of other nations; but
this principle of liberty was nowhere more extensively applied
than in the states of New England.

It was generally allowed at that period that the territories of
the New World belonged to that European nation which had been the
first to discover them. Nearly the whole coast of North America
thus became a British possession toward the end of the sixteenth
century. The means used by the English government to people
these new domains were of several kinds: the king sometimes
appointed a governor of his own choice, who ruled a portion of
the New World in the name and under the immediate orders of the
crown;[Footnote:

This was the case in the state of New York.

] this is the colonial system adopted by the other countries of
Europe. Sometimes grants of certain tracts were made by the
crown to an individual or to a company,[Footnote:

Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, were in
this situation. See Pitkin's History, vol. i., pp. 11-31.

] in which case all the civil and political power fell into the
hands of one or more persons, who, under the inspection and
control of the crown, sold the lands and governed the
inhabitants. Lastly, a third system consisted in allowing a
certain number of emigrants to constitute a political society
under the protection of the mother-country, and to govern
themselves in whatever was not contrary to her laws. This mode
of colonization, so remarkably favorable to liberty, was adopted
only in New England.[Footnote:

See the work entitled, "_Historical Collection of State Papers
and other Authentic Documents intended as Materials for a History
of the United States of America,_" by Ebenezer Hazard,
Philadelphia, 1792, for a great number of documents relating to
the commencement of the colonies, which are valuable from their
contents and their authenticity; among them are the various
charters granted by the king of England, and the first acts of
the local governments.

See also the analysis of all these charters given by Mr. Story,
judge of the supreme court of the United States, in the
introduction to his Commentary on the Constitution of the United
States. It results from these documents that the principles of
representative government and the external forms of political
liberty were introduced into all the colonies at their origin.
These principles were more fully acted upon in the North than in
the South, but they existed everywhere.

]

In 1628,[Footnote:

See Pitkin's History, p. 35. See the History of the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay, by Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 9.

] a charter of this kind was granted by Charles I. to the
emigrants who went to form the colony of Massachusetts. But, in
general, charters were not given to the colonies of New England
till they had acquired a certain existence. Plymouth,
Providence, New Haven, the state of Connecticut, and that of
Rhode Island,[Footnote:

See Pitkin's History, pp. 42, 47.

] were founded without the co-operation, and almost without the
knowledge of the mother-country. The new settlers did not derive
their incorporation from the head of the empire, although they
did not deny its supremacy; they constituted a society of their
own accord, and it was not till thirty or forty years afterward,
under Charles II., that their existence was legally recognised by
a royal charter.

This frequently renders it difficult to detect the link which
connected the emigrants with the land of their forefathers, in
studying the earliest historical and legislative records of New
England. They perpetually exercised the rights of sovereignty;
they named their magistrates, concluded peace or declared war,
made police regulations, and enacted laws, as if their allegiance
was due only to God.[Footnote:

The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the forms
which are preserved in the criminal and civil procedure of
England: in 1650 the decrees of justice were not yet headed by
the royal style. See Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 452.

]  Nothing can be more curious, and at the same time more
instructive than the legislation of that period; it is there that
the solution of the great social problem which the United States
now present to the world is to be found.

Among these documents we shall notice as especially
characteristic, the code of laws promulgated by the little state
of Connecticut in 1650.[Footnote:

Code of 1650, p. 28. Hartford, 1830.

]

The legislators of Connecticut[Footnote:

See also in Hutchinson's History, vol. i., pp. 435, 456, the
analysis of the penal code adopted in 1648, by the colony of
Massachusetts: this code is drawn up on the same principles as
that of Connecticut.

] begin with the penal laws, and, strange to say, they borrow
their provisions from the text of holy writ.

"Whoever shall worship any other God than the Lord," says the
preamble of the code, "shall surely be put to death." This is
followed by ten or twelve enactments of the same kind, copied
verbatim from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.
Blasphemy, sorcery, adultery,[Footnote:

Adultery was also punished with death by the law of
Massachusetts; and Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 441, says that several
persons actually suffered for this crime. He quotes a curious
anecdote on this subject, which occurred in the year 1663. A
married woman had had criminal intercourse with a young man; her
husband died, and she married the lover. Several years had
elapsed, when the public began to suspect the previous
intercourse of this couple; they were thrown into prison, put
upon trial, and very narrowly escaped capital punishment.

] and rape were punished with death; an outrage offered by a son
to his parents, was to be expiated by the same penalty. The
legislation of a rude and half-civilized people was thus
transferred to an enlightened and moral community. The
consequence was, that the punishment of death was never more
frequently prescribed by the statute, and never more rarely
enforced toward the guilty.

The chief care of the legislators, in this body of penal laws,
was the maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in the
community: they constantly invaded the domain of conscience, and
there was scarcely a sin which they did not subject to
magisterial censure. The reader is aware of the rigor with which
these laws punished rape and adultery; intercourse between
unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed. The judge was
empowered to inflict a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or
marriage,[Footnote:

Code of 1650, p. 48. It seems sometimes to have happened that
the judge superadded these punishments to each other, as is seen
in a sentence pronounced in 1643 (New Haven Antiquities, p. 114),
by which Margaret Bedford, convicted of loose conduct, was
condemned to be whipped, and afterward to marry Nicolas Jemmings
her accomplice.

] on the misdemeanants; and if the records of the old courts of
New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not
infrequent. We find a sentence bearing date the first of May,
1660, inflicting a fine and a reprimand on a young woman who was
accused of using improper language, and of allowing herself to be
kissed.[Footnote:

New Haven Antiquities, p. 104. See also Hutchinson's History for
several causes equally extraordinary.

]  The code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes
idleness and drunken[ness] with severity.[Footnote:

Code of 1650, pp. 50, 57.

]  Innkeepers are forbidden to furnish more than a certain
quantity of liquor to each customer; and simple lying, whenever
it may be injurious,[Footnote:

Ibid, p. 64.

] is checked by a fine or a flogging. In other places, the
legislator, entirely forgetting the great principles of religious
toleration which he had himself upheld in Europe, renders
attendance on divine service compulsory,[Footnote:

Ibid, p. 44.

] and goes so far as to visit with severe punishment,[Footnote:

This was not peculiar to Connecticut. See for instance the law
which, on the 13th of September, 1644, banished the ana-baptists
from the state of Massachusetts. (Historical Collection of State
Papers, vol. i., p. 538.) See also the law against the quakers,
passed on the 14th of October, 1656. "Whereas," says the
preamble, "an accursed race of heretics called quakers has sprung
up," &c. The clauses of the statute inflict a heavy fine on all
captains of ships who should import quakers into the country.
The quakers who may be found there shall be whipped and
imprisoned with hard labor. Those members of the sect who should
defend their opinions shall be first fined, then imprisoned, and
finally driven out of the province. (Historical Collection of
State Papers, vol. i., p. 630.)

] and even with death, the Christians who chose to worship God
according to a ritual differing from his own.[Footnote:

By the penal law of Massachusetts, any catholic priest who should
set foot in the colony after having been once driven out of it,
was liable to capital punishment.

]  Sometimes indeed, the zeal of his enactments induces him to
descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be
found in the same code which prohibits the use of
tobacco.[Footnote:

Code of 1650, p. 96.

]  It must not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious
laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely
voted by all the persons interested, and that the manners of the
community were even more austere and more puritanical than the
laws. In 1649 a solemn association was formed in Boston to check
the worldly luxury of long hair.[Footnote:

New England's Memorial, p. 316. See Appendix E.

]

These errors are no doubt discreditable to the human reason; they
attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of
laying firm hold upon what is true and just, and is often reduced
to the alternative of two excesses. In strict connection with
this penal legislation, which bears such striking marks of a
narrow sectarian spirit, and of those religious passions which
had been warmed by persecution, and were still fermenting among
the people, a body of political laws is to be found, which,
though written two hundred years ago, is still ahead of the
liberties of our age.

The general principles which are the groundwork of modern
constitutions--principles which were imperfectly known in Europe,
and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, in the
seventeenth century--were all recognised and determined by the
laws of New England: the intervention of the people in public
affairs, the free voting of taxes, the responsibility of
authorities, personal liberty, and trial by jury, were all
positively established without discussion.

From these fruitful principles, consequences have been derived
and applications have been made such as no nation in Europe has
yet ventured to attempt.

In Connecticut the electoral body consisted, from its origin, of
the whole number of citizens; and this is readily to be
understood,[Footnote:

Constitution of 1638, p. 17.

] when we recollect that this people enjoyed an almost perfect
equality of fortune, and a still greater uniformity of
capacity.[Footnote:

In 1641 the general assembly of Rhode Island unanimously declared
that the government of the state was a democracy, and that the
power was vested in the body of free citizens, who alone had the
right to make the laws and to watch their execution. Code of
1650, p. 70.

]  In Connecticut, at this period, all the executive functionaries
were elected, including the governor of the state.[Footnote:

Pitkin's History, p. 47.

]  The citizens above the age of sixteen were obliged to bear
arms; they formed a national militia, which appointed its own
officers, and was to hold itself at all times in readiness to
march for the defence of the country.[Footnote:

Constitution of 1638, p. 12.

]

In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in those of New England,
we find the germe and gradual development of that township
independence, which is the life and mainspring of American
liberty at the present day. The political existence of the
majority of the nations of Europe commenced in the superior ranks
of society, and was gradually and always imperfectly communicated
to the different members of the social body. In America, on the
other hand, it may be said that the township was organized before
the county, the county before the state, the state before the
Union.

In New England, townships were completely and definitively
constituted as early as 1650. The independence of the township
was the nucleus around which the local interests, passions,
rights, and duties, collected and clung. It gave scope to the
activity of a real political life, most thoroughly democratic and
republican. The colonies still recognised the supremacy of the
mother-country; monarchy was still the law of the state; but the
republic was already established in every township.

The towns named their own magistrates of every kind, rated
themselves, and levied their own taxes.[Footnote:

Code of 1650, p. 80.

] In the townships of New England the law of representation was
not adopted, but the affairs of the community were discussed, as
at Athens, in the market-place, by a general assembly of the
citizens.

In studying the laws which were promulgated at this first era of
the American republics, it is impossible not to be struck by the
remarkable acquaintance with the science of government, and the
advanced theory of legislation, which they display. The ideas
there formed of the duties of society toward its members, are
evidently much loftier and more comprehensive than those of the
European legislators at that time: obligations were there imposed
which were elsewhere slighted. In the states of New England,
from the first, the condition of the poor was provided
for;[Footnote:

Code of 1650, p. 78.

] strict measures were taken for the maintenance of roads, and
surveyors were appointed to attend to them;[Footnote:

Code of 1750, p. 94.

] registers were established in every parish, in which the
results of public deliberations, and the births, deaths, and
marriages of the citizens were entered;[Footnote:

Ibid, p. 86.

] clerks were directed to keep these registers;[Footnote:

See Hutchinson's History, vol. i., p. 455

] officers were charged with the administration of vacant
inheritances, and with the arbitration of litigated landmarks;
and many others were created whose chief functions were the
maintenance of public order in the community.[Footnote:

Ibid, p. 40.

]  The law enters into a thousand useful provisions for a number
of social wants which are at present very inadequately felt in
France.

But it is by the attention it pays to public education that the
original character of American civilisation is at once placed in
the clearest light. "It being," says the law, "one chief project
of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture by
persuading from the use of tongues, to the end that learning may
not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, in church and
commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, ..."[Footnote:

Code of 1650, p. 90.

]  Here follow clauses establishing schools in every township,
and obliging the inhabitants, under pain of heavy fines, to
support them. Schools of a superior kind were founded in the
same manner in the more populous districts. The municipal
authorities were bound to enforce the sending of children to
school by their parents; they were empowered to inflict fines
upon all who refused compliance; and in cases of continued
resistance, society assumed the place of the parent, took
possession of the child, and deprived the father of those natural
rights which he used to so bad a purpose. The reader will
undoubtedly have remarked the preamble of these enactments: in
America, religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of
the divine laws leads men to civil freedom.

If, after having cast a rapid glance over the state of American
society in 1650, we turn to the condition of Europe, and more
especially to that of the continent, at the same period, we
cannot fail to be struck with astonishment. On the continent of
Europe, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, absolute
monarchy had everywhere triumphed over the ruins of the
oligarchical and feudal liberties of the middle ages. Never were
the notions of right more completely confounded than in the midst
of the splendor and literature of Europe; never was there less
political activity among the people; never were the principles of
true freedom less widely circulated, and at that very time, those
principles, which were scorned or unknown by the nations of
Europe, were proclaimed in the deserts of the New World, and were
accepted as the future creed of a great people. The boldest
theories of the human reason were put into practice by a
community so humble, that not a statesman condescended to attend
to it; and a legislation without precedent was produced off-hand
by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of this obscure
democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals, nor
philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the face of a
free people, and pronounce amid general acclamations the
following fine definition of liberty:[Footnote:

Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, vol. ii., p. 13. This
speech was made by Winthrop; he was accused of having committed
arbitrary actions during his magistracy, but after having made
the speech of which the above is a fragment, he was acquitted by
acclamation, and from that time forward he was always re-elected
governor of the state. See Marshall, vol. i., p. 166.

]--

"Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own
liberty. There is a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected
both by men and beasts to do what they list; and this liberty is
inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint; by this
liberty '_sumus omnes deteriores;_' 't is the grand enemy of
truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against
it. But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty, which is
the proper end and object of authority; is a liberty for that
only which is just and good: for this liberty you are to stand
with the hazard of your very lives, and whatsoever crosses it is
not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is
maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority
set over you will, in all administrations for your good, be
quietly submitted unto by all but such as have a disposition to
shake off the yoke and lose their true liberty, by their
murmuring at the honor and power of authority."

The remarks I have made will suffice to display the character of
Anglo-American civilisation in its true light. It is the result
(and this should be constantly present to the mind) of two
distinct elements, which in other places have been in frequent
hostility, but which in America have admirably incorporated and
combined with one another. I allude to the spirit of religion
and the spirit of liberty.

The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent
sectarians and daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some
of their religious opinions were, they were entirely free from
political prejudices.

Hence arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are
constantly discernible in the manners as well as in the laws of
the country.

It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends.
their family, and their native land, to a religious conviction,
were absorbed in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which
they purchased at so dear a rate. The energy, however, with
which they strove for the acquirements of wealth, moral
enjoyment, and the comforts as well as the liberties of the
world, was scarcely inferior to that with which they devoted
themselves to Heaven.

Political principles, and all human laws and institutions were
moulded and altered at their pleasure; the barriers of the
society in which they were born were broken down before them; the
old principles which had governed the world for ages were no
more; a path without a turn, and a field without a horizon, were
opened to the exploring and ardent curiosity of man; but at the
limits of the political world he checks his researches, he
discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable faculties,
he no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully
abstaining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields
with submissive respect to truths which he will not discuss.

Thus in the moral world, everything is classed, adapted, decided,
and foreseen; in the political world everything is agitated,
uncertain, and disputed: in the one is a passive, though a
voluntary obedience; in the other an independence, scornful of
experience and jealous of authority.

These two tendencies, apparently so discrepant, are far from
conflicting; they advance together, and mutually support each
other.

Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to
the faculties of man, and that the political world is a field
prepared by the Creator for the efforts of the intelligence.
Contented with the freedom and the power which it enjoys in its
own sphere, and with the place which it occupies, the empire of
religion is never more surely established than when it reigns in
the hearts of men unsupported by aught besides its native
strength.

Religion is no less the companion of liberty in all its battles
and its triumphs; the cradle of its infancy, and the divine
source of its claims. The safeguard of morality is religion, and
morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge
of freedom.[Footnote:

See Appendix F.

]

       *       *       *       *       *


         REASONS OF CERTAIN ANOMALIES WHICH THE LAWS AND
             CUSTOMS OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS PRESENT.

Remains of aristocratic Institutions in the midst of a complete
  Democracy.--Why.--Distinction carefully to be drawn between
  what is of Puritanical and what is of English Origin.


The reader is cautioned not to draw too general or too absolute
an inference from what has been said. The social condition, the
religion, and the manners of the first emigrants undoubtedly
exercised an immense influence on the destiny of their new
country. Nevertheless it was not in their power to found a state
of things originating solely in themselves; no man can entirely
shake off the influence of the past, and the settlers,
unintentionally or involuntarily, mingled habits derived from
their education and from the traditions of their country, with
those habits and notions which were exclusively their own. To
form a judgment on the Anglo-Americans of the present day, it is
therefore necessary carefully to distinguish what is of
puritanical from what is of English origin.

Laws and customs are frequently to be met with in the United
States which contrast strongly with all that surrounds them.
These laws seem to be drawn up in a spirit contrary to the
prevailing tenor of the American legislation; and these customs
are no less opposed to the general tone of society. If the
English colonies had been founded in an age of darkness, or if
their origin was already lost in the lapse of years, the problem
would be insoluble.

I shall quote a single example to illustrate what I advance.

The civil and criminal procedure of the Americans has only two
means of action--committal or bail. The first measure taken by
the magistrate is to exact security from the defendant, or, in
case of refusal, to incarcerate him: the ground of the
accusation, and the importance of the charges against him are
then discussed.

It is evident that a legislation of this kind is hostile to the
poor man, and favorable only to the rich. The poor man has not
always a security to produce, even in a civil cause: and if he is
obliged to wait for justice in prison, he is speedily reduced to
distress. The wealthy individual, on the contrary, always
escapes imprisonment in civil causes; nay, more, he may readily
elude the punishment which awaits him for a delinquency, by
breaking his bail. So that all the penalties of the law are, for
him, reducible to fines.[Footnote:

Crimes no doubt exist for which bail is inadmissible, but they
are few in number.

]  Nothing can be more aristocratic than this system of
legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law, and
they usually reserve the greatest social advantages to
themselves. The explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in
England; the laws of which I speak are English,[Footnote:

See Blackstone; and Delolme, book i., chap. x.

] and the Americans have retained them, however repugnant they
may be to the tenor of their legislation, and the mass of their
ideas.

Next to its habits, the thing which a nation is least apt to
change is its civil legislation. Civil laws are only familiarly
known to legal men, whose direct interest it is to maintain them
as they are, whether good or bad, simply because they themselves
are conversant with them. The body of the nation is scarcely
acquainted with them: it merely perceives their action in
particular cases; but it has some difficulty in seizing their
tendency, and obeys them without reflection.

I have quoted one instance where it would have been easy to
adduce a great number of others.

The surface of American society is, if I may use the expression,
covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old
aristocratic colors sometimes peep.[Footnote:

The author is not quite accurate in this statement. A person
accused of crime is, in the first instance, arrested by virtue of
a warrant issued by the magistrate, upon a complaint granted upon
proof of a crime having been committed by the person charged. He
is then brought before the magistrate, the complainant examined
in his presence, other evidence adduced, and he is heard in
explanation or defence. If the magistrate is satisfied that a
crime has been committed, and that the accused is guilty, the
latter is, then, and then only, required to give security for his
appearance at the proper court to take his trial, if an
indictment shall be found against him by a Grand Jury of
twenty-three of his fellow-citizens. In the event of his
inability or refusal to give the security he is incarcerated, so
as to secure his appearance at a trial.

In France, after the preliminary examination, the accused, unless
absolutely discharged, is in all cases incarcerated, to secure
his presence at the trial. It is the relaxation of this practice
in England and the United States, in order to attain the ends of
justice at the least possible inconvenience to the accused, by
accepting what is deemed an adequate pledge for his appearance,
which our author considers hostile to the poor man and favorable
to the rich. And yet it is very obvious, that such is not its
design or tendency. Good character, and probable innocence,
ordinarily obtain for the accused man the required security. And
if they do not, how can complaint be justly made that others are
not treated with unnecessary severity, and punished in
anticipation, because some are prevented by circumstances from
availing themselves of a benign provision so favorable to
humanity, and to that innocence which our law presumes, until
guilt is proved?  To secure the persons of suspected criminals,
that they may abide the sentence of the law, is indispensable to
all jurisprudence. And instead of reproof or aristocratic
tendency, our system deserves credit for having ameliorated, as
far as possible, the condition of persons accused. That this
amelioration cannot be made in all instances, flows from the
necessity of the case.

It would be a mistake to suppose, as the author seems to have
done, that the forfeiture of the security given, exonerates the
accused from punishment. He may be again arrested and detained
in prison, as security would not ordinarily be received from a
person who had given such evidence of his guilt as would be
derived from his attempt to escape. And the difficulty of escape
is rendered so great by our constitutional provisions for the
delivery, by the different states, of fugitives from justice, and
by our treaties with England and France for the same purpose,
that the instances of successful evasion are few and rare.

]

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER III.


            SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS.


A social condition is commonly the result of circumstances,
sometimes of laws, oftener still of these two causes united; but
wherever it exists, it may justly be considered as the source of
almost all the laws, the usages, and the ideas, which regulate
the conduct of nations: whatever it does not produce, it
modifies.

It is, therefore, necessary, if we would become acquainted with
the legislation and the manners of a nation, to begin by the
study of its social condition.

       *       *       *       *       *


     THE STRIKING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF
         THE ANGLO-AMERICANS IS ITS ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY.

The first Emigrants of New England.--Their
  Equality.--Aristocratic Laws introduced in the South.--Period
  of the Revolution.--Change in the Law of Descent.--Effects
  produced by this Change.--Democracy carried to its utmost
  Limits in the new States of the West.--Equality of Education.


Many important observations suggest themselves upon the social
condition of the Anglo-Americans; but there is one which takes
precedence of all the rest. The social condition of the
Americans is eminently democratic; this was its character at the
foundation of the colonies, and is still more strongly marked at
the present day.

I have stated in the preceding chapter that great equality
existed among the emigrants who settled on the shores of New
England. The germe of aristocracy was never planted in that part
of the Union. The only influence which obtained there was that
of intellect; the people were used to reverence certain names as
the emblems of knowledge and virtue. Some of their
fellow-citizens acquired a power over the rest which might truly
have been called aristocratic, if it had been capable of
invariable transmission from father to son.

This was the state of things to the east of the Hudson: to the
southwest of that river, and in the direction of the Floridas,
the case was different. In most of the states situated to the
southwest of the Hudson some great English proprietors had
settled, who had imported with them aristocratic principles and
the English law of descent. I have explained the reasons why it
was impossible ever to establish a powerful aristocracy in
America; these reasons existed with less force to the southwest
of the Hudson. In the south, one man, aided by slaves, could
cultivate a great extent of country: it was therefore common to
see rich landed proprietors. But their influence was not
altogether aristocratic as that term is understood in Europe,
since they possessed no privileges; and the cultivation of their
estates being carried on by slaves, they had no tenants depending
on them, and consequently no patronage. Still, the great
proprietors south of the Hudson constituted a superior class,
having ideas and tastes of its own, and forming the centre of
political action. This kind of aristocracy sympathized with the
body of the people, whose passions and interests it easily
embraced; but it was too weak and too short-lived to excite
either love or hatred for itself. This was the class which
headed the insurrection in the south, and furnished the best
leaders of the American revolution.

At the period of which we are now speaking, society was shaken to
its centre: the people, in whose name the struggle had taken
place, conceived the desire of exercising the authority which it
had acquired; its democratic tendencies were awakened; and having
thrown off the yoke of the mother-country, it aspired to
independence of every kind. The influence of individuals
gradually ceased to be felt, and custom and law united together
to produce the same result.

But the law of descent was the last step to equality. I am
surprised that ancient and modern jurists have not attributed to
this law a greater influence on human affairs.[Footnote:

I understand by the law of descent all those laws whose principal
object it is to regulate the distribution of property after the
death of its owner. The law of entail is of this number: it
certainly prevents the owner from disposing of his possessions
before his death; but this is solely with a view of preserving
them entire for the heir. The principal object, therefore, of
the law of entail is to regulate the descent of property after
the death of its owner: its other provisions are merely means to
this end.

]  It is true that these laws belong to civil affairs: but they
ought nevertheless to be placed at the head of all political
institutions; or, while political laws are only the symbol of a
nation's condition, they exercise an incredible influence upon
its social state. They have, moreover, a sure and uniform manner
of operating upon society, affecting, as it were, generations yet
unknown.

Through their means man acquires a kind of preternatural power
over the future lot of his fellow-creatures. When the legislator
has once regulated the law of inheritance, he may rest from his
labor. The machine once put in motion will go on for ages, and
advance, as if self-guided, toward a given point. When framed in
a particular manner, this law unites, draws together, and vests
property and power in a few hands: its tendency is clearly
aristocratic. On opposite principles its action is still more
rapid; it divides, distributes, and disperses both property and
power. Alarmed by the rapidity of its progress, those who
despair of arresting its motion endeavor to obstruct by
difficulties and impediments; they vainly seek to counteract its
effect by contrary efforts: but it gradually reduces or destroys
every obstacle, until by its incessant activity the bulwarks of
the influence of wealth are ground down to the fine and shifting
sand which is the basis of democracy. When the law of
inheritance permits, still more when it decrees, the equal
division of a father's property among all his children, its
effects are of two kinds: it is important to distinguish them
from each other, although they tend to the same end.

In virtue of the law of partible inheritance, the death of every
proprietor brings about a kind of revolution in property: not
only do his possessions change hands, but their very nature is
altered; since they are parcelled into shares, which become
smaller and smaller at each division. This is the direct, and,
as it were, the physical effect of the law. It follows, then,
that in countries where equality of inheritance is established by
law, property, and especially landed property, must have a
tendency to perpetual diminution. The effects, however, of such
legislation would only be perceptible after a lapse of time, if
the law was abandoned to its own working; for supposing a family
to consist of two children (and in a country peopled as France
is, the average number is not above three), these children,
sharing among them the fortune of both parents, would not be
poorer than their father or mother.

But the law of equal division exercises its influence not merely
upon the property itself, but it affects the minds of the heirs,
and brings their passions into play. These indirect consequences
tend powerfully to the destruction of large fortunes, and
especially of large domains.

Among the nations whose law of descent is founded upon the right
of primogeniture, landed estates often pass from generation to
generation without undergoing division. The consequence of which
is, that family feeling is to a certain degree incorporated with
the estate. The family represents the estate, the estate the
family; whose name, together with its origin, its glory, its
power, and its virtues, is thus perpetuated in an imperishable
memorial of the past, and a sure pledge of the future.

When the equal partition of property is established by law, the
intimate connection is destroyed between family feeling and the
preservation of the paternal estate; the property ceases to
represent the family; for, as it must inevitably be divided after
one or two generations, it has evidently a constant tendency to
diminish, and must in the end be completely dispersed. The sons
of the great landed proprietor, if they are few in number, or if
fortune befriend them, may indeed entertain the hope of being as
wealthy as their father, but not that of possessing the same
property as he did; their riches must necessarily be composed of
elements different from his.

Now, from the moment when you divest the land-owner of that
interest in the preservation of his estate which he derives from
association, from tradition, and from family pride, you may be
certain that sooner or later he will dispose of it; for there is
a strong pecuniary interest in favor of selling, as floating
capital produces higher interest than real property, and is more
readily available to gratify the passions of the moment.

Great landed estates which have once been divided, never come
together again; for the small proprietor draws from his land a
better revenue in proportion, than the large owner does from his;
and of course he sells it at a higher rate.[Footnote:

I do not mean to say that the small proprietor cultivates his
land better, but he cultivates it with more ardor and care; so
that he makes up by his labor for his want of skill.

]  The calculations of gain, therefore, which decided the rich
man to sell his domain, will still more powerfully influence him
against buying small estates to unite them into a large one.

What is called family pride is often founded upon an illusion of
self-love. A man wishes to perpetuate and immortalize himself,
as it were, in his great-grandchildren. Where the _esprit de
famille_ ceases to act, individual selfishness comes into
play. When the idea of family becomes vague, indeterminate, and
uncertain, a man thinks of his present convenience; he provides
for the establishment of the succeeding generation, and no more.

Either a man gives up the idea of perpetuating his family, or at
any rate he seeks to accomplish it by other means than that of a
landed estate.

Thus not only does the law of partible inheritance render it
difficult for families to preserve their ancestral domains
entire, but it deprives them of the inclination to attempt it,
and compels them in some measure to co-operate with the law in
their own extinction.

The law of equal distribution proceeds by two methods: by acting
upon things, it acts upon persons; by influencing persons, it
affects things. By these means the law succeeds in striking at
the root of landed property, and dispersing rapidly both families
and fortunes.[Footnote:

Land being the most stable kind of property, we find, from time
to time, rich individuals who are disposed to make great
sacrifices in order to obtain it, and who willingly forfeit a
considerable part of their income to make sure of the rest. But
these are accidental cases. The preference for landed property
is no longer found habitually in any class but among the poor.
The small land-owner, who has less information, less imagination,
and fewer passions, than the great one, is generally occupied
with the desire of increasing his estate; and it often happens
that by inheritance, by marriage, or by the chances of trade, he
is gradually furnished with the means. Thus, to balance the
tendency which leads men to divide their estates, there exists
another, which incites them to add to them. This tendency, which
is sufficient to prevent estates from being divided _ad
infinitum_, is not strong enough to create great territorial
possessions, certainly not to keep them up in the same family.

]

Most certainly is it not for us, Frenchmen of the nineteenth
century, who daily behold the political and social changes which
the law of partition is bringing to pass, to question its
influence. It is perpetually conspicuous in our country,
overthrowing the walls of our dwellings and removing the
landmarks of our fields. But although it has produced great
effects in France, much still remains for it to do. Our
recollections, opinions, and habits, present powerful obstacles
to its progress.

In the United States it has nearly completed its work of
destruction, and there we can best study its results. The
English laws concerning the transmission of property were
abolished in almost all the states at the time of the revolution.
The law of entail was so modified as not to interrupt the free
circulation of property.[Footnote:

See Appendix G.

]  The first having passed away, estates began to be parcelled
out; and the change became more and more rapid with the progress
of time. At this moment, after a lapse of little more than sixty
years, the aspect of society is totally altered; the families of
the great landed proprietors are almost all commingled with the
general mass. In the state of New York, which formerly contained
many of these, there are but two who still keep their heads above
the stream; and they must shortly disappear. The sons of these
opulent citizens have become merchants, lawyers, or physicians.
Most of them have lapsed into obscurity. The last trace of
hereditary ranks and distinctions is destroyed--the law of
partition has reduced all to one level.

I do not mean that there is any deficiency of wealthy individuals
in the United States; I know of no country, indeed, where the
love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men,
and where a profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of
the permanent equality of property. But wealth circulates with
inconceivable rapidity, and experience shows that it is rare to
find two succeeding generations in the full enjoyment of it.

This picture, which may perhaps be thought overcharged, still
gives a very imperfect idea of what is taking place in the new
states of the west and southwest. At the end of the last century
a few bold adventurers began to penetrate into the valleys of the
Mississippi, and the mass of the population very soon began to
move in that direction: communities unheard of till then were
seen to emerge from their wilds: states, whose names were not in
existence a few years before, claimed their place in the American
Union; and in the western settlements we may behold democracy
arrived at its utmost extreme. In these states, founded off
hand, and as it were by chance, the inhabitants are but of
yesterday. Scarcely known to one another, the nearest neighbors
are ignorant of each other's history. In this part of the
American continent, therefore, the population has not experienced
the influence of great names and great wealth, nor even that of
the natural aristocracy of knowledge and virtue. None are there
to wield that respectable power which men willingly grant to the
remembrance of a life spent in doing good before their eyes. The
new states of the west are already inhabited; but society has no
existence among them.

It is not only the fortunes of men which are equal in America;
even their acquirements partake in some degree of the same
uniformity. I do not believe there is a country in the world
where, in proportion to the population, there are so few
uninstructed, and at the same time so few learned individuals.
Primary instruction is within the reach of everybody; superior
instruction is scarcely to be obtained by any. This is not
surprising; it is in fact the necessary consequence of what we
have advanced above. Almost all the Americans are in easy
circumstances, and can therefore obtain the elements of human
knowledge.

In America there are comparatively few who are rich enough to
live without a profession. Every profession requires an
apprenticeship, which limits the time of instruction to the early
years of life. At fifteen they enter upon their calling, and
thus their education ends at the age when ours begins. Whatever
is done afterward, is with a view to some special and lucrative
object; a science is taken up as a matter of business, and the
only branch of it which is attended to is such as admits of an
immediate practical application.


[This paragraph does not fairly render the meaning of the author.
The original French is as follows:--

"En Amrique il y a peu de riches; presque tous les
Amricains ont donc besoin d'exercer une profession. Or, toute
profession exige un apprentissage. Les Amricains ne peuvent
donc donner  la culture gnrale de l'intelligence que les
premires annes de la vie:  quinze ans ils entrent
dans une carrire: ainsi leur education finit le plus souvent
 l'poque o la ntre commence."

What is meant by the remark; that "at fifteen they enter upon a
career, and thus their education is very often finished at the
epoch when ours commences," is not clearly perceived. Our
professional men enter upon their course of preparation for their
respective professions, wholly between eighteen and twenty-one
years of age. Apprentices to trades are bound out, ordinarily,
at fourteen, but what general education they receive is after
that period. Previously, they have acquired the mere elements of
reading, writing, and arithmetic. But it is supposed there is
nothing peculiar to America, in the age at which apprenticeship
commences. In England, they commence at the same age, and it is
believed that the same thing occurs throughout Europe. It is
feared that the author has not here expressed himself with his
usual clearness and precision.--_American Editor._]

In America most of the rich men were formerly poor; most of those
who now enjoy leisure were absorbed in business during their
youth; the consequence of which is, that when they might have had
a taste for study they had no time for it, and when the time is
at their disposal they have no longer the inclination.

There is no class, then, in America in which the taste for
intellectual pleasures is transmitted with hereditary fortune and
leisure, and by which the labors of the intellect are held in
honor. Accordingly there is an equal want of the desire and the
power of application to these objects.

A middling standard is fixed in America for human knowledge. All
approach as near to it as they can; some as they rise, others as
they descend. Of course, an immense multitude of persons are to
be found who entertain the same number of ideas on religion,
history, science, political economy, legislation, and government.
The gifts of intellect proceed directly from God, and man cannot
prevent their unequal distribution. But in consequence of the
state of things which we have here represented, it happens, that
although the capacities of men are widely different, as the
Creator has doubtless intended they should be, they are submitted
to the same method of treatment.

In America the aristocratic element has always been feeble from
its birth; and if at the present day it is not actually
destroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled that we can
scarcely assign to it any degree of influence in the course of
affairs.

The democratic principle, on the contrary, has gained so much
strength by time, by events, and by legislation, as to have
become not only predominant but all-powerful. There is no family
or corporate authority, and it is rare to find even the influence
of individual character enjoy any durability.

America, then, exhibits in her social state a most extraordinary
phenomenon. Men are there seen on a greater equality in point of
fortune and intellect, or in other words, more equal in their
strength, than in any other country of the world, or, in any age
of which history has preserved the remembrance.

       *       *       *       *       *


      POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE
                        ANGLO-AMERICANS.


The political consequences of such a social condition as this
are easily deducible.

It is impossible to believe that equality will not eventually
find its way into the political world as it does everywhere else.
To conceive of men remaining for ever unequal upon one single
point, yet equal on all others, is impossible; they must come in
the end to be equal upon all.

Now I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the
political world: every citizen must be put in possession of his
rights, or rights must be granted to no one. For nations which
have arrived at the same stage of social existence as the
Anglo-Americans, it is therefore very difficult to discover a
medium between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of
one man: and it would be vain to deny that the social condition
which I have been describing is equally liable to each of these
consequences.

There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality, which
excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion
tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there
exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality,
which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their
own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to
inequality with freedom. Not that those nations whose social
condition is democratic naturally despise liberty; on the
contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is
not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is
their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty,
and if they miss their aim, resign themselves to their
disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them except equality, and
rather than lose it they resolve to perish.

On the other hand, in a state where the citizens are nearly on an
equality, it becomes difficult for them to preserve their
independence against the aggression of power. No one among them
being strong enough to engage singly in the struggle with
advantage, nothing but a general combination can protect their
liberty: and such a union is not always to be found.

From the same social position, then, nations may derive one or
the other of two great political results; these results are
extremely different from each other, but they may both proceed
from the same cause.

The Anglo-Americans are the first who, having been exposed to
this formidable alternative, have been happy enough to escape the
dominion of absolute power. They have been allowed by their
circumstances, their origin, their intelligence, and especially
by their moral feeling, to establish and maintain the sovereignty
of the people.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER IV.


        THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE IN
                            AMERICA.

It predominates over the whole of Society in
  America.--Application made of this Principle by the Americans
  even before their Revolution.--Development given to it by that
  Revolution.--Gradual and irresistible Extension of the elective
  Qualification.


Whenever the political laws of the United States are to be
discussed, it is with the doctrine of the sovereignty of the
people that we must begin.

The principle of the sovereignty of the people, which is to be
found, more or less, at the bottom of almost all human
institutions, generally remains concealed from view. It is
obeyed without being recognised, or if for a moment it be brought
to light, it is hastily cast back into the gloom of the
sanctuary.

"The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have
been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every
age. To the eyes of some it has been represented by the venal
suffrages of a few of the satellites of power; to others, by the
votes of a timid or an interested minority; and some have even
discovered it in the silence of a people, on the supposition that
the fact of submission established the right of command.

In America, the principle of the sovereignty of the people is not
either barren or concealed, as it is with some other nations; it
is recognised by the customs and proclaimed by the laws; it
spreads freely, and arrives without impediment at its most remote
consequences. If there be a country in the world where the
doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly
appreciated, where it can be studied in its application to the
affairs of society, and where its dangers and its advantages may
be foreseen, that country is assuredly America.

I have already observed that, from their origin, the sovereignty
of the people was the fundamental principle of the greater number
of the British colonies in America. It was far, however, from
then exercising as much influence on the government of society as
it now does. Two obstacles, the one external, the other
internal, checked its invasive progress.

It could not ostensibly disclose itself in the laws of the
colonies, which were still constrained to obey the
mother-country; it was therefore obliged to spread secretly, and
to gain ground in the provincial assemblies, and especially in
the townships.

American society was not yet prepared to adopt it with all its
consequences. The intelligence of New England, and the wealth of
the country to the south of the Hudson (as I have shown in the
preceding chapter), long exercised a sort of aristocratic
influence, which tended to limit the exercise of social authority
within the hands of a few. The public functionaries were not
universally elected, and the citizens were not all of them
electors. The electoral franchise was everywhere placed within
certain limits, and made dependant on a certain qualification,
which was exceedingly low in the north, and more considerable in
the south.

The American revolution broke out, and the doctrine of the
sovereignty of the people, which had been nurtured in the
townships, took possession of the state; every class was enlisted
in its cause; battles were fought, and victories obtained for it;
until it became the law of laws.

A scarcely less rapid change was effected in the interior of
society, where the law of descent completed the abolition of
local influences.

At the very time when this consequence of the laws and of the
revolution became apparent to every eye, victory was irrevocably
pronounced in favor of the democratic cause. All power was, in
fact, in its hands, and resistance was no longer possible. The
higher orders submitted without a murmur and without a struggle
to an evil which was thenceforth inevitable. The ordinary fate
of falling powers awaited them; each of their several members
followed his own interest; and as it was impossible to wring the
power from the hands of a people which they did not detest
sufficiently to brave, their only aim was to secure its good-will
at any price. The most democratic laws were consequently voted
by the very men whose interests they impaired; and thus, although
the higher classes did not excite the passions of the people
against their order, they accelerated the triumph of the new
state of things; so that, by a singular change, the democratic
impulse was found to be most irresistible in the very states
where the aristocracy had the firmest hold.

The state of Maryland, which had been founded by men of rank, was
the first to proclaim universal suffrage,[Footnote:

See the amendments made to the constitution of Maryland in 1801
and 1809.

] and to introduce the most democratic forms into the conduct of
its government.

When a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily
be foreseen that sooner or later that qualification will be
entirely abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the
history of society: the farther electoral rights are extended,
the more is felt the need of extending them; for after each
concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its
demands increase with its strength. The ambition of those who
are below the appointed rate is irritated in exact proportion to
the great number of those who are above it. The exception at
last becomes the rule, concession follows concession, and no stop
can be made short of universal suffrage.

At the present day the principle of the sovereignty of the people
has acquired, in the United States, all the practical development
which the imagination can conceive. It is unencumbered by those
fictions which have been thrown over it in other countries, and
it appears in every possible form according to the exigency of
the occasion. Sometimes the laws are made by the people in a
body, as at Athens; and sometimes its representatives, chosen by
universal suffrage, transact business in its name, and almost
under its immediate control.

In some countries a power exists which, though it is in a degree
foreign to the social body, directs it, and forces it to pursue a
certain track. In others the ruling force is divided, being
partly within and partly without the ranks of the people. But
nothing of the kind is to be seen in the United States; there
society governs itself for itself. All power centres in its
bosom; and scarcely an individual is to be met with who would
venture to conceive, or, still more, to express, the idea of
seeking it elsewhere. The nation participates in the making of
its laws by the choice of its legislators, and in the execution
of them by the choice of the agents of the executive government;
it may almost be said to govern itself, so feeble and so
restricted is the share left to the administration, so little do
the authorities forget their popular origin and the power from
which they emanate.[Footnote:

See Appendix H.

]

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER V.


       NECESSITY OF EXAMINING THE CONDITION OF THE STATES
               BEFORE THAT OF THE UNION AT LARGE.


It is proposed to examine in the following chapter, what is the
form of government established in America on the principle of the
sovereignty of the people; what are its resources, its
hindrances, its advantages, and its dangers. The first
difficulty which presents itself arises from the complex nature
of the constitution of the United States, which consists of two
distinct social structures, connected, and, as it were, encased,
one within the other; two governments, completely separate, and
almost independent, the one fulfilling the ordinary duties, and
responding to the daily and indefinite calls of a community, the
other circumscribed within certain limits, and only exercising an
exceptional authority over the general interests of the country.
In short, there are twenty-four small sovereign nations, whose
agglomeration constitutes the body of the Union. To examine the
Union before we have studied the states, would be to adopt a
method filled with obstacles. The Federal government of the
United States was the last which was adopted; and it is in fact
nothing more than a modification or a summary of these republican
principles which were current in the whole community before it
existed, and independently of its existence. Moreover, the
federal government is, as I have just observed, the exception;
the government of the states is the rule. The author who should
attempt to exhibit the picture as a whole, before he had
explained its details, would necessarily fall into obscurity and
repetition.

The great political principles which govern American society at
this day, undoubtedly took their origin and their growth in the
state. It is therefore necessary to become acquainted with the
state in order to possess a clew to the remainder. The states
which at present compose the American Union, all present the same
features as far as regards the external aspect of their
institutions. Their political or administrative existence is
centred in three foci of action, which may not inaptly be
compared to the different nervous centres which convey motion to
the human body. The township is in the lowest order, then the
county, and lastly the state; and I propose to devote the
following chapter to the examination of these three divisions.

       *       *       *       *       *


     THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF TOWNSHIPS AND MUNICIPAL BODIES.
[Footnote:

[It is by this periphrasis that I attempt to render the French
expressions "_Commune_" and "_Systme Communal_." I
am not aware that any English word precisely corresponds to the
general term of the original. In France every association of
human dwellings forms a _commune,_ and every commune is
governed by a _maire_ and a _conseil municipal._ In
other words, the _mancipium_ or municipal privilege, which
belongs in England to chartered corporations alone, is alike
extended to every commune into which the cantons and departements
of France were divided at the revolution. Thence the different
application of the expression, which is general in one country
and restricted in the other. In America, the counties of the
northern states are divided into townships, those of the southern
into parishes; besides which, municipal bodies, bearing the name
of corporations, exist in the cities. I shall apply these
several expressions to render the term _commune._ The word
"parish," now commonly used in England, belongs exclusively to
the ecclesiastical division; it denotes the limits over which a
_parson's_ (_person ecclesi_ or perhaps
_parochianus_) rights extend.--_Translator's Note._]

]

Why the Author begins the Examination of the Political
  Institutions with the Township.--Its Existence in all
  Nations.--Difficulty of Establishing and Preserving
  Independence.--Its Importance.--Why the Author has selected the
  Township System of New England as the main Object of his
  Inquiry.


It is not undesignedly that I begin this subject with the
township. The village or township is the only association which
is so perfectly natural, that wherever a number of men are
collected, it seems to constitute itself.

The town, or tithing, as the smallest division of a community,
must necessarily exist in all nations, whatever their laws and
customs may be: if man makes monarchies, and establishes
republics, the first association of mankind seems constituted by
the hand of God. But although the existence of the township is
coeval with that of man, its liberties are not the less rarely
respected and easily destroyed. A nation is always able to
establish great political assemblies, because it habitually
contains a certain number of individuals fitted by their talents,
if not by their habits, for the direction of affairs. The
township is, on the contrary, composed of coarser materials,
which are less easily fashioned by the legislator. The
difficulties which attend the consolidation of its independence
rather augment than diminish with the increasing enlightenment of
the people. A highly-civilized community spurns the attempts of
a local independence, is disgusted at its numerous blunders, and
is apt to despair of success before the experiment is completed.
Again, no immunities are so ill-protected from the encroachments
of the supreme power as those of municipal bodies in general:
they are unable to struggle, single-handed, against a strong or
an enterprising government, and they cannot defend their cause
with success unless it be identified with the customs of the
nation and supported by public opinion. Thus, until the
independence of townships is amalgamated with the manners of a
people, it is easily destroyed; and it is only after a long
existence in the laws that it can be thus amalgamated. Municipal
freedom eludes the exertions of man; it is rarely created; but it
is, as it were, secretly and spontaneously engendered in the
midst of a semi-barbarous state of society. The constant action
of the laws and the national habits, peculiar circumstances, and
above all, time, may consolidate it; but there is certainly no
nation on the continent of Europe which has experienced its
advantages. Nevertheless, local assemblies of citizens
constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions
are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it
within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to
enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government,
but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have
the spirit of liberty. The transient passions, and the interests
of an hour, or the chance of circumstances, may have created the
external forms of independence; but the despotic tendency which
has been repelled will, sooner or later, inevitably reappear on
the surface.

In order to explain to the reader the general principles on which
the political organisations of the counties and townships of the
United States rest, I have thought it expedient to choose one of
the states of New England as an example, to examine the mechanism
of its constitution, and then to cast a general glance over the
country.

The township and the county are not organized in the same manner
in every part of the Union; it is, however, easy to perceive that
the same principles have guided the formation of both of them
throughout the Union. I am inclined to believe that these
principles have been carried farther in New England than
elsewhere, and consequently that they offer greater facilities to
the observations of a stranger.

The institutions of New England form a complete and regular
whole; they have received the sanction of time, they have the
support of the laws, and the still stronger support of the
manners of the community, over which they exercise the most
prodigious influence; they consequently deserve our attention on
every account.

       *       *       *       *       *


                     LIMITS OF THE TOWNSHIP.


The township of New England is a division which stands between
the commune and the canton of France, and which corresponds in
general to the English tithing, or town. Its average population
is from two to three thousand;[Footnote:

In 1830, there were 305 townships in the state of Massachusetts,
and 610,014 inhabitants; which gives an average of about 2,000
inhabitants to each township.

] so that, on the one hand, the interests of the inhabitants are
not likely to conflict, and, on the other, men capable of
conducting its affairs are always to be found among its citizens.

       *       *       *       *       *


           AUTHORITIES OF THE TOWNSHIP IN NEW ENGLAND.

The People the Source of all Power here as Elsewhere.--Manages
  its own Affairs. No Corporation.--The greater part of the
  Authority vested in the Hands of the Selectmen.--How the
  Selectmen act. Town-meeting.--Enumeration of the public
  Officers of the Township Obligatory and remunerated Functions.


In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the
only source of power; but in no stage of government does the body
of citizens exercise a more immediate influence. In America, the
people is a master whose exigencies demand obedience to the
utmost limits of possibility.

In New England the majority acts by representatives in the
conduct of the public business of the state; but if such an
arrangement be necessary in general affairs, in the township,
where the legislative and administrative action of the government
is in more immediate contact with the subject, the system of
representation is not adopted. There is no corporation; but the
body of electors, after having designated its magistrates,
directs them in anything that exceeds the simple and ordinary
executive business of the state.[Footnote:

The same rules are not applicable to the great towns, which
generally have a mayor, and a corporation divided into two
bodies; this, however, is an exception which requires a sanction
of a law. See the act of 22d February, 1822, for appointing the
authorities of the city of Boston. It frequently happens that
small towns as well as cities are subject to a peculiar
administration. In 1832, 104 townships in the state of New York
were governed in this manner.--_Williams's Register_.

]

This state of things is so contrary to our ideas, and so
different from our customs, that it is necessary for me to adduce
some examples to explain it thoroughly.

The public duties in the township are extremely numerous and
minutely divided, as we shall see farther on; but the large
proportion of administrative power is vested in the hands of a
small number of individuals called "the selectmen."[Footnote:

Three selectmen are appointed in the small townships, and nine in
the large ones. See "The Town Officer," p. 186. See also the
principal laws of the state of Massachusetts relative to the
selectmen:--

Act of the 20th February, 1786, vol. i, p. 219; 24th February,
1796, vol. i., p. 488, 7th March, 1801, vol. ii., p. 45; 16th
June, 1795, vol. i., p. 475; 12th March, 1808, vol. ii., p. 186;
28th February, 1787, vol. i., p. 302; 22d June, 1797, vol. i.,
p. 539.

]

The general laws of the state impose a certain number of
obligations on the selectmen, which may they fulfil without the
authorization of the body they govern, but which they can only
neglect on their own responsibility. The law of the state
obliges them, for instance, to draw up the list of electors in
the townships; and if they omit this part of their functions,
they are guilty of a misdemeanor. In all the affairs, however,
which are determined by the town-meeting, the selectmen are the
organs of the popular mandate, as in France the maire executes
the decree of the municipal council. They usually act upon their
own responsibility, and merely put in practice principles which
have been previously recognised by the majority. But if any
change is to be introduced in the existing state of things, or if
they wish to undertake any new enterprise, they are obliged to
refer to the source of their power. If, for instance, a school
is to be established, the selectmen convoke the whole body of
electors on a certain day at an appointed place; they explain the
urgency of the case; they give their opinion on the means of
satisfying it, on the probable expense, and the site which seems
to be most favorable. The meeting is consulted on these several
points; it adopts the principle, marks out the site, votes the
rate, and confides the execution of its resolution to the
selectmen.

The selectmen alone have the right of calling a town-meeting; but
they may be requested to do so: if the citizens are desirous of
submitting a new project to the assent of the township, they may
demand a general convocation of the inhabitants; the selectmen
are obliged to comply, but they have only the right of presiding
at the meeting.[Footnote:

See laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 150. Act of the 25th
March, 1786.

]

The selectmen are elected every year in the month of April or of
May. The town-meeting chooses at the same time a number of
municipal magistrates, who are intrusted with important
administrative functions. The assessors rate the township; the
collectors receive the rate. A constable is appointed to keep
the peace, to watch the streets, and to forward the execution of
the laws; the town-clerk records all the town votes, orders,
grants, births, deaths, and marriages; the treasurer keeps the
funds; the overseer of the poor performs the difficult task of
superintending the action of the poor laws; committee-men are
appointed to attend to the schools and to public instruction; and
the road-surveyors, who take care of the greater and lesser
thoroughfares of the township, complete the list of the principal
functionaries. They are, however, still farther subdivided; and
among the municipal officers are to be found parish
commissioners, who audit the expenses of public worship;
different classes of inspectors, some of whom are to direct the
citizens in case of fire; tithing-men, listers, haywards,
chimney-viewers, fence-viewers to maintain the bounds of
property, timber-measurers, and sealers of weights and
measures.[Footnote:

All these magistrates actually exist; their different functions
are all detailed in a book called, "The Town Officer," by Isaac
Goodwin, Worcester, 1827; and in the Collection of the General
Laws of Massachusetts, 3 vols., Boston, 1823.

]

There are nineteen principal offices in a township. Every
inhabitant is constrained, on pain of being fined, to undertake
these different functions; which, however, are almost all paid,
in order that the poor citizens may be able to give up their time
without loss. In general the American system is not to grant a
fixed salary to its functionaries. Every service has its price,
and they are remunerated in proportion to what they have done.

       *       *       *       *       *


                   EXISTENCE OF THE TOWNSHIP.

Every one the best Judge of his own Interest.--Corollary of the
  Principle of the Sovereignty of the People.--Application of
  these Doctrines in the Townships of America.--The Township of
  New England is Sovereign in that which concerns itself alone;
  subject to the State in all other matters.--Bond of Township
  and the State.--In France the Government lends its Agents to
  the _Commune_.--In America the Reverse occurs.


I have already observed, that the principle of the sovereignty of
the people governs the whole political system of the
Anglo-Americans. Every page of this book will afford new
instances of the same doctrine. In the nations by which the
sovereignty of the people is recognised, every individual
possesses an equal share of power, and participates alike in the
government of the state. Every individual is therefore supposed
to be as well informed, as virtuous, and as strong, as any of his
fellow-citizens. He obeys the government, not because he is
inferior to the authorities which conduct it, or that he is less
capable than his neighbor of governing himself, but because he
acknowledges the utility of an association with his fellow-men,
and because he knows that no such association can exist without a
regulating force. If he be a subject in all that concerns the
mutual relations of citizens, he is free and responsible to God
alone for all that concerns himself. Hence arises the maxim that
every one is the best and the sole judge of his own private
interest, and that society has no right to control a man's
actions, unless they are prejudicial to the common weal, or
unless the common weal demands his co-operation. This doctrine
is universally admitted in the United States. I shall hereafter
examine the general influence which it exercises on the ordinary
actions of life: I am now speaking of the nature of municipal
bodies.

The township, taken as a whole, and in relation to the government
of the country, may be looked upon as an individual to whom the
theory I have just alluded to is applied. Municipal independence
is therefore a natural consequence of the principle of the
sovereignty of the people in the United States, all the American
republics recognise it more or less; but circumstances have
peculiarly favored its growth in New England.

In this part of the Union the impulsion of political activity was
given in the townships; and it may almost be said that each of
them originally formed an independent nation. When the kings of
England asserted their supremacy, they were contented to assume
the central power of the state. The townships of New England
remained as they were before; and although they are now subject
to the state, they were at first scarcely dependent upon it. It
is important to remember that they have not been invested with
privileges, but that they seem, on the contrary, to have
surrendered a portion of their independence to the state. The
townships are only subordinate to the state in those interests
which I shall term _social_, as they are common to all the
citizens. They are independent in all that concerns themselves;
and among the inhabitants of New England I believe that not a man
is to be found who would acknowledge that the state has any right
to interfere in their local interests. The towns of New England
buy and sell, prosecute or are indicted, augment or diminish
their rates, without the slightest opposition on the part of the
administrative authority of the state.

They are bound, however, to comply with the demands of the
community. If the state is in need of money, a town can neither
give nor withhold the supplies. If the state projects a road,
the township cannot refuse to let it cross its territory; if a
police regulation is made by the state, it must be enforced by
the town. A uniform system of instruction is organised all over
the country, and every town is bound to establish the schools
which the law ordains. In speaking of the administration of the
United States, I shall have occasion to point out the means by
which the townships are compelled to obey in these different
cases: I here merely show the existence of the obligation.
Strict as this obligation is, the government of the state imposes
it in principle only, and in its performance the township resumes
all its independent rights. Thus, taxes are voted by the state,
but they are assessed and collected by the township; the
existence of a school is obligatory, but the township builds,
pays, and superintends it. In France the state collector
receives the local imposts; in America the town collector
receives the taxes of the state. Thus the French government
lends its agents to the commune; in America, the township is the
agent of the government. This fact alone shows the extent of the
differences which exist between the two nations.

       *       *       *       *       *


         PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE TOWNSHIPS OF NEW ENGLAND.

How the Township of New England wins the Affections of its
  Inhabitants.--Difficulty of creating local public Spirit in
  Europe.--The Rights and Duties of the American Township
  favorable to it.--Characteristics of Home in the United
  States.--Manifestations of public Spirit in New England.--Its
  happy Effects.


In America, not only do municipal bodies exist, but they are kept
alive and supported by public spirit. The township of New
England possesses two advantages which infallibly secure the
attentive interest of mankind, namely, independence and
authority. Its sphere is indeed small and limited, but within
that sphere its action is unrestrained; and its independence
would give to it a real importance, even if its extent and
population did not ensure it.

It is to be remembered that the affections of men are generally
turned only where there is strength. Patriotism is not durable
in a conquered nation. The New Englander is attached to his
township, not only because he was born in it, but because it
constitutes a strong and free social body of which he is a
member, and whose government claims and deserves the exercise of
his sagacity. In Europe, the absence of local public spirit is a
frequent subject of regret to those who are in power; every one
agrees that there is no surer guarantee of order and
tranquillity, and yet nothing is more difficult to create. If
the municipal bodies were made powerful and independent, the
authorities of the nation might be disunited, and the peace of
the country endangered. Yet, without power and independence, a
town may contain good subjects, but it can have no active
citizens. Another important fact is, that the township of New
England is so constituted as to excite the warmest of human
affections, without arousing the ambitious passions of the heart
of man. The officers of the county are not elected, and their
authority is very limited. Even the state is only a second-rate
community, whose tranquil and obscure administration offers no
inducement sufficient to draw men away from the circle of their
interests into the turmoil of public affairs. The federal
government confers power and honor on the men who conduct it; but
these individuals can never be very numerous. The high station
of the presidency can only be reached at an advanced period of
life; and the other federal functionaries are generally men who
have been favored by fortune, or distinguished in some other
career. Such cannot be the permanent aim of the ambitious. But
the township serves as a centre for the desire of public esteem,
the want of exciting interests, and the taste for authority and
popularity, in the midst of the ordinary relations of life: and
the passions which commonly embroil society, change their
character when they find a vent so near the domestic hearth and
the family circle.

In the American states power has been disseminated with admirable
skill, for the purpose of interesting the greatest possible
number of persons in the common weal. Independently of the
electors who are from time to time called into action, the body
politic is divided into innumerable functionaries and officers,
who all, in their several spheres, represent the same powerful
corporation in whose name they act. The local administration
thus affords an unfailing source of profit and interest to a vast
number of individuals.

The American system, which divides the local authority among so
many citizens, does not scruple to multiply the functions of the
town officers. For in the United States, it is believed, and
with truth, that patriotism is a kind of devotion, which is
strengthened by ritual observance. In this manner the activity
of the township is continually perceptible; it is daily
manifested in the fulfilment of a duty, or the exercise of a
right; and a constant though gentle motion is thus kept up in
society which animates without disturbing it.

The American attaches himself to his home, as the mountaineer
clings to his hills, because the characteristic features of his
country are there more distinctly marked than elsewhere. The
existence of the townships of New England is in general a happy
one. Their government is suited to their tastes, and chosen by
themselves. In the midst of the profound peace and general
comfort which reign in America, the commotions of municipal
discord are infrequent. The conduct of local business is easy.
The political education of the people has long been complete; say
rather that it was complete when the people first set foot upon
the soil. In New England no tradition exists of a distinction of
ranks; no portion of the community is tempted to oppress the
remainder; and the abuses which may injure isolated individuals
are forgotten in the general contentment which prevails. If the
government is defective (and it would no doubt be easy to point
out its deficiencies), the fact that it really emanates from
those it governs, and that it acts, either ill or well, casts the
protecting spell of a parental pride over its faults. No term of
comparison disturbs the satisfaction of the citizen: England
formerly governed the mass of the colonies, but the people was
always sovereign in the township, where its rule is not only an
ancient, but a primitive state.

The native of New England is attached to his township because it
is independent and free; his co-operation in its affairs ensures
his attachment to its interest; the well-being it affords him
secures his affection; and its welfare is the aim of his ambition
and of his future exertions; he takes a part in every occurrence
in the place; he practises the art of government in the small
sphere within his reach; he accustoms himself to those forms
which can alone ensure the steady progress of liberty; he imbibes
their spirit; he acquires a taste for order, comprehends the
union of the balance of powers, and collects clear practical
notions on the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.

       *       *       *       *       *


                  THE COUNTIES OF NEW ENGLAND.


The division of the counties in America has considerable analogy
with that of the arrondissements of France. The limits of the
counties are arbitrarily laid down, and the various districts
which they contain have no necessary connexion, no common
traditional or natural sympathy; their object is simply to
facilitate the administration of public affairs.

The extent of the township was too small to contain a system of
judicial institutions; each county has, however, a court of
justice,[Footnote:

See the act of 14th February, 1821. Laws of Massachusetts,
vol. i., p. 551.

] a sheriff to execute its decrees, and a prison for criminals.
There are certain wants which are felt alike by all the townships
of a county; it is therefore natural that they should be
satisfied by a central authority. In the state of Massachusetts
this authority is vested in the hands of several magistrates who
are appointed by the governor of the state, with the advice
[Footnote:

See the act of 20th February, 1819. Laws of Massachusetts,
vol. ii., p. 494.

] of his council.[Footnote:

The council of the governor is an elective body.

]  The officers of the county have only a limited and occasional
authority, which is applicable to certain predetermined cases.
The state and the townships possess all the power requisite to
conduct public business. The budget of the county is only drawn
up by its officers, and is voted by the legislature.[Footnote:

See the act of 2d November, 1791. Laws of Massachusetts,
vol. i., p. 61.

]  There is no assembly which directly or indirectly represents
the county; it has, therefore, properly speaking, no political
existence.

A twofold tendency may be discerned in the American
constitutions, which impels the legislator to centralize the
legislative, and to disperse the executive power. The township
of New England has in itself an indestructible element of
independence; but this distinct existence could only be
fictitiously introduced into the county, where its utility had
not been felt. All the townships united have but one
representation, which is the state, the centre of the national
authority: beyond the action of the township and that of the
nation, nothing can be said to exist but the influence of
individual exertion.

       *       *       *       *       *



                    CONDITION OF THE STATES.

                 ADMINISTRATION IN NEW ENGLAND.

Administration not perceived in America.--Why?--The Europeans
  believe that Liberty is promoted by depriving the social
  Authority of some of its Rights; the Americans, by dividing its
  Exercise.--Almost all the Administration confined to the
  Township, and divided among the town Officers.--No trace of an
  administrative Hierarchy to be perceived either in the
  Township, or above it.--The Reason of this.--How it happens
  that the Administration of the State is uniform.--Who is
  empowered to enforce the Obedience of the Township and the
  County to the Law.--The introduction of judicial Power into the
  Administration.--Consequence of the Extension of the elective
  Principle to all Functionaries.--The Justice of the Peace in
  New England.--By whom Appointed.--County Officer.--Ensures the
  Administration of the Townships.--Court of Sessions.--Its
  Action.--Right of Inspection and Indictment disseminated like
  the other administrative Functions.--Informers encouraged by
  the division of Fines.


Nothing is more striking to a European traveller in the United
States than the absence of what we term government, or the
administration. Written laws exist in America, and one sees that
they are daily executed; but although everything is in motion,
the hand which gives the impulse to the social machine can
nowhere be discovered. Nevertheless, as all people are obliged
to have recourse to certain grammatical forms, which are the
foundation of human language, in order to express their thoughts;
so all communities are obliged to secure their existence by
submitting to a certain portion of authority, without which they
fall a prey to anarchy. This authority may be distributed in
several ways, but it must always exist somewhere.

There are two methods of diminishing the force of authority in a
nation.

The first is to weaken the supreme power in its very principle,
by forbidding or preventing society from acting in its own
defence under certain circumstances. To weaken authority in this
manner is what is generally termed in Europe to lay the
foundations of freedom.

The second manner of diminishing the influence of authority does
not consist in stripping society of any of its rights, nor in
paralysing its efforts, but in distributing the exercise of its
privileges among various hands, and in multiplying functionaries,
to each of whom the degree of power necessary for him to perform
his duty is intrusted. There may be nations whom this
distribution of social powers might lead to anarchy; but in
itself it is not anarchical. The action of authority is indeed
thus rendered less irresistible, and less perilous, but it is not
totally suppressed.

The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature
and deliberate taste for freedom, not of a vague or ill-defined
craving for independence. It contracted no alliance with the
turbulent passions of anarchy; but its course was marked, on the
contrary, by an attachment to whatever was lawful and orderly.

It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a
free country has a right to do whatever he pleases: on the
contrary, social obligations were there imposed upon him more
various than anywhere else; no idea was ever entertained of
attacking the principles, or of contesting the rights of society;
but the exercise of its authority was divided, to the end that
the office might be powerful and the officer insignificant, and
that the community should be at once regulated and free. In no
country in the world does the law hold so absolute a language as
in America; and in no country is the right of applying it vested
in so many hands. The administrative power in the United States
presents nothing either central or hierarchical in its
constitution, which accounts for its passing unperceived. The
power exists, but its representative is not to be discerned.

We have already seen that the independent townships of New
England protect their own private interests; and the municipal
magistrates are the persons to whom the execution of the laws of
the state is most frequently intrusted.[Footnote:

See "The Town Officer," especially at the words SELECTMEN,
ASSESSORS, COLLECTORS, SCHOOLS, SURVEYORS OF HIGHWAYS. I take
one example in a thousand: the state prohibits travelling on a
Sunday; the _tything-men_, who are town-officers, are
especially charged to keep watch and to execute the law. See the
laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 410.

The selectmen draw up the lists of electors for the election of
the governor, and transmit the result of the ballot to the
secretary of the state. See act of 24th February, 1796;
_Ib._, vol. i., p. 488.

]  Beside the general laws, the state sometimes passes general
police regulations; but more commonly the townships and town
officers, conjointly with the justices of the peace, regulate the
minor details of social life, according to the necessities of the
different localities, and promulgate such enactments as concern
the health of the community, and the peace as well as morality of
the citizens.[Footnote:

Thus, for instance, the selectmen authorise the construction of
drains, point out the proper sites for slaughter-houses and other
trades which are a nuisance to the neighborhood. See the act of
7th June, 1735; Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 193.

]  Lastly, these municipal magistrates provide of their own
accord and without any delegated powers, for those unforeseen
emergencies which frequently occur in society.[Footnote:

The selectmen take measures for the security of the public in
case of contagious disease, conjointly with the justices of the
peace. See the act of 22d June, 1797; vol. i., p. 539.

]

It results, from what we have said, that in the state of
Massachusetts the administrative authority is almost entirely
restricted to the township,[Footnote:

I say _almost,_ for there are various circumstances in the
annals of a township which are regulated by the justice of the
peace in his individual capacity, or by the justices of the
peace, assembled in the chief town of the county; thus licenses
are granted by the justices. See the act of 28th Feb., 1787;
vol. i., p. 297.

] but that it is distributed among a great number of individuals.
In the French commune there is properly but one official
functionary, namely, the maire; and in New England we have seen
that there are nineteen. These nineteen functionaries do not in
general depend upon one another. The law carefully prescribes a
circle of action to each of these magistrates; and within that
circle they have an entire right to perform their functions
independently of any other authority. Above the township
scarcely any trace of a series of official dignities is to be
found. It sometimes happens that the county officers alter a
decision of the townships, or town magistrates,[Footnote:

Thus licenses are only granted to such persons as can produce a
certificate of good conduct from the selectmen. If the selectmen
refuse to give the certificate, the party may appeal to the
justices assembled in the court of sessions; and they may grant
the license. See the act of 12th March, 1808; vol. ii., p. 186.

The townships have the right to make by-laws, and to enforce them
by fines which are fixed by law; but these by-laws must be
approved by the court of sessions. See the act of 23d March,
1786; vol. i., p. 254.

] but in general the authorities of the county have no right to
interfere with the authorities of the township,[Footnote:

In Massachusetts the county-magistrates are frequently called
upon to investigate the acts of the town-magistrates; but it will
be shown farther on that this investigation is a consequence, not
of their administrative, but of their judicial power.

] except in such matters as concern the county.

The magistrates of the township, as well as those of the county,
are bound to communicate their acts to the central government in
a very small number of predetermined cases,[Footnote:

The town committees of schools are obliged to make an annual
report to the secretary of the state on the condition of the
School. See the act of 10th March, 1827; vol. iii., p. 183.

]  But the central government is not represented by an individual
whose business it is to publish police regulations and ordinances
enforcing the execution of the laws; to keep up a regular
communication with the officers of the township and the county;
to inspect their conduct, to direct their actions, or reprimand
their faults. There is no point which serves as a centre to the
radii of the administration.

What, then, is the uniform plan on which the government is
conducted, and how is the compliance of the counties and their
magistrates, or the townships and their officers, enforced?  In
the states of New England the legislative authority embraces more
subjects than it does in France; the legislator penetrates to the
very core of the administration; the law descends to the most
minute details; the same enactment prescribes the principle and
the method of its application, and thus imposes a multitude of
strict and rigorously defined obligations on the secondary
functionaries of the state. The consequence of this is, that if
all the secondary functionaries of the administration conform to
the law, society in all its branches proceeds with the greatest
uniformity; the difficulty remains of compelling the secondary
functionaries of the administration to conform to the law. It
may be affirmed that, in general, society has only two methods of
enforcing the execution of the laws at its disposal; a
discretionary power may be intrusted to a superior functionary of
directing all the others, and of cashiering them in case of
disobedience; or the courts of justice may be authorized to
inflict judicial penalties on the offender: but these two methods
are not always available.

The right of directing a civil officer pre-supposes that of
cashiering him if he does not obey orders, and of rewarding him
by promotion if he fulfils his duties with propriety. But an
elected magistrate can neither be cashiered nor promoted. All
elective functions are inalienable until their term is expired.
In fact, the elected magistrate has nothing either to expect or
to fear from his constituents; and when all public offices are
filled by ballot, there can be no series of official dignities,
because the double right of commanding and of enforcing obedience
can never be vested in the same individual, and because the power
of issuing an order can never be joined to that of inflicting a
punishment or bestowing a reward.

The communities therefore in which the secondary functionaries of
the government are elected, are perforce obliged to make great
use of judicial penalties as a means of administration. This is
not evident at first sight; for those in power are apt to look
upon the institution of elective functionaries as one concession,
and the subjection of the elective magistrate to the judges of
the land as another. They are equally averse to both these
innovations; and as they are more pressingly solicited to grant
the former than the latter, they accede to the election of the
magistrate, and leave him independent of the judicial power.
Nevertheless, the second of these measures is the only thing that
can possibly counterbalance the first; and it will be found that
an elective authority which is not subject to judicial power
will, sooner or later, either elude all control or be destroyed.
The courts of justice are the only possible medium between the
central power and the administrative bodies; they alone can
compel the elected functionary to obey, without violating the
rights of the elector. The extension of judicial power in the
political world ought therefore to be in the exact ratio of the
extension of elective offices; if these two institutions do not
go hand in hand, the state must fall into anarchy or into
subjection.

It has always been remarked that habits of legal business do not
render men apt to the exercise of administrative authority. The
Americans have borrowed from the English, their fathers, the idea
of an institution which is unknown upon the continent of Europe:
I allude to that of justices of the peace.

The justice of the peace is a sort of _mezzo termine_
between the magistrate and the man of the world, between the
civil officer and the judge. A justice of the peace is a
well-informed citizen, though he is not necessarily versed in the
knowledge of the laws. His office simply obliges him to execute
the police regulations of society; a task in which good sense and
integrity are of more avail than legal science. The justice
introduces into the administration a certain taste for
established forms and publicity, which renders him a most
unserviceable instrument of despotism; and, on the other hand, he
is not blinded by those superstitions which render legal officers
unfit members of a government. The Americans have adopted the
system of English justices of the peace, but they have deprived
it of that aristocratic character which is discernible in the
mother-country. The governor of Massachusetts[Footnote:

We shall hereafter learn what a governor is; I shall content
myself with remarking in this place, that he represents the
executive power of the whole state.

] appoints a certain number of justices of the peace in every
county, whose functions last seven years.[Footnote:

See the constitution of Massachusetts, chap, ii.,  1; chap
iii.,  3.

]  He farther designates three individuals from among the whole
body of justices, who form in each county what is called the
court of sessions. The justices take a personal share in public
business; they are sometimes intrusted with administrative
functions in conjunction with elected officers;[Footnote: Thus,
for example, a stranger arrives in a township from a country
where a contagious disease prevails, and he falls ill. Two
justices of the peace can, with the assent of the selectmen,
order the sheriff of the county to remove and take care of him.
Act of 22d June, 1797; vol. i., p. 540.

In general the justices interfere in all the important acts of
the administration, and give them a semi-judicial character.

] they sometimes constitute a tribunal, before which the
magistrates summarily prosecute a refractory citizen or the
citizens inform against the abuses of the magistrate. But it is
in the court of sessions that they exercise their most important
functions. This court meets twice a year in the county town; in
Massachusetts it is empowered to enforce the obedience of the
greater number[Footnote:

I say _the greater number_ because certain administrative
misdemeanors are brought before the ordinary tribunals. If, for
instance, a township refuses to make the necessary expenditure
for its schools, or to name a school-committee, it is liable to a
heavy fine. But this penalty is pronounced by the supreme
judicial court or the court of common pleas. See the act of 10th
March, 1827; laws of Massachusetts, vol. iii., p. 190. Or when a
township neglects to provide the necessary war-stores. Act of
21st February, 1822; _Id._ vol. ii., p. 570.

] of public officers.[Footnote:

In their individual capacity, the justices of the peace take a
part in the business of the counties and townships. The more
important acts of the municipal government are rarely decided
upon without the co-operation of one of their body.

]  It must be observed that in the state of Massachusetts the
court of sessions is at the same time an administrative body,
properly so called, and a political tribunal. It has been
asserted that the county is a purely administrative division.
The court of sessions presides over that small number of affairs
which, as they concern several townships, or all the townships of
the county in common, cannot be intrusted to any of them in
particular.[Footnote:

These affairs may be brought under the following heads:  1. The
erection of prisons and courts of justice. 2. The county budget,
which is afterward voted by the state. 3. The assessment of the
taxes so voted. 4. Grants of certain patents. 5. The laying
down and repairs of the county roads.

]  In all that concerns county business, the duties of the court
of sessions are therefore purely administrative; and if in its
investigations it occasionally borrows the forms of judicial
procedure, it is only with a view to its own information,
[Footnote:

Thus, when a road is under consideration, almost all difficulties
are disposed of by the aid of the jury.

] or as a guarantee to the community over which it presides. But
when the administration of the township is brought before it, it
almost always acts as a judicial body, and in some few cases as
an administrative assembly.

The first difficulty is to procure the obedience of an authority
so entirely independent of the general laws of the state as the
township is. We have stated that assessors are annually named by
the town meetings, to levy the taxes. If a township attempts to
evade the payment of the taxes by neglecting to name its
assessors, the court of sessions condemns it to a heavy
penalty.[Footnote:

See the act of the 20th February, 1786; laws of Massachusetts,
vol. i., p. 217.

]  The fine is levied on each of the inhabitants; and the sheriff
of the county, who is an officer of justice, executes the
mandate. Thus it is that in the United States the authority of
the government is mysteriously concealed under the forms of a
judicial sentence; and the influence is at the same time
fortified by that irresistible power with which men have invested
the formalities of law.

These proceedings are easy to follow, and to understand. The
demands made upon a township are in general plain and accurately
defined; they consist in a simple fact without any complication,
or in a principle without its application in detail.[Footnote:

There is an indirect method of enforcing the obedience of a
township. Suppose that the funds which the law demands for the
maintenance of the roads have not been voted; the town-surveyor
is then authorized, _ex-officio_, to levy the supplies. As
he is personally responsible to private individuals for the state
of the roads, and indictable before the court of sessions, he is
sure to employ the extraordinary right which the law gives him
against the township. Thus by threatening the officer, the court
of sessions exacts compliance from the town. See the act of 5th
March, 1787; laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 305.

]  But the difficulty increases when it is not the obedience of
the township, but that of the town officers, which is to be
enforced. All the reprehensible actions of which a public
functionary may be guilty are reducible to the following heads:--
He may execute the law without energy or zeal; He may neglect to
execute the law; He may do what the law enjoins him not to do.

The last two violations of duty can alone come under the
cognizance of a tribunal; a positive and appreciable fact is the
indispensable foundation of an action at law. Thus, if the
selectmen omit to fulfil the legal formalities usual to town
elections, they may be condemned to pay a fine; [Footnote:

Laws of Massachusetts, vol. ii., p. 45.

] but when the public officer performs his duty without ability,
and when he obeys the letter of the law without zeal or energy,
he is at least beyond the reach of judicial interference. The
court of sessions, even when it is invested with its
administrative powers, is in this case unable to compel him to a
more satisfactory obedience. The fear of removal is the only
check to these quasi offences; and as the court of sessions does
not originate the town authorities, it cannot remove
functionaries whom it does not appoint. Moreover, a perpetual
investigation would be necessary to convict the subordinate
officer of negligence or lukewarmness; and the court of sessions
sits but twice a year, and then only judges such offences as are
brought before its notice. The only security for that active and
enlightened obedience, which a court of justice cannot impose
upon public officers, lies in the possibility of their arbitrary
removal. In France this security is sought for in powers
exercised by the heads of the administration; in America it is
sought for in the principle of election.

Thus, to recapitulate in a few words what I have been showing:--

If a public officer in New England commits a crime in the
exercise of his functions, the ordinary courts of justice are
always called upon to pass sentence upon him.

If he commits a fault in his official capacity, a purely
administrative tribunal is empowered to punish him; and, if the
affair is important or urgent, the judge supplies the omission of
the functionary.[Footnote:

If, for instance, a township persists in refusing to name its
assessors, the court of sessions nominates them; and the
magistrates thus appointed are invested with the same authority
as elected officers. See the act quoted above, 20th February,
1787.

]

Lastly, if the same individual is guilty of one of those
intangible offences, of which human justice has no cognizance, he
annually appears before a tribunal from which there is no appeal,
which can at once reduce him to insignificance, and deprive him
of his charge. This system undoubtedly possesses great
advantages, but its execution is attended with a practical
difficulty which it is important to point out.

I have already observed, that the administrative tribunal, which
is called the court of sessions, has no right of inspection over
the town officers. It can only interfere when the conduct of a
magistrate is specially brought under its notice; and this is the
delicate part of the system. The Americans of New England are
unacquainted with the office of public prosecutor in the court of
sessions,[Footnote:

I say the court of sessions, because in common courts there is a
magistrate who exercises some of the functions of a public
prosecutor.

] and it may readily be perceived that it could not have been
established without difficulty. If an accusing magistrate had
merely been appointed in the chief town of each county, and if he
had been unassisted by agents in the townships, he would not have
been better acquainted with what was going on in the county than
the members of the court of sessions. But to appoint agents in
each township, would have been to centre in his person the most
formidable of powers, that of a judicial administration.
Moreover, laws are the children of habit, and nothing of the kind
exists in the legislation of England. The Americans have
therefore divided the officers of inspection and of prosecution
as well as all the other functions of the administration.
Grand-jurors are bound by the law to apprize the court to which
they belong of all the misdemeanors which may have been committed
in their county.[Footnote:

The grand-jurors are, for instance, bound to inform the court of
the bad state of the roads. Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i.,
p. 308.

]  There are certain great offences which are officially
prosecuted by the state;[Footnote:

If, for instance, the treasurer of the county holds back his
account. Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 406.

] but more frequently the task of punishing delinquents devolves
upon the fiscal officer, whose province it is to receive the
fine; thus the treasurer of the township is charged with the
prosecution of such administrative offences as fall under his
notice. But a more especial appeal is made by American
legislation to the private interest of the citizen,[Footnote:

Thus, if a private individual breaks down or is wounded in
consequence of the badness of a road, he can sue the township or
the county for damages at the sessions. Laws of Massachusetts,
vol. i., p. 309.

] and this great principle is constantly to be met with in
studying the laws of the United States. American legislators are
more apt to give men credit for intelligence than for honesty;
and they rely not a little on personal cupidity for the execution
of the laws. When an individual is really and sensibly injured
by an administrative abuse, it is natural that his personal
interest should induce him to prosecute. But if a legal
formality be required which, however advantageous to the
community, is of small importance to individuals, plaintiffs may
be less easily found; and thus, by a tacit agreement, the laws
might fall into disuse. Reduced by their system to this
extremity, the Americans are obliged to encourage informers by
bestowing on them a portion of the penalty in certain
cases;[Footnote:

In cases of invasion or insurrection, if the town officers
neglect to furnish the necessary stores and ammunition for the
militia, the township may be condemned to a fine of from two to
five hundred dollars. It may readily be imagined that in such a
case it might happen that no one cared to prosecute: hence the
law adds that all the citizens may indict offences of this kind,
and that half the fine shall belong to the plaintiff. See the
act of 6th March, 1810; vol. ii., p. 236. The same clause is
frequently to be met with in the laws of Massachusetts. Not only
are private individuals thus incited to prosecute public
officers, but the public officers are encouraged in the same
manner to bring the disobedience of private individuals to
justice. If a citizen refuses to perform the work which has been
assigned to him upon a road, the road-surveyor may prosecute him,
and he receives half the penalty for himself. See the laws above
quoted, vol. i., p. 308.

] and to ensure the execution of the laws by the dangerous
expedient of degrading the morals of the people.

The only administrative authority above the county magistrates
is, properly speaking, that of the government.

       *       *       *       *       *


       GENERAL REMARKS ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED
                             STATES.

Difference of the States of the Union in their Systems of
  Administration.--Activity and Perfection of the local
  Authorities decreases towards the South.--Power of the
  Magistrates increases; that of the Elector
  diminishes.--Administration passes from the Township to the
  County.--States of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania.--Principles of
  Administration applicable to the whole Union.--Election of
  public Officers, and Inalienability of their
  Functions.--Absence of Gradation of Ranks.--Introduction of
  judicial Resources into the Administration.


I have already premised that after having examined the
constitution of the township and the county of New England in
detail, I should take a general view of the remainder of the
Union. Townships and a local activity exist in every state; but
in no part of the confederation is a township to be met with
precisely similar to those in New England. The more we descend
toward the south, the less active does the business of the
township or parish become; the number of magistrates, of
functions, and of rights, decreases; the population exercises a
less immediate influence on affairs; town-meetings are less
frequent, and the subjects of debates less numerous. The power
of the elected magistrate is augmented, and that of the elector
diminished, while the public spirit of the local communities is
less awakened and less influential.[Footnote:

For details, see Revised Statutes of the state of New York, part
I. chap. xi., vol. i., pp. 336-364, entitled, "Of the Powers,
Duties, and Privileges of Towns."

See in the digest of the laws of Pennsylvania, the words,
ASSESSORS, COLLECTOR, CONSTABLES, OVERSEER OF THE POOR,
SUPERVISORS OF HIGHWAYS: and in the acts of a general nature of
the state of Ohio, the act of 25th February, 1834, relating to
townships, p. 412; beside the peculiar dispositions relating to
divers town officers, such as township's clerks, trustees,
overseers of the poor, fence-viewers, appraisers of property,
township's treasurer, constables, supervisors of highways.

]

These differences may be perceived to a certain extent in the
state of New York; they are very sensible in Pennsylvania; but
they become less striking as we advance to the northwest. The
majority of the emigrants who settle in the northwestern states
are natives of New England, and they carry the habits of their
mother-country with them into that which they adopt. A township
in Ohio is by no means dissimilar from a township in
Massachusetts.

We have seen that in Massachusetts the principal part of the
public administration lies in the township. It forms the common
centre of the interests and affections of the citizens. But this
ceases to be the case as we descend to states in which knowledge
is less generally diffused, and where the township consequently
offers fewer guarantees of a wise and active administration. As
we leave New England, therefore, we find that the importance of
the town is gradually transferred to the county, which becomes
the centre of administration, and the intermediate power between
the government and the citizen. In Massachusetts the business of
the town is conducted by the court of sessions, which is composed
of a _quorum_ named by the governor and his council; but the
county has no representative assembly, and its expenditure is
voted by the national[Footnote:

The author means the state legislature. The congress has no
control over the expenditure of the counties or of the states.

] legislature. In the great state of New York, on the contrary,
and in those of Ohio and Pennsylvania, the inhabitants of each
county choose a certain number of representatives, who constitute
the assembly of the county.[Footnote:

See the Revised Statutes of the state of New York, part i.,
chap. xi., vol. i., p. 410. _Idem_, chap. xii., p. 366:
also in the acts of the state of Ohio, an act relating to county
commissioners, 26th February, 1824, p. 263. See the Digest of
the Laws of Pennsylvania, at the words, COUNTY-RATES AND LEVIES,
p. 170.

In the state of New York, each township elects a representative,
who has a share in the administration of the county as well as in
that of the township.

]  The county assembly has the right of taxing the inhabitants to
a certain extent; and in this respect it enjoys the privileges of
a real legislative body: at the same time it exercises an
executive power in the county, frequently directs the
administration of the townships, and restricts their authority
within much narrower bounds than in Massachusetts.

Such are the principal differences which the systems of county
and town administration present in the federal states. Were it
my intention to examine the provisions of American law minutely,
I should have to point out still farther differences in the
executive details of the several communities. But what I have
already said may suffice to show the general principles on which
the administration of the United States rests. These principles
are differently applied; their consequences are more or less
numerous in various localities; but they are always substantially
the same. The laws differ, and their outward features change,
but their character does not vary. If the township and the
county are not everywhere constituted in the same manner, it is
at least true that in the United States the county and the
township are always based upon the same principle, namely, that
every one is the best judge of what concerns himself alone, and
the person most able to supply his private wants. The township
and the county are therefore bound to take care of their special
interests: the state governs, but it does not interfere with
their administration. Exceptions to this rule may be met with,
but not a contrary principle.

The first consequence of this doctrine has been to cause all the
magistrates to be chosen either by, or at least from among the
citizens. As the officers are everywhere elected or appointed
for a certain period, it has been impossible to establish the
rules of a dependent series of authorities; there are almost as
many independent functionaries as there are functions, and the
executive power is disseminated in a multitude of hands. Hence
arose the indispensable necessity of introducing the control of
the courts of justice over the administration, and the system of
pecuniary penalties, by which the secondary bodies and their
representatives are constrained to obey the laws. The system
obtains from one end of the Union to the other. The power of
punishing the misconduct of public officers, or of performing the
part of the executive, in urgent cases, has not, however, been
bestowed on the same judges in all the states. The
Anglo-Americans derived the institution of justices of the peace
from a common source; but although it exists in all the states,
it is not always turned to the same use. The justices of the
peace everywhere participate in the administration of the
townships and the counties,[Footnote:

In some of the southern states the county-courts are charged with
all the details of the administration. See the Statutes of the
State of Tennessee, _arts._ JUDICIARY, TAXES, &c.

] either as public officers or as the judges of public
misdemeanors, but in most of the states the more important
classes of public offences come under the cognisance of the
ordinary tribunals.

The election of public officers, or the inalienability of their
functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the
introduction of a judicial control over the secondary branches of
the administration, are the universal characteristics of the
American system from Maine to the Floridas. In some states (and
that of New York has advanced most in this direction) traces of a
centralised administration begin to be discernible. In the state
of New York the officers of the central government exercise, in
certain cases, a sort of inspection of control over the secondary
bodies.[Footnote:

For instance, the direction of public instruction centres in the
hands of the government. The legislature names the members of
the university, who are denominated regents; the governor and
lieutenant-governor of the state are necessarily of the number.
Revised Statutes, vol. i., p. 455. The regents of the university
annually visit the colleges and academies, and make their report
to the legislature. Their superintendence is not inefficient,
for several reasons: the colleges in order to become corporations
stand in need of a charter, which is only granted on the
recommendation of the regents: every year funds are distributed
by the state for the encouragement of learning, and the regents
are the distributors of this money. See chap. xv., "Public
Instruction," Revised Statutes, vol. i., p. 455.

The school commissioners are obliged to send an annual report to
the superintendent of the state. _Idem_, p. 448.

A similar report is annually made to the same person on the
number and condition of the poor. _Idem_, p. 631.

]  At other times they constitute a court of appeal for the
decision of affairs.[Footnote:

If any one conceives himself to be wronged by the school
commissioners (who are town-officers), he can appeal to the
superintendent of the primary schools, whose decision is final.
Revised Statutes, vol. i., p. 487.

Provisions similar to those above cited are to be met with from
time to time in the laws of the state of New York: but in general
these attempts at centralisation are weak and unproductive. The
great authorities of the state have the right of watching and
controlling the subordinate agents, without that of rewarding or
punishing them. The same individual is never empowered to give
an order and to punish disobedience; he has therefore the right
of commanding, without the means of exacting compliance. In 1830
the superintendent of schools complained in his annual report
addressed to the legislature, that several school commissioners
had neglected, notwithstanding his application, to furnish him
with the accounts which were due. He added, that if this
omission continued, he should be obliged to prosecute them, as
the law directs, before the proper tribunals.

]  In the state of New York judicial penalties are less used than
in other parts as a means of administration; and the right of
prosecuting the offences of public officers is vested in fewer
hands.[Footnote:

Thus the district-attorney is directed to recover all fines below
the sum of fifty dollars,[Footnote:

(a) The words below the sum of fifty dollars should be omitted in
the above note.

] unless such a right has been specially awarded to another
magistrate. Revised Statutes, vol. i., p. 383.

]  The same tendency is faintly observable in some other
states;[Footnote:

Several traces of centralisation may be discovered in
Massachusetts, for instance, the committees of the town-schools
are directed to make an annual report to the secretary of state.
See Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 367.

] but in general the prominent feature of the administration in
the United States is its excessive local independence.

       *       *       *       *       *


                          OF THE STATE.


I have described the townships and the administration: it now
remains for me to speak of the state and government. This is
ground I may pass over rapidly, without fear of being
misunderstood; for all I have to say is to be found in written
forms of the various constitutions, which are easily to be
procured.[Footnote:

See the constitution of New York.

]  These constitutions rest upon a simple and rational theory;
their forms have been adopted by all constitutional nations, and
are become familiar to us.

In this place, therefore, it is only necessary for me to give a
short analysis; I shall endeavor afterward to pass judgment upon
what I now describe.

       *       *       *       *       *


                 LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATE.

Division of the Legislative Body into two Houses.--Senate.--House
  of Representatives.--Different functions of these two Bodies.


The legislative power of the state is vested in two assemblies,
the first of which generally bears the name of the senate.

The senate is commonly a legislative body; but it sometimes
becomes an executive and judicial one. It takes a part in the
government in several ways, according to the constitution of the
different states;[Footnote:

In Massachusetts the Senate is not invested with any
administrative functions.

] but it is in the nomination of public functionaries that it
most commonly assumes an executive power. It partakes of
judicial power in the trial of certain political offences, and
sometimes also in the decision of certain civil cases.[Footnote:

As in the state of New York.

]  The number of its members is always small. The other branch
of the legislature, which is usually called the house of
representatives, has no share whatever in the administration, and
only takes a part in the judicial power inasmuch as it impeaches
public functionaries before the senate.

The members of the two houses are nearly everywhere subject to
the same conditions of election. They are chosen in the same
manner, and by the same citizens.

The only difference which exists between them is, that the term
for which the senate is chosen, is in general longer than that of
the house of representatives. The latter seldom remain in office
longer than a year; the former usually sit two or three years.

By granting to the senators the privilege of being chosen for
several years, and being renewed seriatim, the law takes care to
preserve in the legislative body a nucleus of men already
accustomed to public business, and capable of exercising a
salutary influence upon the junior members.

The Americans, plainly, did not desire, by this separation of the
legislative body into two branches, to make one house hereditary
and the other elective; one aristocratic and the other
democratic. It was not their object to create in the one a
bulwark to power, while the other represented the interests and
passions of the people. The only advantages which result from
the present constitution of the United States, are, the division
of the legislative power, and the consequent check upon political
assemblies; with the creation of a tribunal of appeal for the
revision of the laws.

Time and experience, however, have convinced the Americans that
if these are its only advantages, the division of the legislative
power is still a principle of the greatest necessity.
Pennsylvania was the only one of the United States which at first
attempted to establish a single house of assembly; and Franklin
himself was so far carried away by the necessary consequences of
the principle of the sovereignty of the people, as to have
concurred in the measure; but the Pennsylvanians were soon
obliged to change the law, and to create two houses. Thus the
principle of the division of the legislative power was finally
established, and its necessity may henceforward be regarded as a
demonstrated truth.

This theory, which was nearly unknown to the republics of
antiquity--which was introduced into the world almost by
accident, like so many other great truths--and misunderstood by
several modern nations, is at length become an axiom in the
political science of the present age.

       *       *       *       *       *


                THE EXECUTIVE POWER OF THE STATE.

Office of Governor in an American State.--The Place he occupies
  in relation to the Legislature.--His Rights and his
  Duties.--His Dependence on the People.


The executive power of the state may with truth be said to be
_represented_ by the governor, although he enjoys but a
portion of its rights. The supreme magistrate, under the title
of governor, is the official moderator and counsellor of the
legislature. He is armed with a suspensive veto, which allows
him to stop, or at least to retard, its movements at pleasure.
He lays the wants of the country before the legislative body, and
points out the means which he thinks may be usefully employed in
providing for them; he is the natural executor of its decrees in
all the undertakings which interest the nation at
large.[Footnote:

Practically speaking, it is not always the governor who executes
the plans of the legislature; it often happens that the latter,
in voting a measure, names special agents to superintend the
execution of it.

]  In the absence of the legislature, the governor is bound to
take all necessary steps to guard the state against violent
shocks and unforeseen dangers.

The whole military power of the state is at the disposal of the
governor. He is commander of the militia and head of the armed
force. When the authority, which is by general consent awarded
to the laws, is disregarded, the governor puts himself at the
head of the armed force of the state, to quell resistance and to
restore order.

Lastly, the governor takes no share in the administration of
townships and counties, except it be indirectly in the nomination
of justices of the peace, which nomination he has not the power
to revoke.[Footnote:

In some of the states the Justices of the peace are not nominated
by the governor.

]

The governor is an elected magistrate, and is generally chosen
for one or two years only; so that he always continues to be
strictly dependent on the majority who returned him.

       *       *       *       *       *


     POLITICAL EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATION
                      IN THE UNITED STATES.

Necessary Distinction between the general Centralisation of
  Government. and the Centralisation of the local
  Administration.--Local Administration not centralized in the
  United States; great general Centralisation of the
  Government.--Some bad Consequences resulting to the United
  States from the local Administration.--Administrative
  Advantages attending the Order of things.--The Power which
  conducts the Government is less regular, less enlightened, less
  learned, but much greater than in Europe.--Political Advantages
  of this Order of things.--In the United States the Interests of
  the Country are everywhere kept in View.--Support given to the
  Government by the Community.--Provincial Institutions more
  necessary in Proportion as the social Condition becomes more
  democratic.--Reason of this.


Centralisation is become a word of general and daily use, without
any precise meaning being attached to it. Nevertheless, there
exist two distinct kinds of centralisation, which it is necessary
to discriminate with accuracy.

Certain interests are common to all parts of a nation, such as
the enactment of its general laws, and the maintenance of its
foreign relations. Other interests are peculiar to certain parts
of the nation; such, for instance, as the business of different
townships. When the power which directs the general interests is
centred in one place, or in the same persons, it constitutes a
central government. The power of directing partial or local
interests, when brought together, in like manner constitutes what
may be termed a central administration.

Upon some points these two kinds of centralisation coalesce; but
by classifying the objects which fall more particularly within
the province of each of them, they may easily be distinguished.

It is evident that a central government acquires immense power
when united to administrative centralisation. Thus combined, it
accustoms men to set their own will habitually and completely
aside; to submit, not only for once or upon one point, but in
every respect, and at all times. Not only, therefore, does the
union of power subdue them by force, but it affects them in the
ordinary habits of life, and influences each individual, first
separately, and then collectively.

These two kinds of centralisation mutually assist and attract
each other: but they must not be supposed to be inseparable. It
is impossible to imagine a more completely central government
than that which existed in France under Louis XIV.; when the same
individual was the author and the interpreter of the laws, and
being the representative of France at home and abroad, he was
justified in asserting that the state was identified with his
person. Nevertheless, the administration was much less
centralized under Louis XIV., than it is at the present day.

In England the centralisation of the government is carried to
great perfection; the state has the compact vigor of a man, and
by the sole act of its will it puts immense engines in motion,
and wields or collects the efforts of its authority. Indeed, I
cannot conceive that a nation can enjoy a secure or prosperous
existence without a powerful centralisation of government. But I
am of opinion that a central administration enervates the nations
in which it exists by incessantly diminishing their public
spirit. If such an administration succeeds in condensing at a
given moment on a given point all the disposable resources of a
people, it impairs at least the renewal of those resources. It
may ensure a victory in the hour of strife, but it gradually
relaxes the sinews of strength. It may contribute admirably to
the transient greatness of a man, but it cannot ensure the
durable prosperity of a people.

If we pay proper attention, we shall find that whenever it is
said that a state cannot act because it has no central point, it
is the centralisation of the government in which it is deficient.
It is frequently asserted, and we are prepared to assent to the
proposition, that the German empire was never able to bring all
its powers into action. But the reason was, that the state has
never been able to enforce obedience to its general laws, because
the several members of that great body always claimed the right,
or found the means, of refusing their co-operation to the
representatives of the common authority, even in the affairs
which concerned the mass of the people; in other words, because
there was no centralisation of government. The same remark is
applicable to the middle ages; the cause of all the confusion of
feudal society was that the control, not only of local but of
general interests, was divided among a thousand hands, and broken
up in a thousand different ways; the absence of a central
government prevented the nations of Europe from advancing with
energy in any straightforward course.

We have shown that in the United States no central
administration, and no dependent series of public functionaries,
exist. Local authority has been carried to lengths which no
European nation could endure without great inconvenience, and
which have even produced some disadvantageous consequences in
America. But in the United States the centralisation of the
government is complete; and it would be easy to prove that the
national power is more compact than it has ever been in the old
monarchies of Europe. Not only is there but one legislative body
in each state; not only does there exist but one source of
political authority; but numerous district assemblies and county
courts have in general been avoided, lest they should be tempted
to exceed their administrative duties and interfere with the
government. In America the legislature of each state is supreme;
nothing can impede its authority; neither privileges, nor local
immunities, nor personal influence, nor even the empire of
reason, since it represents that majority which claims to be the
sole organ of reason. Its own determination is, therefore, the
only limit to its action. In juxtaposition to it, and under its
immediate control, is the representative of the executive power,
whose duty it is to constrain the refractory to submit by
superior force. The only symptom of weakness lies in certain
details of the action of the government. The American republics
have no standing armies to intimidate a discontented minority;
but as no minority has as yet been reduced to declare open war,
the necessity of an army has not been felt. The state usually
employs the officers of the township or the county, to deal with
the citizens. Thus, for instance, in New England the assessor
fixes the rate of taxes; the collector receives them; the town
treasurer transmits the amount to the public treasury; and the
disputes which may arise are brought before the ordinary courts
of justice. This method of collecting taxes is slow as well as
inconvenient, and it would prove a perpetual hindrance to a
government whose pecuniary demands were large. In general it is
desirable that in what ever materially affects its existence, the
government should be served by officers of its own, appointed by
itself, removable at pleasure, and accustomed to rapid methods of
proceeding. But it will always be easy for the central
government, organized as it is in America, to introduce new and
more efficacious modes of action proportioned to its wants.

The absence of a central government will not, then, as has often
been asserted, prove the destruction of the republics of the New
World; far from supposing that the American governments are not
sufficiently centralized, I shall prove hereafter that they are
too much so. The legislative bodies daily encroach upon the
authority of the government, and their tendency, like that of the
French convention, is to appropriate it entirely to themselves.
Under these circumstances the social power is constantly changing
hands, because it is subordinate to the power of the people,
which is too apt to forget the maxims of wisdom and of foresight
in the consciousness of its strength: hence arises its danger;
and thus its vigor, and not its impotence, will probably be the
cause of its ultimate destruction.

The system of local administration produces several different
effects in America. The Americans seem to me to have outstepped
the limits of sound policy, in isolating the administration of
the government; for order, even in second-rate affairs, is a
matter of national importance.[Footnote:

The authority which represents the state ought not, I think, to
waive the right of inspecting the local administration, even when
it does not interfere more actively. Suppose, for instance, that
an agent of the government was stationed at some appointed spot,
in the county, to prosecute the misdemeanors of the town and
county officers, would not a more uniform order be the result,
without in any way compromising the independence of the township?
Nothing of the kind, however, exists in America; there is nothing
above the county courts, which have, as it were, only an
accidental cognizance of the offences they are meant to repress.

[This note seems to have been written without reference to the
provision existing, it is believed in every state of the Union,
by which a local officer is appointed in each county, to conduct
all public prosecutions at the expense of the state. And in each
county, a grand-jury is assembled three or four times at least in
every year, to which all who are aggrieved have free access, and
where every complaint, particularly those against public
officers, which has the least color of truth, is sure to be heard
and investigated.

Such an agent as the author suggests would soon come to be
considered a public informer, the most odious of all characters
in the United States; and he would lose all efficiency and
strength. With the provision above mentioned, there is little
danger that a citizen, oppressed by a public officer, would find
any difficulty in becoming his own informer, and inducing a rigid
inquiry into the alleged misconduct.--_American Editor_.]

]  As the state has no administrative functionaries of its own,
stationed on different parts of its territory, to whom it can
give a common impulse, the consequence is that it rarely attempts
to issue any general police regulations. The want of these
regulations is severely felt, and is frequently observed by
Europeans. The appearance of disorder which prevails on the
surface, leads them at first to imagine that society is in a
state of anarchy; nor do they perceive their mistake till they
have gone deeper into the subject. Certain undertakings are of
importance to the whole state; but they cannot be put in
execution, because there is no national administration to direct
them. Abandoned to the exertions of the towns or counties, under
the care of elected or temporary agents, they lead to no result,
or at least to no durable benefit.

The partisans of centralisation in Europe maintain that the
government directs the affairs of each locality better than the
citizens could do it for themselves: this may be true when the
central power is enlightened, and when the local districts are
ignorant; when it is as alert as they are slow; when it is
accustomed to act, and they to obey. Indeed, it is evident that
this double tendency must augment with the increase of
centralisation, and that the readiness of the one, and the
incapacity of the others, must become more and more prominent.
But I deny that such is the case when the people is as
enlightened, as awake to its interests, and as accustomed to
reflect on them, as the Americans are. I am persuaded, on the
contrary, that in this case the collective strength of the
citizens will always conduce more efficaciously to the public
welfare than the authority of the government. It is difficult to
point out with certainty the means of arousing a sleeping
population, and of giving it passions and knowledge which it does
not possess; it is, I am well aware, an arduous task to persuade
men to busy themselves about their own affairs; and it would
frequently be easier to interest them in the punctilios of court
etiquette than in the repairs of their common dwelling. But
whenever a central administration affects to supersede the
persons most interested, I am inclined to suppose that it is
either misled, or desirous to mislead. However enlightened and
however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself
embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation. Such
vigilance exceeds the powers of man. And when it attempts to
create and set in motion so many complicated springs, it must
submit to a very imperfect result, or consume itself in bootless
efforts.

Centralisation succeeds more easily, indeed, in subjecting the
external actions of men to a certain uniformity, which at last
commands our regard, independently of the objects to which it is
applied, like those devotees who worship the statue and forget
the deity it represents. Centralisation imparts without
difficulty an admirable regularity to the routine of business;
rules the details of the social police with sagacity; represses
the smallest disorder and the most petty misdemeanors; maintains
society in a _statu quo_, alike secure from improvement and
decline; and perpetuates a drowsy precision in the conduct of
affairs, which is hailed by the heads of the administration as a
sign of perfect order and public tranquillity;[Footnote:

China appears to me to present the most perfect instance of that
species of well-being which a completely central administration
may furnish to the nations among which it exists. Travellers
assure us that the Chinese have peace without happiness, industry
without improvement, stability without strength, and public order
without public morality. The condition of society is always
tolerable, never excellent. I am convinced that, when China is
opened to European observation, it will be found to contain the
most perfect model of a central administration which exists in
the universe.

] in short, it excels more in prevention than in action. Its
force deserts it when society is to be disturbed or accelerated
in its course; and if once the co-operation of private citizens
is necessary to the furtherance of its measures, the secret of
its impotence is disclosed. Even while it invokes their
assistance, it is on the condition that they shall act exactly as
much as the government chooses, and exactly in the manner it
appoints. They are to take charge of the details, without
aspiring to guide the system; they are to work in a dark and
subordinate sphere, and only to judge the acts in which they have
themselves co-operated, by their results. These, however, are
not conditions on which the alliance of the human will is to be
obtained; its carriage must be free, and its actions responsible,
or (such is the constitution of man) the citizen had rather
remain a passive spectator than a dependent actor in schemes with
which he is unacquainted.

It is undeniable, that the want of those uniform regulations
which control the conduct of every inhabitant of France is not
unfrequently felt in the United States. Gross instances of
social indifference and neglect are to be met with; and from time
to time disgraceful blemishes are seen, in complete contrast with
the surrounding civilisation. Useful undertakings, which cannot
succeed without perpetual attention and rigorous exactitude, are
very frequently abandoned in the end; for in America, as well as
in other countries, the people is subject to sudden impulses and
momentary exertions. The European who is accustomed to find a
functionary always at hand to interfere with all he undertakes,
has some difficulty in accustoming himself to the complex
mechanism of the administration of the townships. In general it
may be affirmed that the lesser details of the police, which
render life easy and comfortable, are neglected in America; but
that the essential guarantees of man in society are as strong
there as elsewhere. In America the power which conducts the
government is far less regular, less enlightened, and less
learned, but a hundredfold more authoritative, than in Europe.
In no country in the world do the citizens make such exertions
for the common weal; and I am acquainted with no people which has
established schools as numerous and as efficacious, places of
public worship better suited to the wants of the inhabitants, or
roads kept in better repair. Uniformity or permanence of design,
the minute arrangement of details,[Footnote:

A writer of talent, who, in the comparison which he has drawn
between the finances of France and those of the United States,
has proved that ingenuity cannot always supply the place of a
knowledge of facts, very justly reproaches the Americans for the
sort of confusion which exists in the accounts of the expenditure
in the townships; and after giving the model of a departmental
budget in France, he adds: "We are indebted to centralisation,
that admirable invention of a great man, for the uniform order
and method which prevail alike in all the municipal budgets, from
the largest town to the humblest commune." Whatever may be my
admiration of this result, when I see the communes of France,
with their excellent system of accounts, plunged in the grossest
ignorance of their true interests, and abandoned to so
incorrigible an apathy that they seem to vegetate rather than to
live; when, on the other hand, I observe the activity, the
information, and the spirit of enterprise which keeps society in
perpetual labor, in those American townships whose budgets are
drawn up with small method and with still less uniformity, I am
struck by the spectacle; for to my mind the end of a good
government is to ensure the welfare of a people, and not to
establish order and regularity in the midst of its misery and its
distress. I am therefore led to suppose that the prosperity of
the American townships and the apparent confusion of their
accounts, the distress of the French communes and the perfection
of their budget, may be attributable to the same cause. At any
rate I am suspicious of a benefit which is united to so many
evils, and I am not averse to an evil which is compensated by so
many benefits.

] and the perfection of an ingenious administration, must not be
sought for in the United States; but it will be easy to find, on
the other hand, the symptoms of a power, which, if it is somewhat
barbarous, is at least robust; and of an existence, which is
checkered with accidents indeed, but cheered at the same time by
animation and effort.

Granting for an instant that the villages and counties of the
United States would be more usefully governed by a remote
authority, which they had never seen, than by functionaries taken
from the midst of them--admitting, for the sake of argument, that
the country would be more secure, and the resources of society
better employed, if the whole administration centred in a single
arm, still the _political_ advantages which the Americans
derive from their system would induce me to prefer it to the
contrary plan. It profits me but little, after all, that a
vigilant authority protects the tranquillity of my pleasures, and
constantly averts all danger from my path, without my care or my
concern, if the same authority is the absolute mistress of my
liberty and of my life, and if it so monopolises all the energy
of existence, that when it languishes everything languishes
around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep, that when
it dies the state itself must perish.

In certain countries of Europe the natives consider themselves as
a kind of settlers, indifferent to the fate of the spot upon
which they live. The greatest changes are effected without their
concurrence and (unless chance may have apprised them of the
event) without their knowledge; nay more, the citizen is
unconcerned as to the condition of his village, the police of his
street, the repairs of the church or the parsonage; for he looks
upon all these things as unconnected with himself, and as the
property of a powerful stranger whom he calls the government. He
has only a life-interest in these possessions, and he entertains
no notions of ownership or of improvement. This want of interest
in his own affairs goes so far, that if his own safety or that of
his children is endangered, instead of trying to avert the peril,
he will fold his arms, and wait till the nation comes to his
assistance. This same individual, who has so completely
sacrificed his own free will, has no natural propensity to
obedience; he cowers, it is true, before the pettiest officer;
but he braves the law with the spirit of a conquered foe as soon
as its superior force is removed: his oscillations between
servitude and license are perpetual. When a nation has arrived
at this state, it must either change its customs and its laws, or
perish: the source of public virtue is dry; and though it may
contain subjects, the race of citizens is extinct. Such
communities are a natural prey to foreign conquest; and if they
do not disappear from the scene of life, it is because they are
surrounded by other nations similar or inferior to themselves; it
is because the instinctive feeling of their country's claims
still exists in their hearts; and because an involuntary pride in
the name it bears, or the vague reminiscence of its by-gone fame,
suffices to give them the impulse of self-preservation.

Nor can the prodigious exertions made by certain people in the
defence of a country, in which they may almost be said to have
lived as aliens, be adduced in favor of such a system; for it
will be found that in these cases their main incitement was
religion. The permanence, the glory, and the prosperity of the
nation, were become parts of their faith; and in defending the
country they inhabited, they defended that holy city of which
they were all citizens. The Turkish tribes have never taken an
active share in the conduct of the affairs of society, but they
accomplished stupendous enterprises as long as the victories of
the sultans were the triumphs of the Mohammedan faith. In the
present age they are in rapid decay, because their religion is
departing, and despotism only remains. Montesquieu, who
attributed to absolute power an authority peculiar to itself, did
it, as I conceive, undeserved honor; for despotism, taken by
itself, can produce no durable results. On close inspection we
shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause
of the long-lived prosperity of absolute governments. Whatever
exertions may be made, no true power can be founded among men
which does not depend upon the free union of their inclinations;
and patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world
which can permanently direct the whole of a body politic to one
end.

Laws cannot succeed in rekindling the ardor of an extinguished
faith; but men may be interested in the fate of their country by
the laws. By this influence, the vague impulse of patriotism,
which never abandons the human heart, may be directed and
revived: and if it be connected with the thoughts, the passions
and daily habits of life, it may be consolidated into a durable
and rational sentiment. Let it not be said that the time for the
experiment is already past; for the old age of nations is not
like the old age of men, and every fresh generation is a new
people ready for the care of the legislator.

It is not the _administrative_, but the _political_
effects of the local system that I most admire in America. In
the United States the interests of the country are everywhere
kept in view; they are an object of solicitude to the people of
the whole Union, and every citizen is as warmly attached to them
as if they were his own. He takes pride in the glory of his
nation; he boasts of his success, to which he conceives himself
to have contributed; and he rejoices in the general prosperity by
which he profits. The feeling he entertains toward the state is
analogous to that which unites him to his family, and it is by a
kind of egotism that he interests himself in the welfare of his
country.

The European generally submits to a public officer because he
represents a superior force; but to an American he represents a
right. In America it may be said that no one renders obedience
to man, but to justice and to law. If the opinion which the
citizen entertains of himself is exaggerated, it is at least
salutary; he unhesitatingly confides in his own powers, which
appear to him to be all-sufficient. When a private individual
meditates an undertaking, however directly connected it may be
with the welfare of society, he never thinks of soliciting the
co-operation of the government: but he publishes his plan, offers
to execute it himself, courts the assistance of other
individuals, and struggles manfully against all obstacles.
Undoubtedly he is less successful than the state might have been
in his position; but in the end, the sum of these private
undertakings far exceeds all that the government could effect.

As the administrative authority is within the reach of the
citizens, whom it in some degree represents, it excites neither
their jealousy nor their hatred: as its resources are limited,
every one feels that he must not rely solely on its assistance.
Thus when the administration thinks fit to interfere, it is not
abandoned to itself as in Europe; the duties of the private
citizens are not supposed to have lapsed because the state
assists in their fulfilment; but every one is ready, on the
contrary, to guide and to support it. This action of individual
exertions, joined to that of the public authorities, frequently
performs what the most energetic central administration would be
unable to execute. It would be easy to adduce several facts in
proof of what I advance, but I had rather give only one, with
which I am more thoroughly acquainted.[Footnote:

See Appendix I.

]  In America, the means which the authorities have at their
disposal for the discovery of crimes and the arrest of criminals
are few. A state police does not exist, and passports are
unknown. The criminal police of the United States cannot be
compared with that of France; the magistrates and public
prosecutors are not numerous, and the examinations of prisoners
are rapid and oral. Nevertheless in no country does crime more
rarely elude punishment. The reason is that every one conceives
himself to be interested in furnishing evidence of the act
committed, and in stopping the delinquent. During my stay in the
United States, I saw the spontaneous formation of committees for
the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great
crime in a certain county. In Europe a criminal is an unhappy
being, who is struggling for his life against the ministers of
justice, while the population is merely a spectator of the
conflict: in America he is looked upon as an enemy of the human
race, and the whole of mankind is against him.

I believe that provincial institutions are useful to all nations,
but nowhere do they appear to me to be more indispensable than
among a democratic people. In an aristocracy, order can always
be maintained in the midst of liberty; and as the rulers have a
great deal to lose, order is to them a first-rate consideration.
In like manner an aristocracy protects the people from the
excesses of despotism, because it always possesses an organized
power ready to resist a despot. But a democracy without
provincial institutions has no security against these evils. How
can a populace, unaccustomed to freedom in small concerns, learn
to use it temperately in great affairs?  What resistance can be
offered to tyranny in a country where every private individual is
impotent, and where the citizens are united by no common tie?
Those who dread the license of the mob, and those who fear the
rule of absolute power, ought alike to desire the progressive
growth of provincial liberties.

On the other hand, I am convinced that democratic nations are
most exposed to fall beneath the yoke of a central
administration, for several reasons, among which is the
following:--

The constant tendency of these nations is to concentrate all the
strength of the government in the hands of the only power which
directly represents the people: because, beyond the people
nothing is to be perceived but a mass of equal individuals
confounded together. But when the same power is already in
possession of all the attributes of the government, it can
scarcely refrain from penetrating into the details of the
administration; and an opportunity of doing so is sure to present
itself in the end, as was the case in France. In the French
revolution there were two impulses in opposite directions, which
must never be confounded; the one was favorable to liberty, the
other to despotism. Under the ancient monarchy the king was the
sole author of the laws; and below the power of the sovereign,
certain vestiges of provincial institutions half-destroyed, were
still distinguishable. These provincial institutions were
incoherent, ill-compacted, and frequently absurd; in the hands of
the aristocracy they had sometimes been converted into
instruments of oppression. The revolution declared itself the
enemy of royalty and of provincial institutions at the same time;
it confounded all that had preceded it--despotic power and the
checks to its abuses--in an indiscriminate hatred; and its
tendency was at once to republicanism and to centralisation.
This double character of the French revolution is a fact which
has been adroitly handled by the friends of absolute power. Can
they be accused of laboring in the cause of despotism, when they
are defending of the revolution?[Footnote:

See Appendix K.

]  In this manner popularity may be conciliated with hostility to
the rights of the people, and the secret slave of tyranny may be
the professed admirer of freedom.

I have visited the two nations in which the system of provincial
liberty has been most perfectly established, and I have listened
to the opinions of different parties in those countries. In
America I met with men who secretly aspired to destroy the
democratic institutions of the Union; in England, I found others
who attacked aristocracy openly; but I know of no one who does
not regard provincial independence as a great benefit. In both
countries I have heard a thousand different causes assigned for
the evils of the state; but the local system was never mentioned
among them. I have heard citizens attribute the power and
prosperity of their country to a multitude of reasons: but they
_all_ placed the advantages of local institutions in the
foremost rank.

Am I to suppose that when men who are naturally so divided on
religious opinions, and on political theories, agree on one point
(and that, one of which they have daily experience), they are all
in error?  The only nations which deny the utility of provincial
liberties are those which have fewest of them; in other words,
those who are unacquainted with the institution are the only
persons who pass a censure upon it.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER VI.


     JUDICIAL POWER IN THE UNITED STATES, AND ITS INFLUENCE
                      ON POLITICAL SOCIETY.

The Anglo-Americans have retained the Characteristics of judicial
  Power which are common to all Nations.--They have, however,
  made it a powerful political Organ.--How.--In what the judicial
  System of the Anglo-Americans differs from that of all other
  Nations.--Why the American Judges have the right of declaring
  the Laws to be Unconstitutional.--How they use this
  Right.--Precautions taken by the Legislator to prevent its
  abuse.


I have thought it essential to devote a separate chapter to the
judicial authorities of the United States, lest their great
political importance should be lessened in the reader's eyes by a
merely incidental mention of them. Confederations have existed
in other countries beside America; and republics have not been
established on the shores of the New World alone: the
representative system of government has been adopted in several
states of Europe; but I am not aware that any nation of the globe
has hitherto organized a judicial power on the principle adopted
by the Americans. The judicial organization of the United States
is the institution which the stranger has the greatest difficulty
in understanding. He hears the authority of a judge invoked in
the political occurrences of every day, and he naturally
concludes that in the United States the judges are important
political functionaries: nevertheless, when he examines the
nature of the tribunals, they offer nothing which is contrary to
the usual habits and privileges of those bodies; and the
magistrates seem to him to interfere in public affairs by chance,
but by a chance which recurs every day.

When the Parliament of Paris remonstrated, or refused to
enregister an edict, or when it summoned a functionary accused of
malversation to its bar, its political influence as a judicial
body was clearly visible; but nothing of the kind is to be seen
in the United States. The Americans have retained all the
ordinary characteristics of judicial authority, and have
carefully restricted its action to the ordinary circle of its
functions.

The first characteristic of judicial power in all nations is the
duty of arbitration. But rights must be contested in order to
warrant the interference of a tribunal; and an action must be
brought to obtain the decision of a judge. As long, therefore,
as a law is uncontested, the judicial authority is not called
upon to discuss it, and it may exist without being perceived.
When a judge in a given case attacks a law relating to that case,
he extends the circle of his customary duties, without, however,
stepping beyond it; since he is in some measure obliged to decide
upon the law, in order to decide the case. But if he pronounces
upon a law without resting upon a case, he clearly steps beyond
his sphere, and invades that of the legislative authority.

The second characteristic of judicial power is, that it
pronounces on special cases, and not upon general principles. If
a judge, in deciding a particular point, destroys a general
principle, by passing a judgment which tends to reject all the
inferences from that principle, and consequently to annul it, he
remains within the ordinary limits of his functions. But if he
directly attacks a general principle without having a particular
case in view, he leaves the circle in which all nations have
agreed to confine his authority; he assumes a more important, and
perhaps a more useful influence than that of the magistrate, but
he ceases to represent the judicial power.

The third characteristic of the judicial power is its inability
to act unless it is appealed to, or until it has taken cognizance
of an affair. This characteristic is less general than the other
two; but notwithstanding the exceptions, I think it may be
regarded as essential. The judicial power is by its nature
devoid of action; it must be put in motion in order to produce a
result. When it is called upon to repress a crime, it punishes
the criminal; when a wrong is to be redressed, it is ready to
redress it; when an act requires interpretation, it is prepared
to interpret it; but it does not pursue criminals, hunt out
wrongs, or examine into evidence of its own accord. A judicial
functionary who should open proceedings, and usurp the censorship
of the laws, would in some measure do violence to the passive
nature of his authority.

The Americans have retained these three distinguishing
characteristics of the judicial power; an American judge can only
pronounce a decision when litigation has arisen, he is only
conversant with special cases, and he cannot act until the cause
has been duly brought before the court. His position is
therefore perfectly similar to that of the magistrate of other
nations; and he is nevertheless invested with immense political
power. If the sphere of his authority and his means of action
are the same as those of other judges, it may be asked whence he
derives a power which they do not possess. The cause of this
difference lies in the simple fact that the Americans have
acknowledged the right of the judges to found their decisions on
the constitution, rather than on the laws. In other words, they
have left them at liberty not to apply such laws as may appear to
them to be unconstitutional.

I am aware that a similar right has been claimed--but claimed in
vain--by courts of justice in other countries; but in America it
is recognized by all the authorities; and not a party, nor so
much as an individual, is found to contest it. This fact can
only be explained by the principles of the American constitution.
In France the constitution is (or at least is supposed to be)
immutable; and the received theory is that no power has the right
of changing any part of it. In England, the parliament has an
acknowledged right to modify the constitution: as, therefore, the
constitution may undergo perpetual changes, it does not in
reality exist; the parliament is at once a legislative and a
constituent assembly. The political theories of America are more
simple and more rational. An American constitution is not
supposed to be immutable as in France; nor is it susceptible of
modification by the ordinary powers of society as in England. It
constitutes a detached whole, which, as it represents the
determination of the whole people, is no less binding on the
legislator than on the private citizen, but which may be altered
by the will of the people in predetermined cases, according to
established rules. In America the constitution may, therefore,
vary, but as long as it exists it is the origin of all authority,
and the sole vehicle of the predominating force.[Footnote:

See Appendix L.

]

It is easy to perceive in what manner these differences must act
upon the position and the rights of the judicial bodies in the
three countries I have cited. If in France the tribunals were
authorized to disobey the laws on the ground of their being
opposed to the constitution, the supreme power would in fact be
placed in their hands, since they alone would have the right of
interpreting a constitution, the clauses of which can be modified
by no authority. They would, therefore, take the place of the
nation, and exercise as absolute a sway over society as the
inherent weakness of judicial power would allow them to do.
Undoubtedly, as the French judges are incompetent to declare a
law to be unconstitutional, the power of changing the
constitution is indirectly given to the legislative body, since
no legal barrier would oppose the alterations which it might
prescribe. But it is better to grant the power of changing the
constitution of the people to men who represent (however
imperfectly) the will of the people, than to men who represent no
one but themselves.

It would be still more unreasonable to invest the English judges
with the right of resisting the decisions of the legislative
body, since the parliament which makes the laws also makes the
constitution; and consequently a law emanating from the three
powers of the state can in no case be unconstitutional. But
neither of these remarks is applicable to America.[Footnote:

See Appendix M.

]

In the United States the constitution governs the legislator as
much as the private citizen: as it is the first of laws, it
cannot be modified by a law; and it is therefore just that the
tribunals should obey the constitution in preference to any law.
This condition is essential to the power of the judicature; for
to select that legal obligation by which he is most strictly
bound, is the natural right of every magistrate.

In France the constitution is also the first of laws, and the
judges have the same right to take it as the ground of their
decisions; but were they to exercise this right, they must
perforce encroach on rights more sacred than their own, namely,
on those of society, in whose name they are acting. In this case
the state motive clearly prevails over the motives of an
individual. In America, where the nation can always reduce its
magistrates to obedience by changing its constitution, no danger
of this kind is to be feared. Upon this point therefore the
political and the logical reason agree, and the people as well as
the judges preserve their privileges.

Whenever a law which the judge holds to be unconstitutional is
argued in a tribunal of the United States, he may refuse to admit
it as a rule; this power is the only one which is peculiar to the
American magistrate, but it gives rise to immense political
influence. Few laws can escape the searching analysis; for there
are few which are not prejudicial to some private interest or
other, and none which may not be brought before a court of
justice by the choice of parties, or by the necessity of the
case. But from the time that a judge has refused to apply any
given law in a case, that law loses a portion of its moral
sanction. The persons to whose interest it is prejudicial, learn
that means exist of evading its authority; and similar suits are
multiplied, until it becomes powerless. One of two alternatives
must then be resorted to: the people must alter the constitution,
or the legislature must repeal the law.

The political power which the Americans have intrusted to their
courts of justice is therefore immense; but the evils of this
power are considerably diminished, by the obligation which has
been imposed of attacking the laws through the courts of justice
alone. If the judge had been empowered to contest the laws on
the ground of theoretical generalities; if he had been enabled to
open an attack or to pass a censure on the legislator, he would
have played a prominent part in the political sphere; and as the
champion or the antagonist of a party, he would have arrayed the
hostile passions of the nation in the conflict. But when a judge
contests a law, applied to some particular case in an obscure
proceeding, the importance of his attack is concealed from the
public gaze; his decision bears upon the interest of an
individual, and if the law is slighted, it is only collaterally.
Moreover, although it be censured, it is not abolished; its moral
force may be diminished, but its cogency is by no means
suspended; and its final destruction can only be accomplished by
the reiterated attacks of judicial functionaries. It will
readily be understood that by connecting the censorship of the
laws with the private interests of members of the community, and
by intimately uniting the prosecution of the law with the
prosecution of an individual, the legislation is protected from
wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions of party
spirit. The errors of the legislator are exposed whenever their
evil consequences are most felt; and it is always a positive and
appreciable fact which serves as the basis of a prosecution.

I am inclined to believe this practice of the American courts to
be at once the most favorable to liberty as well as to public
order. If the judge could only attack the legislator openly and
directly, he would sometimes be afraid to oppose any resistance
to his will; and at other moments party spirit might encourage
him to brave it every day. The laws would consequently be
attacked when the power from which they emanate is weak, and
obeyed when it is strong. That is to say, when it would be
useful to respect them, they would be contested; and when it
would be easy to convert them into an instrument of oppression,
they would be respected. But the American judge is brought into
the political arena independently of his own will. He only
judges the law because he is obliged to judge a case. The
political question which he is called upon to resolve is
connected with the interest of the parties, and he cannot refuse
to decide it without abdicating the duties of his post. He
performs his functions as a citizen by fulfilling the strict
duties which belong to his profession as a magistrate. It is
true that upon this system the judicial censorship which is
exercised by the courts of justice over the legislation cannot
extend to all laws indiscriminately, inasmuch as some of them can
never give rise to that precise species of contestation which is
termed a lawsuit; and even when such a contestation is possible,
it may happen that no one cares to bring it before a court of
justice. The Americans have often felt this disadvantage, but
they have left the remedy incomplete, lest they should give it
efficacy which in some cases might prove dangerous. Within these
limits, the power vested in the American courts of justice of
pronouncing a statute to be unconstitutional, forms one of the
most powerful barriers which have ever been devised against the
tyranny of political assemblies.

       *       *       *       *       *


          OTHER POWERS GRANTED TO THE AMERICAN JUDGES.

In the United States all the Citizens have the Right of indicting
  the public Functionaries before the ordinary Tribunals.--How
  they use this Right.--Art. 75 of the An VIII.--The Americans
  and the English cannot understand the Purport of this Clause.


It is perfectly natural that in a free country like America all
the citizens should have the right of indicting public
functionaries before the ordinary tribunals, and that all the
judges should have the power of punishing public offences. The
right granted to the courts of justice, of judging the agents of
the executive government, when they have violated the laws, is so
natural a one that it cannot be looked upon as an extraordinary
privilege. Nor do the springs of government appear to me to be
weakened in the United States by the custom which renders all
public officers responsible to the judges of the land. The
Americans seem, on the contrary, to have increased by this means
that respect which is due to the authorities, and at the same
time to have rendered those who are in power more scrupulous of
offending public opinion. I was struck by the small number of
political trials which occur in the United States; but I have no
difficulty in accounting for this circumstance. A lawsuit, of
whatever nature it may be, is always a difficult and expensive
undertaking. It is easy to attack a public man in a journal, but
the motives which can warrant an action at law must be serious.
A solid ground of complaint must therefore exist, to induce an
individual to prosecute a public officer, and public officers
careful not to furnish these grounds of complaint, when they are
afraid of being prosecuted.

This does not depend upon the republican form of the American
institutions, for the same facts present themselves in England.
These two nations do not regard the impeachment of the principal
officers of state as a sufficient guarantee of their
independence. But they hold that the right of minor
prosecutions, which are within the reach of the whole community,
is a better pledge of freedom than those great judicial actions
which are rarely employed until it is too late.

In the middle ages, when it was very difficult to overtake
offenders, the judges inflicted the most dreadful tortures on the
few who were arrested, which by no means diminished the number of
crimes. It has since been discovered that when justice is more
certain and more mild, it is at the same time more efficacious.
The English and the Americans hold that tyranny and oppression
are to be treated like any other crime, by lessening the penalty
and facilitating conviction.

In the year VIII. of the French republic, a constitution was
drawn up in which the following clause was introduced: "Art. 75.
All the agents of the government below the rank of ministers can
only be prosecuted for offences relating to their several
functions by virtue of a decree of the conseil d'etat; in which
case the prosecution takes place before the ordinary tribunals."
This clause survived the "Constitution de l'an VIII.," and it is
still maintained in spite of the just complaints of the nation.
I have always found the utmost difficulty in explaining its
meaning to Englishmen or Americans. They were at once led to
conclude that the conseil d'etat in France was a great tribunal,
established in the centre of the kingdom, which exercised a
preliminary and somewhat tyrannical jurisdiction in all political
causes. But when I told them that the conseil d'etat was not a
judicial body, in the common sense of the term, but an
administrative council composed of men dependent on the crown--so
that the king, after having ordered one of his servants, called a
prefect, to commit an injustice, has the power of commanding
another of his servants, called a councillor of state, to prevent
the former from being punished--when I demonstrated to them that
the citizen who had been injured by the order of the sovereign is
obliged to solicit from the sovereign permission to obtain
redress, they refused to credit so flagrant an abuse, and were
tempted to accuse me of falsehood or of ignorance. It frequently
happened before the revolution that a parliament issued a warrant
against a public officer who had committed an offence; and
sometimes the proceedings were annulled by the authority of the
crown. Despotism then displayed itself openly, and obedience was
extorted by force. We have then retrograded from the point which
our forefathers had reached, since we allow things to pass under
the color of justice and the sanction of the law, which violence
alone could impose upon them.

       *       *       *       *       *




                          CHAPTER VII.


          POLITICAL JURISDICTION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Definition of political Jurisdiction.--What is understood by
  political Jurisdiction in France, in England, and in the United
  States.--In America the political Judge can only pass Sentence
  on public Officers.--He more frequently passes a Sentence of
  Removal from Office than a Penalty.--Political Jurisdiction, as
  it Exists in the United States, is, notwithstanding its
  Mildness, and perhaps in Consequence of that Mildness, a most
  powerful Instrument in the Hands of the Majority.


I understand, by political jurisdiction, that temporary right of
pronouncing a legal decision with which a political body may be
invested.

In absolute governments no utility can accrue from the
introduction of extraordinary forms of procedure; the prince, in
whose name an offender is prosecuted, is as much the sovereign of
the courts of justice as of everything else, and the idea which
is entertained of his power is of itself a sufficient security.
The only thing he has to fear is, that the external formalities
of justice may be neglected, and that his authority may be
dishonored, from a wish to render it more absolute. But in most
free countries, in which the majority can never exercise the same
influence upon the tribunals as an absolute monarch, the judicial
power has occasionally been vested for a time in the
representatives of society. It has been thought better to
introduce a temporary confusion between the functions of the
different authorities, than to violate the necessary principle of
the unity of government.

England, France, and the United States, have established this
political jurisdiction in their laws; and it is curious to
examine the different use which these three great nations have
made of the principle. In England and in France the house of
lords and the chambre des pairs constitute the highest criminal
court of their respective nations; and although they do not
habitually try all political offences, they are competent to try
them all. Another political body enjoys the right of impeachment
before the house of lords: the only difference which exists
between the two countries in this respect is, that in England the
commons may impeach whomsoever they please before the lords,
while in France the deputies can only employ this mode of
prosecution against the ministers of the crown.

In both countries the upper house make use of all the existing
penal laws of the nation to punish the delinquents.

In the United States, as well as in Europe, one branch of the
legislature is authorized to impeach, and another to judge: the
house of representatives arraigns the offender, and the senate
awards his sentence. But the senate can only try such persons as
are brought before it by the house of representatives, and those
persons must belong to the class of public functionaries. Thus
the jurisdiction of the senate is less extensive than that of the
peers of France, while the right of impeachment by the
representatives is more general than that of the deputies. But
the great difference which exists between Europe and America is,
that in Europe political tribunals are empowered to inflict all
the dispositions of the penal code, while in America, when they
have deprived the offender of his official rank, and have
declared him incapable of filling any political office for the
future, their jurisdiction terminates and that of the ordinary
tribunals begins.

Suppose, for instance, that the president of the United States
has committed the crime of high treason; the house of
representatives impeaches him, and the senate degrades him; he
must then be tried by a jury, which alone can deprive him of his
liberty or his life. This accurately illustrates the subject we
are treating. The political jurisdiction which is established by
the laws of Europe is intended to try great offenders, whatever
may be their birth, their rank, or their powers in the state; and
to this end all the privileges of the courts of justice are
temporarily extended to a great political assembly. The
legislator is then transformed into a magistrate: he is called
upon to admit, to distinguish, and to punish the offence; and as
he exercises all the authority of a judge, the law restricts him
to the observance of all the duties of that high office, and of
all the formalities of justice. When a public functionary is
impeached before an English or a French political tribunal, and
is found guilty, the sentence deprives him _ipso facto_ of
his functions, and it may pronounce him to be incapable of
resuming them or any others for the future. But in this case the
political interdict is a consequence of the sentence, and not the
sentence itself. In Europe the sentence of a political tribunal
is therefore to be regarded as a judicial verdict, rather than as
an administrative measure. In the United States the contrary
takes place; and although the decision of the senate is judicial
in its form, since the senators are obliged to comply with the
practices and formalities of a court of justice; although it is
judicial in respect to the motives on which it is founded, since
the senate is in general obliged to take an offence at common law
as the basis of its sentence; nevertheless the object of the
proceeding is purely administrative.

If it had been the intention of the American legislator to invest
a political body with great judicial authority, its action would
not have been limited to the circle of public functionaries,
since the most dangerous enemies of the state may be in the
possession of no functions at all; and this is especially true in
republics, where party favor is the first of authorities, and
where the strength of many a leader is increased by his
exercising no legal power. If it had been the intention of the
American legislator to give society the means of repressing state
offences by exemplary punishment, according to the practice of
ordinary judgment, the resources of the penal code would all have
been placed at the disposal of the political tribunals. But the
weapon with which they are intrusted is an imperfect one, and it
can never reach the most dangerous offenders; since men who aim
at the entire subversion of the laws are not likely to murmur at
a political interdict.

The main object of the political jurisdiction which obtains in
the United States is, therefore, to deprive the citizen of an
authority which he has used amiss, and to prevent him from ever
acquiring it again. This is evidently an administrative measure
sanctioned by the formalities of judicial investigation. In this
matter the Americans have created a mixed system: they have
surrounded the act which removes a public functionary with the
securities of a political trial; and they have deprived all
political condemnations of their severest penalties. Every link
of the system may easily be traced from this point; we at once
perceive why the American constitutions subject all the civil
functionaries to the jurisdiction of the senate, while the
military, whose crimes are nevertheless more formidable, are
exempt from that tribunal. In the civil service none of the
American functionaries can be said to be removeable; the places
which some of them occupy are inalienable, and the others derive
their rights from a power which cannot be abrogated. It is
therefore necessary to try them all in order to deprive them of
their authority. But military officers are dependent on the
chief magistrate of the state, who is himself a civil
functionary; and the decision which condemns him is a blow upon
them all.

If we now compare the American and European systems, we shall
meet with differences no less striking in the different effects
which each of them produces or may produce. In France and in
England the jurisdiction of political bodies is looked upon as an
extraordinary resource, which is only to be employed in order to
rescue society from unwonted dangers. It is not to be denied
that these tribunals, as they are constituted in Europe, are apt
to violate the conservative principle of the balance of power in
the state, and to threaten incessantly the lives and liberties of
the subject. The same political jurisdiction in the United
States is only indirectly hostile to the balance of power; it
cannot menace the lives of the citizens, and it does not hover,
as in Europe, over the heads of the community, since those only
who have before-hand submitted to its authority upon accepting
office are exposed to its severity. It is at the same time less
formidable and less efficacious; indeed, it has not been
considered by the legislators of the United States as a remedy
for the more violent evils of society, but as an ordinary means
of conducting the government. In this respect it probably
exercises more real influence on the social body in America than
in Europe. We must not be misled by the apparent mildness of the
American Legislation in all that relates to political
jurisdiction. It is to be observed, in the first place, that in
the United States the tribunal which passes sentence is composed
of the same elements, and subject to the same influences, as the
body which impeaches the offender, and that this uniformity gives
an almost irresistible impulse to the vindictive passions of
parties. If political judges in the United States cannot inflict
such heavy penalties as those of Europe, there is the less chance
of their acquitting a prisoner; and the conviction, if it is less
formidable, is more certain. The principal object of the
political tribunals of Europe is to punish the offender; the
purpose of those in America is to deprive him of his authority.
A political condemnation in the United States may, therefore, be
looked upon as a preventive measure; and there is no reason for
restricting the judges to the exact definitions of criminal law.
Nothing can be more alarming than the excessive latitude with
which political offences are described in the laws of America.
Article II., section iv., of the constitution of the United
States runs thus: "The president, vice-president, and all the
civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office
on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, _or
other high crimes and misdemeanors_." Many of the
constitutions of the states are even less explicit. "Public
officers," says the constitution of Massachusetts,[Footnote:

Chapter I., sec. ii.,  8.

] "shall be impeached for misconduct or mal-administration." The
constitution of Virginia declares that all the civil officers who
shall have offended against the state by mal-administration,
corruption, or other high crimes, may be impeached by the house
of delegates: in some constitutions no offences are specified, in
order to subject the public functionaries to an unlimited
responsibility.[Footnote:

See the constitutions of Illinois, Maine, Connecticut, and
Georgia.

]  But I will venture to affirm, that it is precisely their
mildness which renders the American laws most formidable in this
respect. We have shown that in Europe the removal of a
functionary and his political interdiction are consequences of
the penalty he is to undergo, and that in America they constitute
the penalty itself. The result is, that in Europe political
tribunals are invested with rights which they are afraid to use,
and that the fear of punishing to much hinders them from
punishing at all. But in America no one hesitates to inflict a
penalty from which humanity does not recoil. To condemn a
political opponent to death, in order to deprive him of his
power, is to commit what all the world would execrate as a
horrible assassination; but to declare that opponent unworthy to
exercise that authority, to deprive him of it, and to leave him
uninjured in life and liberty, may appear to be the fair issue of
the struggle. But this sentence, which it is so easy to
pronounce, is not the less fatally severe to the majority of
those upon whom it is inflicted. Great criminals may undoubtedly
brave its intangible rigor, but ordinary offenders will dread it
as a condemnation which destroys their position in the world,
casts a blight upon their honor, and condemns them to a shameful
inactivity worse that death. The influence exercised in the
United States upon the progress of society by the jurisdiction of
political bodies may not appear to be formidable, but it is only
the more immense. It does not act directly upon the governed,
but it renders the majority more absolute over those who govern;
it does not confer an unbounded authority on the legislator which
can only be exerted at some momentous crisis, but it establishes
a temperate and regular influence, which is at all times
available. If the power is decreased, it can, on the other hand,
be more conveniently employed, and more easily abused. By
preventing political tribunals from inflicting judicial
punishments, the Americans seem to have eluded the worst
consequences of legislative tyranny, rather than tyranny itself;
and I am not sure that political jurisdiction, as it is
constituted in the United States, is not the most formidable
which has ever been placed in the rude grasp of a popular
majority. When the American republics begin to degenerate, it
will be easy to verify the truth of this observation, by
remarking whether the number of political impeachments
augments.[Footnote:

See Appendix N.

]

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER VIII.


                    THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.


I have hitherto considered each state as a separate whole, and I
have explained the different springs which the people sets in
motion, and the different means of action which it employs. But
all the states which I have considered as independent are forced
to submit, in certain cases, to the supreme authority of the
Union. The time is now come for me to examine the partial
sovereignty which has been conceded to the Union, and to cast a
rapid glance over the federal constitution.[Footnote:

See the constitution of the United States.

]

       *       *       *       *       *


              HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

Origin of the first Union.--Its Weakness.--Congress appeals to
  the constituent Authority.--Interval of two Years between the
  Appeal and the Promulgation of the new Constitution.


The thirteen colonies which simultaneously threw off the yoke of
England toward the end of the last century, possessed, as I have
already observed, the same religion, the same language, the same
customs, and almost the same laws; they were struggling against a
common enemy; and these reasons were sufficiently strong to unite
them one to another, and to consolidate them into one nation.
But as each of them had enjoyed a separate existence, and a
government within its own control, the peculiar interests and
customs which resulted from this system, were opposed to a
compact and intimate union, which would have absorbed the
individual importance of each in the general importance of all.
Hence arose two opposite tendencies, the one prompting the
Anglo-Americans to unite, the other to divide their strength. As
long as the war with the mother-country lasted, the principle of
union was kept alive by necessity; and although the laws which
constituted it were defective, the common tie subsisted in spite
of their imperfections.[Footnote:

See the articles of the first confederation formed in 1778. This
constitution was not adopted by all the states until 1781. See
also the analysis given of this constitution in the Federalist,
from No. 15 to No. 22 inclusive, and Story's "Commentary on the
Constitution of the United States," pp. 85-115.

]  But no sooner was peace concluded than the faults of the
legislation became manifest, and the state seemed to be suddenly
dissolved. Each colony became an independent republic, and
assumed an absolute sovereignty. The federal government,
condemned to impotence by its constitution, and no longer
sustained by the presence of a common danger, saw the outrages
offered to its flag by the great nations of Europe, while it was
scarcely able to maintain its ground against the Indian tribes,
and to pay the interest of the debt which had been contracted
during the war of independence. It was already on the verge of
destruction, when it officially proclaimed its inability to
conduct the government, and appealed to the constituent authority
of the nation.[Footnote:

Congress made this declaration on the 21st of February, 1787.

]

If America ever approached (for however brief a time) that lofty
pinnacle of glory to which the proud fancy of its inhabitants is
wont to point, it was at the solemn moment at which the power of
the nation abdicated, as it were, the empire of the land. All
ages have furnished the spectacle of a people struggling with
energy to win its independence; and the efforts of the Americans
in throwing off the English yoke have been considerably
exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by three thousand
miles of ocean, and backed by a powerful ally, the success of the
United States may be more justly attributed to their geographical
position, than to the valor of their armies or the patriotism of
their citizens. It would be ridiculous to compare the American
war to the wars of the French revolution, or the efforts of the
Americans to those of the French, who, when they were attacked by
the whole of Europe, without credit and without allies, were
still capable of opposing a twentieth part of their population to
their foes, and of bearing the torch of revolution beyond their
frontiers while they stifled its devouring flame within the bosom
of their country. But it is a novelty in the history of society
to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon
itself when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of
government had stopped; to see it carefully examine the extent of
the evil, and patiently wait for two whole years until a remedy
was discovered, which it voluntarily adopted without having wrung
a tear or a drop of blood from mankind. At the time when the
inadequacy of the first constitution was discovered, America
possessed the double advantage of that calm which had succeeded
the effervescence of the revolution, and of those great men who
had led the revolution to a successful issue. The assembly which
accepted the task of composing the second constitution was
small;[Footnote:

It consisted of fifty-five members: Washington, Madison,
Hamilton, and the two Morrises, were among the number.

] but George Washington was its president, and it contained the
choicest talents and the noblest hearts which had ever appeared
in the New World. This national commission, after long and
mature deliberation, offered to the acceptance of the people the
body of general laws which still rules the Union. All the states
adopted it successively.[Footnote:

It was not adopted by the legislative bodies, but representatives
were elected by the people for this sole purpose; and the new
constitution was discussed at length in each of these assemblies.

]  The new federal government commenced its functions in 1789,
after an interregnum of two years. The revolution of America
terminated when that of France began.

       *       *       *       *       *


              SUMMARY OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

Division of Authority between the Federal Government and the
  States.--The Government of the States is the Rule: the Federal
  Government the Exception.


The first question which awaited the Americans was intricate, and
by no means easy of solution; the object was so to divide the
authority of the different states which composed the Union, that
each of them should continue to govern itself in all that
concerned its internal prosperity, while the entire nation,
represented by the Union, should continue to form a compact body,
and to provide for the exigencies of the people. It was as
impossible to determine beforehand, with any degree of accuracy,
the share of authority which each of the two governments was to
enjoy, as to foresee all the incidents in the existence of a
nation.

The obligations and the claims of the federal government were
simple and easily definable, because the Union had been formed
with the express purpose of meeting the general exigencies of the
people; but the claims and obligations of the states were, on the
other hand, complicated and various, because those governments
penetrated into all the details of social life. The attributes
of the federal government were, therefore, carefully enumerated,
and all that was not included among them was declared to
constitute a part of the privileges of the several governments of
the states. Thus the government of the states remained the rule,
and that of the confederation became the exception.[Footnote:

See the amendment to the federal constitution; Federalist,
No. 32. Story, p. 711. Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 364.

It is to be observed, that whenever the _exclusive_ right of
regulating certain matters is not reserved to congress by the
constitution, the states may take up the affair, until it is
brought before the national assembly. For instance, congress has
the right of making a general law of bankruptcy, which, however,
it neglects to do. Each state is then at liberty to make a law
for itself. This point, however, has been established by
discussion in the law-courts, and may be said to belong more
properly to jurisprudence.

]

But as it was foreseen, that, in practice, questions might arise
as to the exact limits of this exceptional authority, and that it
would be dangerous to submit these questions to the decision of
the ordinary courts of justice, established in the states by the
states themselves, a high federal court was created,[Footnote:

The action of this court is indirect, as we shall hereafter show.

] which was destined, among other functions, to maintain the
balance of power which had been established by the constitution
between the two rival governments.[Footnote:

It is thus that the Federalist, No. 45, explains the division of
supremacy between the union and the states: "The powers delegated
by the constitution to the federal government are few and
defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are
numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and
foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will
extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of
affairs, concern the internal order and prosperity of the state."

I shall often have occasion to quote the Federalist in this work.
When the bill which has since become the constitution of the
United States was submitted to the approval of the people, and
the discussions were still pending, three men who had already
acquired a portion of that celebrity which they have since
enjoyed, John Jay, Hamilton, and Madison, formed an association
with the intention of explaining to the nation the advantages of
the measure which was proposed. With this view they published a
series of articles in the shape of a journal, which now form a
complete treatise. They entitled their journal, "The
Federalist," a name which has been retained in the work. The
Federalist is an excellent book, which ought to be familiar to
the statesmen of all countries, although it especially concerns
America.

]

       *       *       *       *       *


             PREROGATIVE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

Power of declaring War, making Peace, and levying general Taxes
  vested in the Federal Government.--What Part of the internal
  Policy of the Country it may direct.--The Government of the
  Union in some respects more central than the King's Government
  in the old French monarchy.


The external relations of a people may be compared to those of
private individuals, and they cannot be advantageously maintained
without the agency of the single head of a government. The
exclusive right of making peace and war, of concluding treaties
of commerce, of raising armies, and equipping fleets, was
therefore granted to the Union.[Footnote:

See constitution, sect. 8. Federalist, Nos. 41 and 42. Kent's
Commentaries, vol. i., p. 207. Story, pp. 358-382; 409-426.

]  The necessity of a national government was less imperiously
felt in the conduct of the internal affairs of society; but there
are certain general interests which can only be attended to with
advantage by a general authority. The Union was invested with
the power of controlling the monetary system, of directing the
post-office, and of opening the great roads which were to
establish communication between the different parts of the
country.[Footnote:

Several other privileges of the same kind exist, such as that
which empowers the Union to legislate on bankruptcy, to grant
patents, and other matters in which its intervention is clearly
necessary.

]  The independence of the government of each state was formally
recognized in its sphere; nevertheless the federal government was
authorized to interfere in the internal affairs of the
states[Footnote:

Even in these cases its interference is indirect. The Union
interferes by means of the tribunals, as will be hereafter shown.

] in a few predetermined cases, in which an indiscreet abuse of
their independence might compromise the security of the Union at
large. Thus, while the power of modifying and changing their
legislation at pleasure was preserved in all the republics, they
were forbidden to enact _ex post facto_ laws, or to create a
class of nobles in their community.[Footnote:

Federal Constitution, sect. 10, art. 1.

]  Lastly, as it was necessary that the federal government should
be able to fulfil its engagements, it was endowed with an
unlimited power of levying taxes.[Footnote:

Constitution, sect. 8, 9, and 10. Federalist, Nos. 30-36
inclusive, and 41-14. Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., pp. 207 and
381. Story pp. 329 and 514.

]

In examining the balance of power as established by the federal
constitution; in remarking on the one hand the portion of
sovereignty which has been reserved to the several states, and on
the other the share of power which the Union has assumed, it is
evident that the federal legislators entertained the clearest and
most accurate notions on the nature of the centralisation of
government. The United States form not only a republic, but a
confederation; nevertheless the authority of the nation is more
central than it was in several of the monarchies of Europe when
the American constitution was formed. Take, for instance, the
two following examples:--

Thirteen supreme courts of justice existed in France, which,
generally speaking, had the right of interpreting the law without
appeal; and those provinces, styled _pays d'etats_, were
authorized to refuse their assent to an impost which had been
levied by the sovereign who represented the nation.

In the Union there is but one tribunal to interpret, as there is
one legislature to make the laws; and an impost voted by the
representatives of the nation is binding upon all the citizens.

In these two essential points, therefore, the Union exercises
more central authority than the French monarchy possessed,
although the Union is only an assemblage of confederate
republics.

In Spain certain provinces had the right of establishing a system
of customhouse duties peculiar to themselves, although that
privilege belongs, by its very nature, to the national
sovereignty. In America the congress alone has the right of
regulating the commercial relations of the states. The
government of the confederation is therefore more centralized in
this respect than the kingdom of Spain. It is true that the
power of the crown in France or in Spain was always able to
obtain by force whatever the constitution of the country denied,
and that the ultimate result was consequently the same; and I am
here discussing the theory of the constitution.

       *       *       *       *       *


                         FEDERAL POWERS.


After having settled the limits within which the federal
government was to act, the next point was to determine the powers
which it was to exert.

       *       *       *       *       *


                       LEGISLATIVE POWERS.

Division of the legislative Body into two Branches.--Difference
  in the Manner of forming the two Houses.--The Principle of the
  Independence of the States predominates in the Formation of the
  Senate.--The Principle of the Sovereignty of the Nation in the
  Composition of the House of Representatives.--Singular Effects
  of the Fact that a Constitution can only be Logical in the
  early Stages of a Nation.


The plan which had been laid down beforehand for the constitution
of the several states was followed, in many points, in the
organization of the powers of the Union. The federal legislature
of the Union was composed of a senate and a house of
Representatives. A spirit of conciliation prescribed the
observance of distinct principles in the formation of each of
these two assemblies. I have already shown that two contrary
interests were opposed to each other in the establishment of the
federal constitution. These two interests had given rise to two
opinions. It was the wish of one party to convert the Union into
a league of independent states, or a sort of congress, at which
the representatives of the several peoples would meet to discuss
certain points of their common interests. The other party
desired to unite the inhabitants of the American colonies into
one sole nation, and to establish a government, which should act
as the sole representative of the nation, as far as the limited
sphere of its authority would permit. The practical consequences
of these two theories were exceedingly different.

The question was, whether a league was to be established instead
of a national government; whether the majority of the states,
instead of a majority of the inhabitants of the Union, was to
give the law; for every state, the small as well as the great,
then retained the character of an independent power, and entered
the Union upon a footing of perfect equality. If, on the
contrary, the inhabitants of the United States were to be
considered as belonging to one and the same nation, it was
natural that the majority of the citizens of the Union should
prescribe the law. Of course the lesser states could not
subscribe to the application of this doctrine without, in fact,
abdicating their existence in relation to the sovereignty of the
confederation; since they would have passed from the condition of
a co-equal and co-legislative authority, to that of an
insignificant fraction of a great people. The former system
would have invested them with an excessive authority, the latter
would have annulled their influence altogether. Under these
circumstances, the result was, that the strict rules of logic
were evaded, as is usually the case when interests are opposed to
arguments. A middle course was hit upon by the legislators,
which brought together by force two systems theoretically
irreconcilable.

The principle of the independence of the states prevailed in the
formation of the senate, and that of the sovereignty of the
nation predominated in the composition of the house of
representatives. It was decided that each state should send two
senators to congress, and a number of representatives
proportioned to its population.[Footnote:

Every ten years congress fixes anew the number of representatives
which each state is to furnish. The total number was 69 in 1789,
and 240 in 1833. (See American Almanac, 1834, p. 194.)

The constitution decided that there should not be more than one
representative for every 30,000 persons; but no minimum was fixed
upon. The congress has not thought fit to augment the number of
representatives in proportion to the increase of population. The
first act which was passed on the subject (14th April, 1792: see
Laws of the United States, by Story, vol. i., p. 235) decided
that there should be one representative for every 33,000
inhabitants. The last act, which was passed in 1822, fixes the
proportion at one for 48,000. The population represented is
composed of all the freemen and of three-fifths of the slaves.

]  It results from this arrangement that the state of New York
has at the present day forty representatives, and only two
senators; the state of Delaware has two senators, and only one
representative; the state of Delaware is therefore equal to the
state of New York in the senate, while the latter has forty times
the influence of the former in the house of representatives.
Thus, if the minority of the nation preponderates in the senate,
it may paralyze the decisions of the majority represented in the
other house, which is contrary to the spirit of constitutional
government.

The facts show how rare and how difficult it is rationally and
logically to combine all the several parts of legislation. In
the course of time different interests arise, and different
principles are sanctioned by the same people; and when a general
constitution is to be established, these interests and principles
are so many natural obstacles to the rigorous application of any
political system, with all its consequences. The early stages of
national existence are the only periods at which it is possible
to maintain the complete logic of legislation; and when we
perceive a nation in the enjoyment of this advantage, before we
hasten to conclude that it is wise, we should do well to remember
that it is young. When the federal constitution was formed, the
interest of independence for the separate states, and the
interest of union for the whole people, were the only two
conflicting interests which existed among the Anglo-Americans;
and a compromise was necessarily made between them.

It is, however, just to acknowledge that this part of the
constitution has not hitherto produced those evils which might
have been feared. All the states are young and contiguous; their
customs, their ideas, and their wants, are not dissimilar; and
the differences which result from their size or inferiority do
not suffice to set their interests at variance. The small states
have consequently never been induced to league themselves
together in the senate to oppose the designs of the larger ones;
and indeed there is so irresistible an authority in the
legitimate expression of the will of a people, that the senate
could offer but a feeble opposition to the vote of the majority
of the house of representatives.

It must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that it was not in
the power of the American legislators to reduce to a single
nation the people for whom they were making laws. The object of
the federal constitution was not to destroy the independence of
the states, but to restrain it. By acknowledging the real
authority of these secondary communities (and it was impossible
to deprive them of it), they disavowed beforehand the habitual
use of constraint in enforcing the decisions of the majority.
Upon this principle the introduction of the influence of the
states into the mechanism of the federal government was by no
means to be wondered at; since it only attested the existence of
an acknowledged power, which was to be humored, and not forcibly
checked.

       *       *       *       *       *


         A FARTHER DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SENATE AND THE
                    HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The Senate named by the provincial Legislature--the
  Representatives, by the People.--Double Election of the
  Former--Single Election of the Latter.--Term of the different
  Offices.--Peculiar Functions of each House.


The senate not only differs from the other house in the principle
which it represents, but also in the mode of its election, in the
term for which it is chosen, and in the nature of its functions.
The house of representatives is named by the people, the senate
by the legislators of each state; the former is directly elected;
the latter is elected by an elected body; the term for which the
representatives are chosen is only two years, that of the
senators is six. The functions of the house of representatives
are purely legislative, and the only share it takes in the
judicial power is in the impeachment of public officers. The
senate co-operates in the work of legislation, and tries those
political offences which the house of representatives submits to
its decision. It also acts as the great executive council of the
nation; the treaties which are concluded by the president must be
ratified by the senate; and the appointments he may make must be
definitively approved by the same body.[Footnote:

See the Federalist, Nos. 52-66, inclusive. Story, pp. 199-314.
Constitution of the United States, sections 2 and 3.

]

       *       *       *       *       *


                      THE EXECUTIVE POWER.
[Footnote:

See the Federalist, Nos. 67-77. Constitution of the United
States, art. 2. Story, pp. 115; 515-780. Kent's Commentaries,
p. 255.

]

Dependence of the President--He is Elective and Responsible.--He
  is Free to act in his own Sphere under the Inspection, but not
  under the Direction, of the Senate.--His Salary fixed at his
  Entry into Office.--Suspensive Veto.


The American legislators undertook a difficult task in attempting
to create an executive power dependent on the majority of the
people and nevertheless sufficiently strong to act without
restraint in its own sphere. It was indispensable to the
maintenance of the republican form of government that the
representatives of the executive power should be subject to the
will of the nation.

The president is an elective magistrate. His honor, his
property, his liberty, and his life, are the securities which the
people has for the temperate use of his power. But in the
exercise of his authority he cannot be said to be perfectly
independent; the senate takes cognizance of his relations with
foreign powers, and of the distribution of public appointments,
so that he can neither be bribed, nor can he employ the means of
corruption. The legislators of the Union acknowledged that the
executive power would be incompetent to fulfill its task with
dignity and utility, unless it enjoyed a greater degree of
stability and of strength than had been granted to it in the
separate states.

The president is chosen for four years, and he may be re-elected;
so that the chances of a prolonged administration may inspire him
with hopeful undertakings for the public good, and with the means
of carrying them into execution. The president was made the sole
representative of the executive power of the Union; and care was
taken not to render his decisions subordinate to the vote of a
council--a dangerous measure, which tends at the same time to
clog the action of the government and to diminish its
responsibility. The senate has the right of annulling certain
acts of the president; but it cannot compel him to take any
steps, nor does it participate in the exercise of the executive
power.

The action of the legislature on the executive power may be
direct; and we have just shown that the Americans carefully
obviated this influence; but it may, on the other hand, be
indirect. Public assemblies which have the power of depriving an
officer of state of his salary, encroach upon his independence;
and as they are free to make the laws, it is to be feared lest
they should gradually appropriate to themselves a portion of that
authority which the constitution had vested in his hands. This
dependence of the executive power is one of the defects inherent
in republican constitutions. The Americans have not been able to
counteract the tendency which legislative assemblies have to get
possession of the government, but they have rendered this
propensity less irresistible. The salary of the president is
fixed, at the time of his entering upon office, for the whole
period of his magistracy. The president is, moreover, provided
with a suspensive veto, which allows him to oppose the passing of
such laws as might destroy the portion of independence which the
constitution awards him. The struggle between the president and
the legislature must always be an unequal one, since the latter
is certain of bearing down all resistance by persevering in its
plans; but the suspensive veto forces it at least to reconsider
the matter, and, if the motion be persisted in, it must then be
backed by a majority of two-thirds of the whole house. The veto
is, in fact, a sort of appeal to the people. The executive
power, which, without this security, might have been secretly
oppressed, adopts this means of pleading its cause and stating
its motives. But if the legislature is certain of overpowering
all resistance by persevering in its plans, I reply, that in the
constitutions of all nations, of whatever kind they may be, a
certain point exists at which the legislator is obliged to have
recourse to the good sense and the virtue of his fellow-citizens.
This point is more prominent and more discoverable in republics,
while it is more remote and more carefully concealed in
monarchies, but it always exists somewhere. There is no country
in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws,
or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for
common sense and public morality.

       *       *       *       *       *


       DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT OF
       THE UNITED STATES AND THAT OF A CONSTITUTIONAL KING
                           OF FRANCE.

Executive Power in the United States as Limited and as Partial as
  the Supremacy which it Represents.--Executive Power in France
  as Universal as the Supremacy it Represents.--The King a Branch
  of the Legislature.--The President the mere Executor of the
  Law.--Other Differences resulting from the Duration of the two
  Powers.--The President checked in the Exercise of the executive
  Authority.--The King Independent in its
  Exercise.--Notwithstanding these Discrepancies, France is more
  akin to a Republic than the Union to a Monarchy.--Comparison of
  the Number of public Officers depending upon the executive
  Power in the two countries.


The executive power has so important an influence on the
destinies of nations that I am inclined to pause for an instant
at this portion of my subject, in order more clearly to explain
the part it sustains in America. In order to form an accurate
idea of the position of the president of the United States, it
may not be irrelevant to compare it to that of one of the
constitutional kings of Europe. In this comparison I shall pay
but little attention to the external signs of power, which are
more apt to deceive the eye of the observer than to guide his
researches. When a monarchy is being gradually transformed into
a republic, the executive power retains the titles, the honors,
the etiquette, and even the funds of royalty, long after its
authority has disappeared. The English, after having cut off the
head of one king, and expelled another from his throne, were
accustomed to accost the successors of those princes upon their
knees. On the other hand, when a republic falls under the sway
of a single individual, the demeanor of the sovereign is simple
and unpretending, as if his authority was not yet paramount.
When the emperors exercised an unlimited control over the
fortunes and the lives of their fellow-citizens, it was customary
to call them Cesar in conversation, and they were in the habit of
supping without formality at their friends' houses. It is
therefore necessary to look below the surface.

The sovereignty of the United States is shared between the Union
and the states, while in France it is undivided and compact:
hence arises the first and the most notable difference which
exists between the president of the United States and the king of
France. In the United States the executive power is as limited
and partial as the sovereignty of the Union in whose name it
acts; in France it is as universal as the authority of the state.
The Americans have a federal, and the French a national
government.

The first cause of inferiority results from the nature of things,
but it is not the only one; the second in importance is as
follows: sovereignty may be defined to be the right of making
laws: in France, the king really exercises a portion of the
sovereign power, since the laws have no weight till he has given
his assent to them; he is moreover the executor of all they
ordain. The president is also the executor of the laws, but he
does not really co-operate in their formation, since the refusal
of his assent does not annul them. He is therefore merely to be
considered as the agent of the sovereign power. But not only
does the king of France exercise a portion of the sovereign
power, he also contributes to the nomination of the legislature,
which exercises the other portion. He has the privilege of
appointing the members of one chamber, and of dissolving the
other at his pleasure; whereas the president of the United States
has no share in the formation of the legislative body, and cannot
dissolve any part of it. The king has the same right of bringing
forward measures as the chambers; a right which the president
does not possess. The king is represented in each assembly by
his ministers, who explain his intentions, support his opinions,
and maintain the principles of the government. The president and
his ministers are alike excluded from congress; so that his
influence and his opinions can only penetrate indirectly into
that great body. The king of France is therefore on an equal
footing with the legislature, which can no more act without him,
than he can without it. The president exercises an authority
inferior to, and depending upon, that of the legislature.

Even in the exercise of the executive power, properly so called,
the point upon which his position seems to be almost analogous to
that of the king of France--the president labors under several
causes of inferiority. The authority of the king, in France,
has, in the first place, the advantage of duration over that of
the president: and durability is one of the chief elements of
strength; nothing is either loved or feared but what is likely to
endure. The president of the United States is a magistrate
elected for four years. The king, in France, is an hereditary
sovereign.

In the exercise of the executive power the president of the
United States is constantly subject to jealous scrutiny. He may
make, but he cannot conclude a treaty; he may designate, but he
cannot appoint, a public officer.[Footnote:

The constitution had left it doubtful whether the president was
obliged to consult the senate in the removal as well as in the
appointment of federal officers. The Federalist (No. 77) seemed
to establish the affirmative; but in 1789, congress formally
decided that as the president was responsible for his actions, he
ought not to be forced to employ agents who had forfeited his
esteem. See Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 289.

]  The king of France is absolute in the sphere of the executive
power.

The president of the United States is responsible for his
actions; but the person of the king is declared inviolable by the
French charter.

Nevertheless, the supremacy of public opinion is no less above
the head of one than of the other. This power is less definite,
less evident, and less sanctioned by the laws in France than in
America, but in fact exists. In America it acts by elections and
decrees; in France it proceeds by revolutions; but
notwithstanding the different constitutions of these two
countries, public opinion is the predominant authority in both of
them. The fundamental principle of legislation--a principle
essentially republican--is the same in both countries, although
its consequences may be different, and its results more or less
extensive. Whence I am led to conclude, that France with its
king is nearer akin to a republic, than the Union with its
president is to a monarchy.

In what I have been saying I have only touched upon the main
points of distinction; and if I could have entered into details,
the contrast would have been rendered still more striking.

I have remarked that the authority of the president in the United
States is only exercised within the limits of a partial
sovereignty, while that of the king, in France, is undivided. I
might have gone on to show that the power of the king's
government in France exceeds its natural limits, however
extensive they may be, and penetrates in a thousand different
ways into the administration of private interests. Among the
examples of this influence may be quoted that which results from
the great number of public functionaries, who all derive their
appointments from the government. This number now exceeds all
previous limits; it amounts to 138,000[Footnote:

The sums annually paid by the state to these officers amount to
200,000,000 francs (eight millions sterling).

] nominations, each of which may be considered as an element of
power. The president of the United States has not the exclusive
right of making any public appointments, and their whole number
scarcely exceeds 12,000.[Footnote:

This number is extracted from the "National Calendar," for 1833,
The National Calendar is an American almanac which contains the
names of all the federal officers.

It results from this comparison that the king of France has
eleven times as many places at his disposal as the president,
although the population of France is not much more than double
that of the Union.

]


[Those who are desirous of tracing the question respecting the
power of the president to remove every executive officer of the
government without the sanction of the senate, will find some
light upon it by referring to 5th Marshall's Life of Washington,
p. 196: 5 Sergeant and Rawle's Reports (Pennsylvania), 451:
Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. iv., p. 355,
contains the debate in the House of Representatives, June 16,
1799, when the question was first mooted: Report of a committee
of the senate in 1822, in Niles's Register of 29th August in that
year. It is certainly very extraordinary that such a vast power,
and one so extensively affecting the whole administration of the
government, should rest on such slight foundations, as an
_inference_ from an act of congress, providing that when the
secretary of the treasury should be removed by the president, his
assistant should discharge the duties of the office. How
congress could confer the power, even by a direct act, is not
perceived. It must be a necessary implication from the words of
the constitution, or it does not exist. It has been repeatedly
denied in and out of congress, and must be considered, as yet, an
unsettled question.--_American Editor_.]

       *       *       *       *       *


      ACCIDENTAL CAUSES WHICH MAY INCREASE THE INFLUENCE OF
                         THE EXECUTIVE.

External security of the Union.--Army of six thousand Men.--Few
  Ships.--The President has no Opportunity of exercising his
  great Prerogatives.--In the Prerogatives he exercises he is
  weak.


If the executive power is feebler in America than in France, the
cause is more attributable to the circumstances than to the laws
of the country.

It is chiefly in its foreign relations that the executive power
of a nation is called upon to exert its skill and vigor. If the
existence of the Union were perpetually threatened, and its chief
interest were in daily connexion with those of other powerful
nations, the executive government would assume an increased
importance in proportion to the measures expected of it, and
those which it would carry into effect. The president of the
United States is the commander-in-chief of the army, but of an
army composed of only six thousand men; he commands the fleet,
but the fleet reckons but few sail; he conducts the foreign
relations of the Union, but the United States are a nation
without neighbors. Separated from the rest of the world by the
ocean, and too weak as yet to aim at the dominion of the seas,
they have no enemies, and their interests rarely come into
contact with those of any other nation of the globe.

The practical part of a government must not be judged by the
theory of its constitution. The president of the United States
is in the possession of almost royal prerogatives, which he has
no opportunity of exercising; and those privileges which he can
at present use are very circumscribed: the laws allow him to
possess a degree of influence which circumstances do not permit
him to employ.

On the other hand, the great strength of the royal prerogative in
France arises from circumstances far more than from the laws.
There the executive government is constantly struggling against
prodigious obstacles, and exerting all its energies to repress
them; so that it increases by the extent of its achievements, and
by the importance of the events it controls, without, for that
reason, modifying its constitution. If the laws had made it as
feeble and as circumscribed as it is in the Union, its influence
would very soon become much greater.

       *       *       *       *       *


     WHY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT REQUIRE
           THE MAJORITY OF THE TWO HOUSES IN ORDER TO
                    CARRY ON THE GOVERNMENT.


It is an established axiom in Europe that a constitutional king
cannot persevere in a system of government which is opposed by
the two other branches of the legislature. But several
presidents of the United States have been known to lose the
majority in the legislative body, without being obliged to
abandon the supreme power, and without inflicting a serious evil
upon society. I have heard this fact quoted as an instance of
the independence and power of executive government in America: a
moment's reflection will convince us, on the contrary, that it is
a proof of its extreme weakness.

A king in Europe requires the support of the legislature to
enable him to perform the duties imposed upon him by the
constitution, because those duties are enormous. A
constitutional king in Europe is not merely the executor of the
law, but the execution of its provisions devolves so completely
upon him, that he has the power of paralyzing its influence if it
opposes his designs. He requires the assistance of the
legislative assemblies to make the law, but those assemblies
stand in need of his aid to execute it: these two authorities
cannot subsist without each other, and the mechanism of
government is stopped as soon as they are at variance.

In America the president cannot prevent any law from being
passed, nor can he evade the obligation of enforcing it. His
sincere and zealous co-operation is no doubt useful, but it is
not indispensable in the carrying on of public affairs. All his
important acts are directly or indirectly submitted to the
legislature; and where he is independent of it he can do but
little. It is therefore his weakness, and not his power, which
enables him to remain in opposition to congress. In Europe,
harmony must reign between the crown and the other branches of
the legislature, because a collision between them may prove
serious; in America, this harmony is not indispensable, because
such a collision is impossible.

       *       *       *       *       *


                   ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT.

Dangers of the elective System increase in Proportion to the
  Extent of the Prerogative.--This System possible in America
  because no powerful executive Authority is required.--What
  Circumstances are favorable to the elective System.--Why the
  Election of the President does not cause a Deviation from the
  Principles of the Government.--Influence of the Election of the
  President on secondary Functionaries.


The dangers of the system of election applied to the head of the
executive government of a great people, have been sufficiently
exemplified by experience and by history; and the remarks I am
about to make refer to America alone. These dangers may be more
or less formidable in proportion to the place which the executive
power occupies, and to the importance it possesses in the state;
and they may vary according to the mode of election, and the
circumstances in which the electors are placed. The most weighty
argument against the election of a chief-magistrate is, that it
offers so splendid a lure to private ambition, and is so apt to
inflame men in the pursuit of power, that when legitimate means
are wanting, force may not unfrequently seize what right denies.

It is clear that the greater the privileges of the executive
authority are, the greater is the temptation; the more the
ambition of the candidates is excited, the more warmly are their
interests espoused by a throng of partisans who hope to share the
power when their patron has won the prize. The dangers of the
elective system increase, therefore, in the exact ratio of the
influence exercised by the executive power in the affairs of
state. The revolutions of Poland are not solely attributable to
the elective system in general, but to the fact that the elected
magistrate was the head of a powerful monarchy. Before we can
discuss the absolute advantages of the elective system, we must
make preliminary inquiries as to whether the geographical
position, the laws, the habits, the manners, and the opinions of
the people among whom it is to be introduced, will admit of the
establishment of a weak and dependent executive government; for
to attempt to render the representative of the state a powerful
sovereign, and at the same time elective, is, in my opinion, to
entertain two incompatible designs. To reduce hereditary royalty
to the condition of an elective authority, the only means that I
am acquainted with are to circumscribe its sphere of action
beforehand, gradually to diminish its prerogatives, and to
accustom the people to live without its protection. Nothing,
however, is farther from the designs of the republicans of Europe
than this course: as many of them only owe their hatred of
tyranny to the sufferings which they have personally undergone,
the extent of the executive power does not excite their
hostility, and they only attack its origin without perceiving how
nearly the two things are connected.

Hitherto no citizen has shown any disposition to expose his honor
and his life, in order to become the president of the United
States; because the power of that office is temporary, limited,
and subordinate. The prize of fortune must be great to encourage
adventurers in so desperate a game. No candidate has as yet been
able to arouse the dangerous enthusiasm or the passionate
sympathies of the people in his favor, for the very simple
reason, that when he is at the head of the government he has but
little power, but little wealth, and but little glory to share
among his friends; and his influence in the state is too small
for the success or the ruin of a faction to depend upon the
elevation of an individual to power.

The great advantage of hereditary monarchies is, that as the
private interest of a family is always intimately connected with
the interests of the state, the executive government is never
suspended for a single instant; and if the affairs of a monarchy
are not better conducted than those of a republic, at least there
is always some one to conduct them, well or ill, according to his
capacity. In elective states, on the contrary, the wheels of
government cease to act, as it were of their own accord, at the
approach of an election, and even for some time previous to that
event. The laws may indeed accelerate the operation of the
election, which may be conducted with such simplicity and
rapidity that the seat of power will never be left vacant; but,
notwithstanding these precautions, a break necessarily occurs in
the minds of the people.

At the approach of an election the head of the executive
government is wholly occupied by the coming struggle; his future
plans are doubtful; he can undertake nothing new, and he will
only prosecute with indifference those designs which another will
perhaps terminate. "I am so near the time of my retirement from
office," said President Jefferson on the 21st of January, 1809
(six weeks before the election), "that I feel no passion, I take
no part, I express no sentiment. It appears to me just to leave
to my successor the commencement of those measures which he will
have to prosecute, and for which he will be responsible."

On the other hand, the eyes of the nation are centred on a single
point; all are watching the gradual birth of so important an
event. The wider the influence of the executive power extends,
the greater and the more necessary is its constant action, the
more fatal is the term of suspense; and a nation which is
accustomed to the government, or, still more, one used to the
administrative protection of a powerful executive authority,
would be infallibly convulsed by an election of this kind. In
the United States the action of the government may be slackened
with impunity, because it is always weak and circumscribed.

One of the principal vices of the elective system is, that it
always introduces a certain degree of instability into the
internal and external policy of the state. But this disadvantage
is less sensibly felt if the share of power vested in the elected
magistrate is small. In Rome the principles of the government
underwent no variation, although the consuls were changed every
year, because the senate, which was an hereditary assembly,
possessed the directing authority. If the elective system were
adopted in Europe, the condition of most of the monarchical
states would be changed at every new election. In America the
president exercises a certain influence on state affairs, but he
does not conduct them; the preponderating power is vested in the
representatives of the whole nation. The political maxims of the
country depend therefore on the mass of the people, not on the
president alone; and consequently in America the elective system
has no very prejudicial influence on the fixed principles of the
government. But the want of fixed principles is an evil so
inherent in the elective system, that it is still extremely
perceptible in the narrow sphere to which the authority of the
president extends.

The Americans have admitted that the head of the executive power,
who has to bear the whole responsibility of the duties he is
called upon to fulfil, ought to be empowered to choose his own
agents, and to remove them at pleasure: the legislative bodies
watch the conduct of the president more than they direct it. The
consequence of this arrangement is, that at every new election
the fate of all the federal public officers is in suspense.
Mr. Quincy Adams, on his entry into office, discharged the
majority of the individuals who had been appointed by his
predecessor; and I am not aware that General Jackson allowed a
single removeable functionary employed in the federal service to
retain his place beyond the first year which succeeded his
election. It is sometimes made a subject of complaint, that in
the constitutional monarchies of Europe the fate of the humbler
servants of an administration depends upon that of the ministers.
But in elective governments this evil is far greater. In a
constitutional monarchy successive ministers are rapidly formed;
but as the principal representative of the executive power does
not change, the spirit of innovation is kept within bounds; the
changes which take place are in the details rather than in the
principles of the administrative system; but to substitute one
system for another, as is done in America every four years by
law, is to cause a sort of revolution. As to the misfortunes
which may fall upon individuals in consequence of this state of
things, it must be allowed that the uncertain situation of the
public officers is less fraught with evil consequences in America
than elsewhere. It is so easy to acquire an independent position
in the United States, that the public officer who loses his place
may be deprived of the comforts of life, but not of the means of
subsistence.

I remarked at the beginning of this chapter that the dangers of
the elective system applied to the head of the state, are
augmented or decreased by the peculiar circumstances of the
people which adopts it. However the functions of the executive
power may be restricted, it must always exercise a great
influence upon the foreign policy of the country, for a
negotiation cannot be opened or successfully carried on otherwise
than by a single agent. The more precarious and the more
perilous the position of a people becomes, the more absolute is
the want of a fixed and consistent external policy, and the more
dangerous does the elective system of the chief magistrate
become. The policy of the Americans in relation to the whole
world is exceedingly simple; and it may almost be said that no
country stands in need of them, nor do they require the
co-operation of any other people. Their independence is never
threatened. In their present condition, therefore, the functions
of the executive power are no less limited by circumstances, than
by the laws; and the president may frequently change his line of
policy without involving the state in difficulty or destruction.

Whatever the prerogatives of the executive power may be, the
period which immediately precedes an election, and the moment of
its duration, must always be considered as a national crisis,
which is perilous in proportion to the internal embarrassments
and the external dangers of the country. Few of the nations of
Europe could escape the calamities of anarchy or of conquest,
every time they might have to elect a new sovereign. In America
society is so constituted that it can stand without assistance
upon its own basis; nothing is to be feared from the pressure of
external dangers; and the election of the president is a cause of
agitation, but not of ruin.

       *       *       *       *       *


                        MODE OF ELECTION.

Skill of the American Legislators shown in the Mode of Election
  adopted by them.--Creation of a special electoral
  Body.--Separate Votes of these Electors.--Case in which the
  House of Representatives is called upon to choose the
  President.--Results of the twelve Elections which have taken
  Place since the Constitution has been established.


Beside the dangers which are inherent in the system, many other
difficulties may arise from the mode of election, which may be
obviated by the precaution of the legislator. When a people met
in arms on some public spot to choose its head, it was exposed to
all the chances of civil war resulting from so martial a mode of
proceeding, beside the dangers of the elective system in itself.
The Polish laws, which subjected the election of the sovereign to
the veto of a single individual, suggested the murder of that
individual, or prepared the way to anarchy.

In the examination of the institutions, and the political as well
as the social condition of the United States, we are struck by
the admirable harmony of the gifts of fortune and the efforts of
man. That nation possessed two of the main causes of internal
peace; it was a new country, but it was inhabited by a people
grown old in the exercise of freedom. America had no hostile
neighbors to dread; and the American legislators, profiting by
these favorable circumstances, created a weak and subordinate
executive power, which could without danger be made elective.

It then only remained for them to choose the least dangerous of
the various modes of election; and the rules which they laid down
upon this point admirably complete the securities which the
physical and political constitution of the country already
afforded. Their object was to find the mode of election which
would best express the choice of the people with the least
possible excitement and suspense. It was admitted in the first
place that the _simple_ majority should be decisive; but the
difficulty was to obtain this majority without an interval of
delay which it was most important to avoid. It rarely happens
that an individual can at once collect the majority of the
suffrages of a great people; and this difficulty is enhanced in a
republic of confederate states, where local influences are apt to
preponderate. The means by which it was proposed to obviate this
second obstacle was to delegate the electoral powers of the
nation to a body of representatives. The mode of election
rendered a majority more probable; for the fewer the electors
are, the greater is the chance of their coming to a final
decision. It also offered an additional probability of a
judicious choice. It then remained to be decided whether this
right of election was to be intrusted to the legislative body,
the habitual representative assembly of the nation, or whether an
electoral assembly should be formed for the express purpose of
proceeding to the nomination of a president. The Americans chose
the latter alternative, from a belief that the individuals who
were returned to make the laws were incompetent to represent the
wishes of the nation in the election of its chief magistrate; and
that as they are chosen for more than a year, the constituency
they represented might have changed its opinion in that time. It
was thought that if the legislature was empowered to elect the
head of the executive power, its members would, for some time
before the election, be exposed to the manoeuvres of corruption,
and the tricks of intrigue; whereas, the special electors would,
like a jury, remain mixed up with the crowd till the day of
action, when they would appear for the sole purpose of giving
their votes.

It was therefore established that every state should name a
certain number of electors,[Footnote:

As many as it sends members to congress. The number of electors
at the election of 1833 was 288. (See the National Calendar,
1833.)

] who in their turn should elect the president; and as it had
been observed that the assemblies to which the choice of a chief
magistrate had been intrusted in elective countries, inevitably
became the centres of passion and of cabal; that they sometimes
usurped an authority which did not belong to them: and that their
proceedings, or the uncertainty which resulted from them, were
sometimes prolonged so much as to endanger the welfare of the
state, it was determined that the electors should all vote upon
the same day, without being convoked to the same place.[Footnote:

The electors of the same state assemble, but they transmit to the
central government the list of their individual votes, and not
the mere result of the vote of the majority.

]  This double election rendered a majority probable, though not
certain; for it was possible that as many differences might exist
between the electors as between their constituents. In this case
it was necessary to have recourse to one of three measures;
either to appoint new electors, or to consult a second time those
already appointed, or to defer the election to another authority.
The first two of these alternatives, independently of the
uncertainty of their results, were likely to delay the final
decision, and to perpetuate an agitation which must always be
accompanied with danger. The third expedient was therefore
adopted, and it was agreed that the votes should be transmitted
sealed to the president of the senate, and that they should be
opened and counted in the presence of the senate and the house of
representatives. If none of the candidates has a majority, the
house of representatives then proceeds immediately to elect the
president; but with the condition that it must fix upon one of
the three candidates who have the highest numbers.[Footnote:

In this case it is the majority of the states, and not the
majority of the members, which decides the question; so that New
York has not more influence in the debate than Rhode Island.
Thus the citizens of the Union are first consulted as members of
one and the same community; and, if they cannot agree, recourse
is had to the division of the states, each of which has a
separate and independent vote. This is one of the singularities
of the federal constitution which can only be explained by the
jar of conflicting interests.

]

Thus it is only in case of an event which cannot often happen,
and which can never be foreseen, that the election is intrusted
to the ordinary representatives of the nation; and even then they
are obliged to choose a citizen who has already been designated
by a powerful minority of the special electors. It is by this
happy expedient that the respect due to the popular voice is
combined with the utmost celerity of execution and those
precautions which the peace of the country demands. But the
decision of the question by the house of representatives does not
necessarily offer an immediate solution of the difficulty, for
the majority of that assembly may still be doubtful, and in this
case the constitution prescribes no remedy. Nevertheless, by
restricting the number of candidates to three, and by referring
the matter to the judgment of an enlightened public body, it has
smoothed all the obstacles[Footnote:

Jefferson, in 1801, was not elected until the thirty-sixth time
of balloting.

] which are not inherent in the elective system.

In the forty years which have elapsed since the promulgation of
the federal constitution, the United States have twelve times
chosen a president. Ten of these elections took place
simultaneously by the votes of the special electors in the
different states. The house of representatives has only twice
exercised its conditional privilege of deciding in cases of
uncertainty: the first time was at the election of Mr. Jefferson
in 1801; the second was in 1825, when Mr. John Quincy Adams was
chosen.

       *       *       *       *       *


                     CRISIS OF THE ELECTION.

The election may be considered as a national
  Crisis.--Why?--Passions of the People.--Anxiety of the
  President.--Calm which succeeds the Agitation of the Election.


I have shown what the circumstances are which favored the
adoption of the elective system in the United States, and what
precautions were taken by the legislators to obviate its dangers.
The Americans are accustomed to all kinds of elections; and they
know by experience the utmost degree of excitement which is
compatible with security. The vast extent of the country, and
the dissemination of the inhabitants, render a collision between
parties less probable and less dangerous there than elsewhere.
The political circumstances under which the elections have
hitherto been carried on, have presented no real embarrassments
to the nation.

Nevertheless, the epoch of the election of a president of the
United States may be considered as a crisis in the affairs of the
nation. The influence which he exercises on public business is
no doubt feeble and indirect; but the choice of the president,
which is of small importance to each individual citizen, concerns
the citizens collectively; and however trifling an interest may
be, it assumes a great degree of importance as soon as it becomes
general. The president possesses but few means of rewarding his
supporters in comparison to the kings of Europe; but the places
which are at his disposal are sufficiently numerous to interest,
directly or indirectly, several thousand electors in his success.
Moreover, political parties in the United States, as well as
elsewhere, are led to rally around an individual, in order to
acquire a more tangible shape in the eyes of the crowd, and the
name of the candidate for the presidency is put forth as the
symbol and personification of their theories. For these reasons
parties are strongly interested in gaining the election, not so
much with a view to the triumph of their principles under the
auspices of the president elected, as to show, by the majority
which returned him, the strength of the supporters of those
principles.

For a long while before the appointed time is at hand, the
election becomes the most important and the all-engrossing topic
of discussion. The ardor of faction is redoubled; and all the
artificial passions which the imagination can create in the bosom
of a happy and peaceful land are agitated and brought to light.
The president, on the other hand, is absorbed by the cares of
self-defence. He no longer governs for the interest of the
state, but for that of his re-election; he does homage to the
majority, and instead of checking its passions, as his duty
commands him to do, he frequently courts its worst caprices. As
the election draws near, the activity of intrigue and the
agitation of the populace increase; the citizens are divided into
several camps, each of which assumes the name of its favorite
candidate; the whole nation glows with feverish excitement; the
election is the daily theme of the public papers, the subject of
private conversation, the end of every thought and every action,
the sole interest of the present. As soon as the choice is
determined, this ardor is dispelled; and as a calmer season
returns, the current of the state, which has nearly broken its
banks, sinks to its usual level; but who can refrain from
astonishment at the causes of the storm?

       *       *       *       *       *


                  RE-ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT.

When the Head of the executive Power is re-eligible, it is the
  State which is the Source of Intrigue and Corruption.--The
  desire of being re-elected, the chief Aim of a President of the
  United States.--Disadvantage of the System peculiar to
  America.--The natural Evil of Democracy is that it subordinates
  all Authority to the slightest Desires of the Majority.--The
  Re-election of the President encourages this Evil.


It may be asked whether the legislators of the United States did
right or wrong in allowing the re-election of the president. It
seems at first sight contrary to all reason to prevent the head
of the executive power from being elected a second time. The
influence which the talents and the character of a single
individual may exercise upon the fate of a whole people,
especially in critical circumstances or arduous times, is well
known: a law preventing the re-election of the chief magistrate
would deprive the citizens of the surest pledge of the prosperity
and the security of the commonwealth; and, by a singular
inconsistency, a man would be excluded from the government at the
very time when he had shown his ability in conducting its
affairs.

But if these arguments are strong, perhaps still more powerful
reasons may be advanced against them. Intrigue and corruption
are the natural defects of elective government; but when the head
of the state can be re-elected, these evils rise to a great
height, and compromise the very existence of the country. When a
simple candidate seeks to rise by intrigue, his manoeuvres must
necessarily be limited to a narrow sphere; but when the chief
magistrate enters the lists, he borrows the strength of the
government for his own purposes. In the former case the feeble
resources of an individual are in action; in the latter, the
state itself, with all its immense influence, is busied in the
work of corruption and cabal. The private citizen, who employs
the most immoral practices to acquire power, can only act in a
manner indirectly prejudicial to the public prosperity. But if
the representative of the executive descends into the lists, the
cares of government dwindle into second-rate importance, and the
success of his election is his first concern. All laws and
negotiations are then to him nothing more than electioneering
schemes; places become the reward of services rendered, not to
the nation, but to its chief; and the influence of the
government, if not injurious to the country, is at least no
longer beneficial to the community for which it was created.

It is impossible to consider the ordinary course of affairs in
the United States without perceiving that the desire of being
re-elected is the chief aim of the president; that his whole
administration, and even his most indifferent measures, tend to
this object; and that, as the crisis approaches, his personal
interest takes the place of his interest in the public good. The
principle of re-eligibility renders the corrupt influence of
elective governments still more extensive and pernicious. It
tends to degrade the political morality of the people, and to
substitute adroitness for patriotism.

In America it exercises a still more fatal influence on the
sources of national existence. Every government seems to be
afflicted by some evil inherent in its nature, and the genius of
the legislator is shown in eluding its attacks. A state may
survive the influence of a host of bad laws, and the mischief
they cause is frequently exaggerated; but a law which encourages
the growth of the canker within must prove fatal in the end,
although its bad consequences may not be immediately perceived.

The principle of destruction in absolute monarchies lies in the
excessive and unreasonable extension of the prerogative of the
crown; and a measure tending to remove the constitutional
provisions which counterbalance this influence would be radically
bad, even if its consequences should long appear to be
imperceptible. By a parity of reasoning, in countries governed
by a democracy, where the people is perpetually drawing all
authority to itself, the laws which increase or accelerate its
action are the direct assailants of the very principle of the
government.

The greatest proof of the ability of the American legislators is,
that they clearly discerned this truth, and that they had the
courage to act up to it. They conceived that a certain authority
above the body of the people was necessary, which should enjoy a
degree of independence, without however being entirely beyond the
popular control; an authority which would be forced to comply
with the _permanent_ determinations of the majority, but
which would be able to resist its caprices, and to refuse its
most dangerous demands. To this end they centred the whole
executive power of the nation in a single arm; they granted
extensive prerogatives to the president, and they armed him with
the veto to resist the encroachments of the legislature.

But by introducing the principle of re-election, they partly
destroyed their work; and they rendered the president but little
inclined to exert the great power they had invested in his hands.
If ineligible a second time, the president would be far from
independent of the people, for his responsibility would not be
lessened; but the favor of the people would not be so necessary
to him as to induce him to court it by humoring its desires. If
re-eligible (and this is more especially true at the present day,
when political morality is relaxed, and when great men are rare),
the president of the United States becomes an easy tool in the
hands of the majority. He adopts its likings and its
animosities, he hastens to anticipate its wishes, he forestalls
its complaints, he yields to its idlest cravings, and instead of
guiding it, as the legislature intended that he should do, he is
ever ready to follow its bidding. Thus, in order not to deprive
the state of the talents of an individual, those talents have
been rendered almost useless, and to reserve an expedient for
extraordinary perils the country has been exposed to daily
dangers.


[The question of the propriety of leaving the president
re-eligible, is one of that class which probably must for ever
remain undecided. The author himself, ..., gives a strong reason
for re-eligibility, "so that the chance of a prolonged
administration may inspire him with hopeful undertakings for the
public good, and with the means of carrying them into
execution,"--considerations of great weight. There is an
important fact bearing upon this question, which should be stated
in connexion with it. President Washington established the
practice of declining a third election, and every one of his
successors, either from a sense of its propriety or from
apprehensions of the force of public opinion, has followed the
example. So that it has become as much a part of the
constitution, that no citizen can be a third time elected
president, as if it were expressed in that instrument in words.
This may perhaps be considered a fair adjustment of objections on
either side. Those against a continued and perpetual
re-eligibility are certainly met: while the arguments in favor of
an opportunity to prolong an administration under circumstances
that may justify it, are allowed their due weight. One effect of
this practical interpolation of the constitution unquestionably
is, to increase the chances of a president's being once
re-elected; as men will be more disposed to acquiesce in a
measure that thus practically excludes the individual from ever
again entering the field of competition.--_American
Editor._]

       *       *       *       *       *


                         FEDERAL COURTS.
[Footnote:

See chapter vi., entitled, "Judicial Power in the United States."
This chapter explains the general principles of the American
theory of judicial institutions. See also the federal
constitution, art. 3. See the Federalist, Nos. 78-83, inclusive:
and a work entitled, "Constitutional Law, being a View of the
Practice and Jurisdiction of the Courts of the United States," by
Thomas Sergeant. See Story, pp. 134, 162, 489, 511, 581, 668;
and the organic law of the 24th September, 1789, in the
collection of the laws of the United States, by Story, vol. i.,
p. 53.

]

Political Importance of the Judiciary in the United
  States.--Difficulty of treating this Subject.--Utility of
  judicial Power in Confederations.--What Tribunals could be
  introduced into the Union.--Necessity of establishing federal
  Courts of Justice.--Organization of the national
  Judiciary.--The Supreme Court.--In what it differs from all
  known Tribunals.


I have inquired into the legislative and executive power of the
Union, and the judicial power now remains to be examined; but in
this place I cannot conceal my fears from the reader. Judicial
institutions exercise a great influence on the condition of the
Anglo-Americans, and they occupy a prominent place among what are
properly called political institutions: in this respect they are
peculiarly deserving of our attention. But I am at a loss to
explain the political action of the American tribunals without
entering into some technical details on their constitution and
their forms of proceeding; and I know not how to descend to these
minuti without wearying the curiosity of the reader by the
natural aridity of the subject, or without risking to fall into
obscurity through a desire to be succinct. I can scarcely hope
to escape these various evils; for if I appear too prolix to a
man of the world, a lawyer may on the other hand complain of my
brevity. But these are the natural disadvantages of my subject,
and more especially of the point which I am about to discuss.

The great difficulty was, not to devise the constitution of the
federal government, but to find out a method of enforcing its
laws. Governments have in general but two means of overcoming
the opposition of the people they govern, viz., the physical
force which is at their own disposal, and the moral force which
they derive from the decisions of the courts of justice.

A government which should have no other means of exacting
obedience than open war, must be very near its ruin; for one of
two alternatives would then probably occur: if its authority was
small, and its character temperate, it would not resort to
violence till the last extremity, and it would connive at a
number of partial acts of insubordination, in which case the
state would gradually fall into anarchy; if it was enterprising
and powerful, it would perpetually have recourse to its physical
strength, and would speedily degenerate into a military
despotism. So that its activity would not be less prejudicial to
the community than its inaction.

The great end of justice is to substitute the notion of right for
that of violence; and to place a legal barrier between the power
of the government and the use of physical force. The authority
which is awarded to the intervention of a court of justice by the
general opinion of mankind is so surprisingly great, that it
clings to the mere formalities of justice, and gives a bodily
influence to the shadow of the law. The moral force which courts
of justice possess renders the introduction of physical force
exceedingly rare, and it is very frequently substituted for it;
but if the latter proves to be indispensable, its power is
doubled by the association of the idea of law.

A federal government stands in greater need of the support of
judicial institutions than any other, because it is naturally
weak, and opposed to formidable opposition.[Footnote:

Federal laws are those which most require courts of justice, and
those at the same time which have most rarely established them.
The reason is that confederations have usually been formed by
independent states, which entertained no real intention of
obeying the central government, and which very readily ceded the
right of commanding to the federal executive, and very prudently
reserved the right of non-compliance to themselves.

]  If it were always obliged to resort to violence in the first
instance, it could not fulfil its task. The Union, therefore,
required a national judiciary to enforce the obedience of the
citizens to the laws, and to repel the attacks which might be
directed against them. The question then remained what tribunals
were to exercise these privileges; were they to be intrusted to
the courts of justice which were already organized in every
state? or was it necessary to create federal courts?  It may
easily be proved that the Union could not adapt the judicial
power of the state to its wants. The separation of the judiciary
from the administrative power of the state, no doubt affects the
security of every citizen, and the liberty of all. But it is no
less important to the existence of the nation that these several
powers should have the same origin, should follow the same
principles, and act in the same sphere; in a word, that they
should be correlative and homogeneous. No one, I presume, ever
suggested the advantage of trying offences committed in France,
by a foreign court of justice, in order to ensure the
impartiality of the judges. The Americans form one people in
relation to their federal government; but in the bosom of this
people divers political bodies have been allowed to subsist,
which are dependent on the national government in a few points,
and independent in all the rest--which have all a distinct
origin, maxims peculiar to themselves, and special means of
carrying on their affairs. To intrust the execution of the laws
of the Union to tribunals instituted by these political bodies,
would be to allow foreign judges to preside over the nation. Nay
more, not only is each state foreign to the Union at large, but
it is in perpetual opposition to the common interests, since
whatever authority the Union loses turns to the advantage of the
states. Thus to enforce the laws of the Union by means of the
tribunals of the states, would be to allow not only foreign, but
partial judges to preside over the nation.

But the number, still more than the mere character, of the
tribunals of the states rendered them unfit for the service of
the nation. When the federal constitution was formed, there were
already thirteen courts of justice in the United States which
decided causes without appeal. That number is now increased to
twenty-four. To suppose that a state can subsist, when its
fundamental laws may be subjected to four-and-twenty different
interpretations at the same time, is to advance a proposition
alike contrary to reason and to experience.

The American legislators therefore agreed to create a federal
judiciary power to apply the laws of the Union, and to determine
certain questions affecting general interests, which were
carefully determined beforehand. The entire judicial power of
the Union was centred in one tribunal, which was denominated the
supreme court of the United States. But, to facilitate the
expedition of business, inferior courts were appended to it,
which were empowered to decide causes of small importance without
appeal, and with appeal causes of more magnitude. The members of
the supreme court are named neither by the people nor the
legislature, but by the president of the United States, acting
with the advice of the senate. In order to render them
independent of the other authorities, their office was made
inalienable; and it was determined that their salary, when once
fixed, should not be altered by the legislature.[Footnote:

The Union was divided into districts, in each of which a resident
federal judge was appointed, and the court in which he presided
was termed a "district court." Each of the judges of the supreme
court annually visits a certain portion of the Republic, in order
to try the most important causes upon the spot; the court
presided over by this magistrate is styled a "circuit court."
Lastly, all the most serious cases of litigation are brought
before the supreme court, which holds a solemn session once a
year, at which all the judges of the circuit courts must attend.
The jury was introduced into the federal courts in the same
manner, and in the same cases as into the courts of the states.

It will be observed that no analogy exists between the supreme
court of the United States and the French cour de cassation,
since the latter only hears appeals. The supreme court decides
upon the evidence of the fact, as well as upon the law of the
case, whereas the cour de cassation does not pronounce a decision
of its own, but refers the cause to the arbitration of another
tribunal. See the law of 24th September, 1789, laws of the
United States, by Story, vol. i., p. 53.

]  It was easy to proclaim the principle of a federal judiciary,
but difficulties multiplied when the extent of its jurisdiction
was to be determined.

       *       *       *       *       *


      MEANS OF DETERMINING THE JURISDICTION OF THE FEDERAL
                             COURTS.

Difficulty of determining the Jurisdiction of separate courts of
  Justice in Confederation.--The Courts of the Union obtained the
  Right of fixing their own Jurisdiction.--In what Respect this
  Rule attacks the Portion of Sovereignty reserved to the several
  States.--The Sovereignty of these States restricted by the
  Laws, and the Interpretation of the Laws.--Consequently, the
  Danger of the several States is more apparent than real.


As the constitution of the United States recognized two distinct
powers, in presence of each other, represented in a judicial
point of view by two distinct classes of courts of justice, the
utmost care which could be taken in defining their separate
jurisdictions would have been insufficient to prevent frequent
collisions between those tribunals. The question then arose, to
whom the right of deciding the competency of each court was to be
referred.

In nations which constitute a single body politic, when a
question is debated between two courts relating to their mutual
jurisdiction, a third tribunal is generally within reach to
decide the difference; and this is effected without difficulty,
because in these nations the questions of judicial competency
have no connexion with the privileges of the national supremacy.
But it was impossible to create an arbiter between a superior
court of the Union and the superior court of a separate state,
which would not belong to one of these two classes. It was
therefore necessary to allow one of these courts to judge its own
cause, and to take or to retain cognizance of the point which was
contested. To grant this privilege to the different courts of
the states, would have been to destroy the sovereignty of the
Union _de facto_, after having established it _de
jure_; for the interpretation of the constitution would soon
have restored that portion of independence to the states of which
the terms of that act deprived them. The object of the creation
of a federal tribunal was to prevent the courts of the states
from deciding questions affecting the national interests in their
own department, and so to form a uniform body of jurisprudence
for the interpretation of the laws of the Union. This end would
not have been accomplished if the courts of the several states
had been competent to decide upon cases in their separate
capacities, from which they were obliged to abstain as federal
tribunals. The supreme court of the United States was therefore
invested with the right of determining all questions of
jurisdiction.[Footnote:

In order to diminish the number of these suits, it was decided
that in a great many federal causes, the courts of the states
should be empowered to decide conjointly with those of the Union,
the losing party having then a right of appeal to the supreme
court of the United States. The supreme court of Virginia
contested the right of the supreme court of the United States to
judge an appeal from its decisions, but unsuccessfully. See
Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., pp. 300, 370, _et seq.;_
Story's Commentaries, p. 646; and "The Organic Law of the United
States," vol. i., p. 35.

]

This was a severe blow upon the independence of the states, which
was thus restricted not only by the laws, but by the
interpretation of them; by one limit which was known, and by
another which was dubious; by a rule which was certain, and a
rule which was arbitrary. It is true the constitution had laid
down the precise limits of the federal supremacy, but whenever
this supremacy is contested by one of the states, a federal
tribunal decides the question. Nevertheless, the dangers with
which the independence of the states was threatened by this mode
of proceeding are less serious than they appear to be. We shall
see hereafter that in America the real strength of the country is
vested in the provincial far more than in the federal government.
The federal judges are conscious of the relative weakness of the
power in whose name they act, and they are more inclined to
abandon a right of jurisdiction in cases where it is justly their
own, than to assert a privilege to which they have no legal
claim.

       *       *       *       *       *


             DIFFERENT CASES OF JURISDICTION.

The Matter and the Party are the first Conditions of the federal
  Jurisdiction.--Suits in which Ambassadors are engaged.--Suits
  of the Union.--Of a separate State.--By whom tried.--Causes
  resulting from the Laws of the Union.--Why judged by the
  federal Tribunal.--Causes relating to the Non-performance of
  Contracts tried by the federal Courts.--Consequences of this
  Arrangement.


After having appointed the means of fixing the competency of the
federal courts, the legislators of the Union defined the cases
which should come within their jurisdiction. It was established,
on the one hand, that certain parties must always be brought
before the federal courts, without any regard to the special
nature of the cause; and, on the other, that certain causes must
always be brought before the same courts, without any regard to
the quality of the parties in the suit. These distinctions were
therefore admitted to be the bases of the federal jurisdiction.

Ambassadors are the representatives of nations in a state of
amity with the Union, and whatever concerns these personages
concerns in some degree the whole Union. When I an ambassador is
a party in a suit, that suit affects the welfare of the nation,
and a federal tribunal is naturally called upon to decide it.

The Union itself may be involved in legal proceedings, and in
this case it would be alike contrary to the customs of all
nations, and to common sense, to appeal to a tribunal
representing any other sovereignty than its own; the federal
courts, therefore, take cognizance of these affairs.

When two parties belonging to two different states are engaged in
a suit, the case cannot with propriety be brought before a court
of either state. The surest expedient is to select a tribunal
like that of the Union, which can excite the suspicions of
neither party, and which offers the most natural as well as the
most certain remedy.

When the two parties are not private individuals, but states, an
important political consideration is added to the same motive of
equity. The quality of the parties, in this case, gives a
national importance to all their disputes; and the most trifling
litigation of the states may be said to involve the peace of the
whole Union.[Footnote:

The constitution also says that the federal courts shall decide
"controversies between a state and the citizens of another
state." And here a most important question of a constitutional
nature arose, which was, whether the jurisdiction given by the
constitution in cases in which a state is a party, extended to
suits brought _against_ a state as well as _by_ it, or
was exclusively confined to the latter. This question was most
elaborately considered in the case of _Chisholme_
v. _Georgia_, and was decided by the majority of the supreme
court in the affirmative. The decision created general alarm
among the states, and an amendment was proposed and ratified by
which the power was entirely taken away so far as it regards
suits brought against a state. See Story's Commentaries, p. 624,
or in the large edition,  1677.

]

The nature of the cause frequently prescribes the rule of
competency. Thus all the questions which concern maritime
commerce evidently fall under the cognizance of the federal
tribunals.[Footnote:

As, for instance, all cases of piracy.

]  Almost all these questions are connected with the
interpretation of the law of nations; and in this respect they
essentially interest the Union in relation to foreign powers.
Moreover, as the sea is not included within the limits of any
peculiar jurisdiction, the national courts can only hear causes
which originate in maritime affairs.

The constitution comprises under one head almost all the cases
which by their very nature come within the limits of the federal
courts. The rule which it lays down is simple, but pregnant with
an entire system of ideas, and with a vast multitude of facts.
It declares that the judicial power of the supreme court shall
extend to all cases in law and equity _arising under the laws
of the United States_.

Two examples will put the intentions of the legislator in the
clearest light:--

The constitution prohibits the states from making laws on the
value and circulation of money: if, notwithstanding this
prohibition, a state passes a law of this kind, with which the
interested parties refuse to comply because it is contrary to the
constitution, the case must come before a federal court, because
it arises under the laws of the United States. Again, if
difficulties arise in the levying of import duties which have
been voted by congress, the federal court must decide the case,
because it arises under the interpretation of a law of the United
States.

This rule is in perfect accordance with the fundamental
principles of the federal constitution. The Union as it was
established in 1789, possesses, it is true, a limited supremacy;
but it was intended that within its limits it should form one and
the same people.[Footnote:

This principle was in some measure restricted by the introduction
of the several states as independent powers into the senate, and
by allowing them to vote separately in the house of
representatives when the president is elected by that body; but
these are exceptions, and the contrary principle is the rule.

]  Within those limits the Union is sovereign. When this point
is established and admitted, the inference is easy; for if it be
acknowledged that the United States constitute one and the same
people within the bounds prescribed by their constitution, it is
impossible to refuse them the rights which belong to other
nations. But it has been allowed, from the origin of society,
that every nation has the right of deciding by its own courts
those questions which concern the execution of its own laws. To
this it is answered, that the Union is in so singular a position,
that in relation to some matters it constitutes a people, and
that in relation to all the rest it is a nonentity. But the
inference to be drawn is, that in the laws relating to these
matters the Union possesses all the rights of absolute
sovereignty. The difficulty is to know what these matters are;
and when once it is resolved (and we have shown how it was
resolved, in speaking of the means of determining the
jurisdiction of the federal courts), no farther doubt can arise;
for as soon as it is established that a suit is federal, that is
to say, that it belongs to the share of sovereignty reserved by
the constitution to the Union, the natural consequence is that it
should come within the jurisdiction of a federal court.

Whenever the laws of the United States are attacked, or whenever
they are resorted to in self-defence, the federal courts must be
appealed to. Thus the jurisdiction of the tribunals of the Union
extends and narrows its limits exactly in the same ratio as the
sovereignty of the Union augments or decreases. We have shown
that the principal aim of the legislators of 1789 was to divide
the sovereign authority into two parts. In the one they placed
the control of all the general interests of the Union, in the
other the control of the special interest of its component
states. Their chief solicitude was to arm the federal government
with sufficient power to enable it to resist, within its sphere,
the encroachments of the several states. As for these
communities, the principle of independence within certain limits
of their own was adopted in their behalf; and they were concealed
from the inspection, and protected from the control, of the
central government. In speaking of the division of the
authority, I observed that this latter principle had not always
been held sacred, since the states are prevented from passing
certain laws, which apparently belong to their own particular
sphere of interest. When a state of the Union passes a law of
this kind, the citizens who are injured by its execution can
appeal to the federal courts.


[The remark of the author, that whenever the laws of the United
States are attacked, or whenever they are resorted to in
self-defence, the federal courts _must be_ appealed to,
which is more strongly expressed in the original, is erroneous
and calculated to mislead on a point of some importance. By the
grant of power to the courts of the United States to decide
certain cases, the powers of the state courts are not suspended,
but are exercised concurrently, subject to an appeal to the
courts of the United States. But if the decision of the state
court is _in favor_ of the right, title, or privilege
claimed under the constitution, a treaty, or under a law of
congress, no appeal lies to the federal courts. The appeal is
given only when the decision _is against_ the claimant under
the treaty or law. See 3d Cranch, 268. 1 Wheaton,
304.--_American Editor._]


Thus the jurisdiction of the general courts extends not only to
all the cases which arise under the laws of the Union, but also
to those which arise under laws made by the several states in
opposition to the constitution. The states are prohibited from
making _ex-post-facto_ laws in criminal cases; and any
person condemned by virtue of a law of this kind can appeal to
the judicial power of the Union. The states are likewise
prohibited from making laws which may have a tendency to impair
the obligations of contracts.[Footnote:

It is perfectly clear, says Mr. Story (Commentaries, p. 503, or
in the large edition,  1379), that any law which enlarges,
abridges, or in any manner changes the intention of the parties,
resulting from the stipulations in the contract, necessarily
impairs it. He gives in the same place a very long and careful
definition of what is understood by a contract in federal
jurisprudence. A grant made by the state to a private
individual, and accepted by him, is a contract, and cannot be
revoked by any future law. A charter granted by the state to a
company is a contract, and equally binding to the state as to the
grantee. The clause of the constitution here referred to
ensures, therefore, the existence of a great part of acquired
rights, but not of all. Property may legally be held, though it
may not have passed into the possessor's hands by means of a
contract; and its possession is an acquired right, not guarantied
by the federal constitution.

]  If a citizen thinks that an obligation of this kind is
impaired by a law passed in his state, he may refuse to obey it,
and may appeal to the federal courts.[Footnote:

A remarkable instance of this is given by Mr. Story (p. 508, or
in the large edition,  1388). "Dartmouth college in New
Hampshire had been founded by a charter granted to certain
individuals before the American revolution, and its trustees
formed a corporation under this charter. The legislature of New
Hampshire had, without the consent of this corporation, passed an
act changing the organization of the original provincial charter
of the college, and transferring all the rights, privileges, and
franchises, from the old charter trustees to new trustees
appointed under the act. The constitutionality of the act was
contested, and after solemn arguments, it was deliberately held
by the supreme court that the provincial charter was a contract
within the meaning of the constitution (art. i, sect. 10), and
that the amendatory act was utterly void, as impairing the
obligation of that charter. The college was deemed, like other
colleges of private foundation, to be a private eleemosynary
institution, endowed by its charter with a capacity to take
property unconnected with the government. Its funds were
bestowed upon the faith of the charter, and those funds consisted
entirely of private donations. It is true that the uses were in
some sense public, that is, for the general benefit, and not for
the mere benefit of the corporators; but this did not make the
corporation a public corporation. It was a private institution
for general charity. It was not distinguishable in principle
from a private donation, vested in private trustees, for a public
charity, or for a particular purpose of beneficence. And the
state itself, if it had bestowed funds upon a charity of the same
nature, could not resume those funds."

]

This provision appears to me to be the most serious attack upon
the independence of the states. The rights awarded to the
federal government for purposes of obvious national importance
are definite and easily comprehensible; but those with which this
last clause invests it are not either clearly appreciable or
accurately defined. For there are vast numbers of political laws
which influence the obligations of contracts, which may thus
furnish an easy pretext for the aggressions of the central
authority.


[The fears of the author respecting the danger to the
independence of the states of that provision of the constitution,
which gives to the federal courts the authority of deciding when
a state law impairs the obligation of a contract, are deemed
quite unfounded. The citizens of every state have a deep
interest in preserving the obligation of the contracts entered
into by them in other states: indeed without such a controlling
power, "commerce among several states" could not exist. The
existence of this common arbiter is of the last importance to the
continuance of the Union itself, for if there were no peaceable
means of enforcing the obligations of contracts, independent of
all state authority, the states themselves would inevitably come
in collision in their efforts to protect their respective
citizens from the consequences of the legislation of another
state.

M. de Tocqueville's observation, that the rights with which the
clause in question invests the federal government "are not
clearly appreciable or accurately defined," proceeds upon a
mistaken view of the clause itself. It relates to the
_obligation_ of a contract, and forbids any act by which
that obligation is impaired. To American lawyers, this seems to
be as precise and definite as any rule can be made by human
language. The distinction between the _right_ to the fruits
of a contract, and the time, tribunal, and manner, in which that
right is to be enforced, seems very palpable. At all events,
since the decision of the supreme court of the United States in
those cases in which this clause has been discussed, no
difficulty is found, practically, in understanding the exact
limits of the prohibition.

The next observation of the author, that "there are vast numbers
of political laws which influence the obligations of contracts,
which may thus furnish an easy pretext for the aggressions of the
central authority," is rather obscure. Is it intended that
political laws may be passed by the central authority,
influencing the obligation of a contract, and thus the contracts
themselves be destroyed?  The answer to this would be, that the
question would not arise under the clause forbidding laws
impairing the obligation of contracts, for that clause applies
only to the states and not to the federal government.

If it be intended, that the states may find it necessary to pass
political laws, which affect contracts, and that under the
pretence of vindicating the obligation of contracts, the central
authority may make aggressions on the states and annul their
political laws:--the answer is, that the motive to the adoption
of the clause was to reach laws of every description, political
as well as all others, and that it was the abuse by the states of
what may be called political laws, viz.: acts confiscating
demands of foreign creditors, that gave rise to the prohibition.
The settled doctrine now is, that states may pass laws in respect
to the making of contracts, may prescribe what contracts shall be
made, and how, but that they cannot impair any that are already
made.

The writer of this note is unwilling to dismiss the subject,
without remarking upon what he must think a fundamental error of
the author, which is exhibited in the passage commented on, as
well as in other passages:--and that is, in supposing the
judiciary of the United States, and particularly the supreme
court, to be a part of the _political_ federal government,
and as the ready instrument to execute its designs upon the state
authorities. Although the judges are in form commissioned by the
United States, yet, in fact, they are appointed by the delegates
of the state, in the senate of the United States, concurrently
with, and acting upon, the nomination of the president. If the
legislature of each state in the Union were to elect a judge of
the supreme court, he would not be less a political officer of
the United States than he now is. In truth, the judiciary have
no political duties to perform; they are arbiters chosen by the
federal and state governments, jointly, and when appointed, as
independent of the one as of the other. They cannot be removed
without the consent of the states represented in the senate, and
they can be removed without the consent of the president, and
against his wishes. Such is the theory of the constitution. And
it has been felt practically, in the rejection by the senate of
persons nominated as judges, by a president of the same political
party with a majority of the senators. Two instances of this
kind occurred during the administration of Mr. Jefferson.

If it be alleged that they are exposed to the influence of the
executive of the United States, by the expectation of offices in
his gift, the answer is, that judges of state courts are equally
exposed to the same influence--that all state officers, from the
highest to the lowest, are in the same predicament; and that this
circumstance does not, therefore, deprive them of the character
of impartial and independent arbiters.

These observations receive confirmation from every recent
decision of the supreme court of the United States, in which
certain laws of individual states have been sustained, in cases
where, to say the least, it was very questionable whether they
did not infringe the provisions of the constitution, and where a
disposition to construe those previsions broadly and extensively,
would have found very plausible grounds to indulge itself in
annulling the state laws referred to. See the cases of _City
of New York vs. Miln_, 11_th Peters_, 103; _Briscor
vs. the Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, ib._, 257;
Charles River Bridge vs. Warren Bridge., ib._,
420.--_American Ed._]

       *       *       *       *       *


               PROCEDURE OF  THE  FEDERAL COURTS.

Natural Weakness of the judiciary Power in
  Confederations.--Legislators ought to strive as much as
  possible to bring private Individuals, and not States, before
  the federal Courts.--How the Americans have succeeded in
  this.--Direct Prosecutions of private Individuals in the
  federal Courts.--Indirect Prosecution in the States which
  violate the Laws of the Union.--The Decrees of the Supreme
  Court enervate but do not destroy the provincial Laws.


I have shown what the privileges of the federal courts are, and
it is no less important to point out the manner in which they are
exercised. The irresistible authority of justice in countries in
which the sovereignty is undivided, is derived from the fact that
the tribunals of those countries represent the entire nation at
issue with the individual against whom their decree is directed;
and the idea of power is thus introduced to corroborate the idea
of right. But this is not always the case in countries in which
the sovereignty is divided: in them the judicial power is more
frequently opposed to a fraction of the nation than to an
isolated individual, and its moral authority and physical
strength are consequently diminished. In federal states the
power of the judge is naturally decreased, and that of the
justiciable parties is augmented. The aim of the legislator in
confederate states ought therefore to be, to render the position
of the courts of justice analogous to that which they occupy in
countries where the sovereignty is undivided; in other words, his
efforts ought constantly to tend to maintain the judicial power
of the confederation as the representative of the nation, and the
justiciable party as the representative of an individual
interest.

Every government, whatever may be its constitution, requires the
means of constraining its subjects to discharge their
obligations, and of protecting its privileges from their
assaults. As far as the direct action of the government on the
community is concerned, the constitution of the United States
contrived, by a master-stroke of policy, that the federal courts,
acting in the name of the laws, should only take cognizance of
parties in an individual capacity. For, as it had been declared
that the Union consisted of one and the same people within the
limits laid down by the constitution, the inference was that the
government created by this constitution, and acting within these
limits, was invested with all the privileges of a national
government, one of the principal of which is the right of
transmitting its injunctions directly to the private citizen.
When, for instance, the Union votes an impost, it does not apply
to the states for the levying of it, but to every American
citizen, in proportion to his assessment. The supreme court,
which is empowered to enforce the execution of this law of the
Union, exerts its influence not upon a refractory state, but upon
the private taxpayer; and, like the judicial power of other
nations, it is opposed to the person of an individual. It is to
be observed that the Union chose its own antagonist; and as that
antagonist is feeble, he is naturally worsted.

But the difficulty increases when the proceedings are not brought
forward _by_ but _against_ the Union. The constitution
recognizes the legislative power of the state; and a law so
enacted may impair the privileges of the Union, in which case a
collision is unavoidable between that body and the state which
had passed the law; and it only remains to select the least
dangerous remedy, which is very clearly deducible from the
general principles I have before established.[Footnote:

See chapter vi., on judicial power in America.

]

It may be conceived that, in the case under consideration, the
Union might have sued the state before a federal court, which
would have annulled the act; and by this means it would have
adopted a natural course of proceeding: but the judicial power
would have been placed in open hostility to the state, and it was
desirable to avoid this predicament as much as possible. The
Americans hold that it is nearly impossible that a new law should
not impair the interests of some private individuals by its
provisions: these private interests are assumed by the American
legislators as the ground of attack against such measures as may
be prejudicial to the Union, and it is to these cases that the
protection of the supreme court is extended.

Suppose a state vends a certain portion of its territory to a
company, and that a year afterwards it passes a law by which the
territory is otherwise disposed of, and that clause of the
constitution, which prohibits laws impairing the obligation of
contracts, is violated. When the purchaser under the second act
appears to take possession, the possessor under the first act
brings his action before the tribunals of the Union, and causes
the title of the claimant to be pronounced null and
void.[Footnote:

See Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 387.

]  Thus, in point of fact, the judicial power of the Union is
contesting the claims of the sovereignty of a state; but it only
acts indirectly and upon a special application of detail: it
attacks the law in its consequences, not in its principle, and it
rather weakens than destroys it.

The last hypothesis that remained was that each state formed a
corporation enjoying a separate existence and distinct civil
rights, and that it could therefore sue or be sued before a
tribunal. Thus a state could bring an action against another
state. In this instance the Union was not called upon to contest
a provincial law, but to try a suit in which a state was a party.
This suit was perfectly similar to any other cause, except that
the quality of the parties was different; and here the danger
pointed out at the beginning of this chapter exists with less
chance of being avoided. The inherent disadvantage of the very
essence of federal constitutions is, that they engender parties
in the bosom of the nation which present powerful obstacles to
the free course of justice.

       *       *       *       *       *


         HIGH RANK OF THE SUPREME COURTS AMONG THE GREAT
                        POWERS OF STATE.

No Nation ever constituted so great a judicial Power as the
  Americans. Extent of its Prerogative.--Its political
  Influence.--The Tranquillity and the very Existence of the
  Union depend on the Discretion of the seven federal Judges.


When we have successfully examined in detail the organization of
the supreme court, and the entire prerogatives which its
exercises, we shall readily admit that a more imposing judicial
power was never constituted by any people. The supreme court is
placed at the head of all known tribunals, both by the nature of
its rights and the class of justiciable parties which it
controls.

In all the civilized countries of Europe, the government has
always shown the greatest repugnance to allow the cases to which
it was itself a party to be decided by the ordinary course of
justice. This repugnance naturally attains its utmost height in
an absolute government; and, on the other hand, the privileges of
the courts of justice are extended with the increasing liberties
of the people; but no European nation has at present held that
all judicial controversies, without regard to their origin, can
be decided by the judges of common law.

In America this theory has been actually put in practice; and the
supreme court of the United States is the sole tribunal of the
nation. Its power extends to all the cases arising under laws
and treaties made by the executive and legislative authorities,
to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and in
general to all points which affect the law of nations. It may
even be affirmed that, although its constitution is essentially
judicial, its prerogatives are almost entirely political. Its
sole object is to enforce the execution of the laws of the Union;
and the Union only regulates the relations of the government with
the citizens, and of the nation with foreign powers: the
relations of citizens among themselves are almost exclusively
regulated by the sovereignty of the states.

A second and still greater cause of the preponderance of this
court may be adduced. In the nations of Europe the courts of
justice are only called upon to try the controversies of private
individuals; but the supreme court of the United States summons
sovereign powers to its bar. When the clerk of the court
advances on the steps of the tribunal, and simply says, "The
state of New York _versus_ the state of Ohio," it is
impossible not to feel that the court which he addresses is no
ordinary body; and when it is recollected that one of these
parties represents one million, and the other two millions of
men, one is struck by the responsibility of the seven judges
whose decision is about to satisfy or to disappoint so large a
number of their fellow-citizens.

The peace, the prosperity, and the very existence of the Union,
are invested in the hands of the seven judges. Without their
active co-operation the constitution would be a dead letter: the
executive appeals to them for assistance against the
encroachments of the legislative powers; the legislature demands
their protection from the designs of the executive; they defend
the Union from the disobedience of the states, the states from
the exaggerated claims of the Union, the public interest against
the interests of private citizens, and the conservative spirit of
order against the fleeting innovations of democracy. Their power
is enormous, but it is clothed in the authority of public
opinion. They are the all-powerful guardians of a people which
respects law; but they would be impotent against popular neglect
or popular contempt. The force of public opinion is the most
intractable of agents, because its exact limits cannot be
defined; and it is not less dangerous to exceed, than to remain
below the boundary prescribed.

The federal judges must not only be good citizens, and men
possessed of that information and integrity which are
indispensable to magistrates, but they must be statesmen--
politicians, not unread in the signs of the times, not afraid to
brave the obstacles which can be subdued, nor slow to turn aside
such encroaching elements as may threaten the supremacy of the
Union and the obedience which is due to the laws.

The president, who exercises a limited power, may err without
causing great mischief in the state. Congress may decide amiss
without destroying the Union, because the electoral body in which
congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by
changing its members. But if the supreme court is ever composed
of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into
anarchy or civil war.

The real cause of this danger, however, does not lie in the
constitution of the tribunal, but in the very nature of federal
governments. We have observed that in confederate peoples it is
especially necessary to consolidate the judicial authority,
because in no other nations do those independent persons who are
able to cope with the social body, exist, in greater power or in
a better condition to resist the physical strength of the
government. But the more a power requires to be strengthened,
the more extensive and independent it must be made; and the
dangers which its abuse may create are heightened by its
independence and its strength. The source of the evil is not,
therefore, in the constitution of the power, but in the
constitution of those states which renders its existence
necessary.

       *       *       *       *       *


      IN WHAT RESPECTS THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION IS SUPERIOR
                     TO THAT OF THE STATES.

In what respects the Constitution of the Union can be compared to
  that of the States.--Superiority of the Constitution of the
  Union attributable to the Wisdom of the federal
  Legislators.--Legislature of the Union less dependent on the
  People than that of the States.--Executive Power more
  independent in its Sphere.--Judicial Power less subjected to
  the Inclinations of the Majority.--Practical Consequences of
  these Facts.--The Dangers inherent in a democratic Government
  eluded by the federal Legislators, and increased by the
  Legislators of the States.


The federal constitution differs essentially from that of the
states in the ends which it is intended to accomplish; but in the
means by which these ends are promoted, a greater analogy exists
between them. The objects of the governments are different, but
their forms are the same; and in this special point of view there
is some advantage in comparing them together.

I am of opinion that the federal constitution is superior to all
the constitutions of the states, for several reasons.

The present constitution of the Union was formed at a later
period than those of the majority of the states, and it may have
derived some melioration from past experience. But we shall be
led to acknowledge that this is only a secondary cause of its
superiority, when we recollect that eleven new states have been
added to the American confederation since the promulgation of the
federal constitution, and that these new republics have always
rather exaggerated than avoided the defects which existed in the
former constitutions.

The chief cause of the superiority of the federal constitution
lay in the character of the legislators who composed it. At the
time when it was formed the dangers of the confederation were
imminent, and its ruin seemed inevitable. In this extremity the
people chose the men who most deserved the esteem, rather than
those who had gained the affections of the country. I have
already observed, that distinguished as almost all the
legislators of the Union were for their intelligence, they were
still more so for their patriotism. They had all been nurtured
at a time when the spirit of liberty was braced by a continual
struggle against a powerful and predominant authority. When the
contest was terminated, while the excited passions of the
populace persisted in warring with dangers which had ceased to
threaten them, these men stopped short in their career; they cast
a calmer and more penetrating look upon the country which was now
their own; they perceived that the war of independence was
definitely ended, and that the only dangers which America had to
fear were those which might result from the abuse of the freedom
she had won. They had the courage to say what they believed to
be true, because they were animated by a warm and sincere love of
liberty; and they ventured to propose restrictions, because they
were resolutely opposed to destruction.[Footnote:

At this time Alexander Hamilton, who was one of the principal
founders of the constitution, ventured to express the following
sentiments in the Federalist, No. 71: "There are some who would
be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the executive to a
prevailing current, either in the community or in the
legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain
very crude notions, as well of the purpose for which government
was instituted, as of the true means by which the public
happiness may be promoted. The republican principle demands that
the deliberative sense of the community should govern the conduct
of those to whom they intrust the managements of their affairs;
but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every
sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the
people may receive from the arts of men who flatter their
prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation
that the people commonly _intend_ the _public good_.
This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense
would despise the adulator who should pretend that they would
always _reason right_, about the _means_ of promoting
it. They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the
wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they
continually are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants; by the
snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate; by the
artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they
deserve it; and of those who seek to possess rather than to
deserve it. When occasions present themselves in which the
interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations,
it is the duty of persons whom they have appointed to be the
guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary
delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more
cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a
conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal
consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting
monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and
magnanimity enough to serve at the peril of their displeasure."

]

The greater number of the constitutions of the states assign one
year for the duration of the house of representatives, and two
years for that of the senate; so that members of the legislative
body are constantly and narrowly tied down by the slightest
desires of their constituents. The legislators of the Union were
of opinion that this excessive dependence of the legislature
tended to alter the nature of the main consequences of the
representative system, since it vested the source not only of
authority, but of government, in the people. They increased the
length of the time for which the representatives were returned,
in order to give them freer scope for the exercise of their own
judgment.

The federal constitution, as well as the constitutions of the
different states, divided the legislative body into two branches.
But in the states these two branches were composed of the same
elements and elected in the same manner. The consequence was
that the passions and inclinations of the populace were as
rapidly and as energetically represented in one chamber as in the
other, and that laws were made with all the characteristics of
violence and precipitation. By the federal constitution the two
houses originate in like manner in the choice of the people; but
the conditions of eligibility and the mode of election were
changed, to the end that if, as is the case in certain nations,
one branch of the legislature represents the same interests as
the other, it may at least represent a superior degree of
intelligence and discretion. A mature age was made one of the
conditions of the senatorial dignity, and the upper house was
chosen by an elected assembly of a limited number of members.

To concentrate the whole social force in the hands of the
legislative body is the natural tendency of democracies; for as
this is the power which emanates the most directly from the
people, it is made to participate most fully in the
preponderating authority of the multitude, and it is naturally
led to monopolise every species of influence. This concentration
is at once prejudicial to a well-conducted administration, and
favorable to the despotism of the majority. The legislators of
the states frequently yielded to these democratic propensities,
which were invariably and courageously resisted by the founders
of the Union.

In the states the executive power is vested in the hands of a
magistrate, who is apparently placed upon a level with the
legislature, but who is in reality nothing more than the blind
agent and the passive instrument of its decisions. He can derive
no influence from the duration of his functions, which terminate
with the revolving year, or from the exercise of prerogatives
which can scarcely be said to exist. The legislature can condemn
him to inaction by intrusting the execution of the laws to
special committees of its own members, and can annul his
temporary dignity by depriving him of his salary. The federal
constitution vests all the privileges and all the responsibility
of the executive power in a single individual. The duration of
the presidency is fixed at four years; the salary of the
individual who fills that office cannot be altered during the
term of his functions; he is protected by a body of official
dependents, and armed with a suspensive veto. In short, every
effort was made to confer a strong and independent position upon
the executive authority, within the limits which had been
prescribed to it.

In the constitution of all the states the judicial power is that
which remains the most independent of the legislative authority:
nevertheless, in all the states the legislature has reserved to
itself the right of regulating the emoluments of the judges, a
practice which necessarily subjects these magistrates to its
immediate influence. In some states the judges are only
temporarily appointed, which deprives them of a great portion of
their power and their freedom. In others the legislative and
judicial powers are entirely confounded: thus the senate of New
York, for instance, constitutes in certain cases the superior
court of the state. The federal constitution, on the other hand,
carefully separates the judicial authority from all external
influences: and it provides for the independence of the judges,
by declaring that their salary shall not be altered, and that
their functions shall be inalienable.


[It is not universally correct, as supposed by the author, that
the state legislatures can deprive their governor of his salary
at pleasure. In the constitution of New York it is provided,
that the governor "shall receive for his services a compensation
which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the term
for which he shall have been elected;" and similar provisions are
believed to exist in other states.

Nor is the remark strictly correct, that the federal constitution
"provides for the independence of the judges, by declaring that
their salary shall not be _altered_." The provision of the
constitution is, that they shall, "at stated times, receive for
their services a compensation which shall not be diminished
during their continuance in office"--_American Editor_.]


The practical consequences of these different systems may easily
be perceived. An attentive observer will soon remark that the
business of the Union is incomparably better conducted than that
of any individual state. The conduct of the federal government
is more fair and more temperate than that of the states; its
designs are more fraught with wisdom, its projects are more
durable and more skilfully combined, its measures are put into
execution with more vigor and consistency.

I recapitulate the substance of this chapter in a few words:--

The existence of democracies is threatened by two dangers, viz.:
the complete subjection of the legislative body to the caprices
of the electoral body; and the concentration of all the powers of
the government in the legislative authority.

The growth of these evils has been encouraged by the policy of
the legislators of the states; but it has been resisted by the
legislators of the Union by every means which lay within their
control.

       *       *       *       *       *


   CHARACTERISTICS WHICH DISTINGUISH THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION
         OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM ALL OTHER
                     FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONS.

American Union appears to resemble all other
  Confederations.--Nevertheless its Effects are
  different.--Reason of this.--Distinctions between the Union and
  all other Confederations.--The American Government not a
  Federal, but an imperfect National Government.


The United States of America do not afford either the first or
the only instance of confederate states, several of which have
existed in modern Europe, without adverting to those of
antiquity. Switzerland, the Germanic empire, and the republic of
the United Provinces, either have been or still are
confederations. In studying the constitutions of these different
countries, the politician is surprised to observe that the powers
with which they invested the federal government are nearly
identical with the privileges awarded by the American
constitution to the government of the United States. They confer
upon the central power the same rights of making peace and war,
of raising money and troops, and of providing for the general
exigencies and the common interests of the nation. Nevertheless
the federal government of these different people has always been
as remarkable for its weakness and inefficiency as that of the
Union is for its vigorous and enterprising spirit. Again, the
first American confederation perished through the excessive
weakness of its government; and this weak government was,
notwithstanding, in possession of rights even more extensive than
those of the federal government of the present day. But the more
recent constitution of the United States contains certain
principles which exercise a most important influence, although
they do not at once strike the observer.

This constitution, which may at first sight be confounded with
the federal constitutions which preceded it, rests upon a novel
theory, which may be considered as a great invention in modern
political science. In all the confederations which had been
formed before the American constitution of 1789, the allied
states agreed to obey the injunctions of a federal government:
but they reserved to themselves the right of ordaining and
enforcing the execution of the laws of the Union. The American
states which combined in 1789 agreed that the federal government
should not only dictate the laws, but it should execute its own
enactments. In both cases the right is the same, but the
exercise of the right is different; and this alteration produced
the most momentous consequences.

In all the confederations which have been formed before the
American Union, the federal government demanded its supplies at
the hands of the separate governments; and if the measure it
prescribed was onerous to any one of those bodies, means were
found to evade its claims: if the state was powerful, it had
recourse to arms; if it was weak, it connived at the resistance
which the law of the Union, its sovereign, met with, and resorted
to inaction under the plea of inability. Under these
circumstances one of two alternatives has invariably occurred:
either the most preponderant of the allied peoples has assumed
the privileges of the federal authority, and ruled all the other
states in its name,[Footnote:

This was the case in Greece, when Philip undertook to execute the
decree of the Amphictyons; in the Low Countries, where the
province of Holland always gave the law; and in our time in the
Germanic confederation, in which Austria and Prussia assume a
great degree of influence over the whole country, in the name of
the Diet.

] or the federal government has been abandoned by its natural
supporters, anarchy has arisen between the confederates, and the
Union has lost all power of action.[Footnote:

Such has always been the situation of the Swiss confederation,
which would have perished ages ago but for the mutual jealousies
of its neighbors.

]

In America the subjects of the Union are not states, but private
citizens: the national government levies a tax, not upon the
state of Massachusetts, but upon each inhabitant of
Massachusetts. All former confederate governments presided over
communities, but that of the Union rules individuals; its force
is not borrowed, but self-derived; and it is served by its own
civil and military officers, by its own army, and its own courts
of justice. It cannot be doubted that the spirit of the nation,
the passions of the multitude, and the provincial prejudices of
each state, tend singularly to diminish the authority of a
federal authority thus constituted, and to facilitate the means
of resistance to its mandates; but the comparative weakness of a
restricted sovereignty is an evil inherent in the federal system.
In America, each state has fewer opportunities of resistance, and
fewer temptations to non-compliance; nor can such a design be put
in execution (if indeed it be entertained), without an open
violation of the laws of the Union, a direct interruption of the
ordinary course of justice, and a bold declaration of revolt; in
a word, without a decisive step, which men hesitate to adopt.

In all former confederations, the privileges of the Union
furnished more elements of discord than of power, since they
multiplied the claims of the nation without augmenting the means
of enforcing them: and in accordance with this fact it may be
remarked, that the real weakness of federal governments has
almost always been in the exact ratio of their nominal power.
Such is not the case with the American Union, in which, as in
ordinary governments, the federal government has the means of
enforcing all it is empowered to demand.

The human understanding more easily invents new things than new
words, and we are thence constrained to employ a multitude of
improper and inadequate expressions. When several nations form a
permanent league, and establish a supreme authority, which,
although it has not the same influence over the members of the
community as a national government, acts upon each of the
confederate states in a body, this government, which is so
essentially different from all others, is denominated a federal
one. Another form of society is afterward discovered, in which
several peoples are fused into one and the same nation with
regard to certain common interests, although they remain
distinct, or at least only confederate, with regard to all their
other concerns. In this case the central power acts directly
upon those whom it governs, whom it rules, and whom it judges, in
the same manner as, but in a more limited circle than, a national
government. Here the term of federal government is clearly no
longer applicable to a state of things which must be styled an
incomplete national government: a form of government has been
found out which is neither exactly national nor federal; but no
farther progress has been made, and the new word which will one
day designate this novel invention does not yet exist.

The absence of this new species of confederation has been the
cause which has brought all unions to civil war, to subjection,
or to a stagnant apathy; and the peoples which formed these
leagues have been either too dull to discern, or too
pusillanimous to apply this great remedy. The American
confederation perished by the same defects.

But the confederate states of America had been long accustomed to
form a portion of one empire before they had won their
independence: they had not contracted the habit of governing
themselves, and their national prejudices had not taken deep root
in their minds. Superior to the rest of the world in political
knowledge, and sharing that knowledge equally among themselves,
they were little agitated by the passions which generally oppose
the extension of federal authority in a nation, and those
passions were checked by the wisdom of the chief citizens.

The Americans applied the remedy with prudent firmness as soon as
they were conscious of the evil; they amended their laws, and
they saved their country.

       *       *       *       *       *


      ADVANTAGES OF THE FEDERAL SYSTEM IN GENERAL, AND ITS
                   SPECIAL UTILITY IN AMERICA.

Happiness and Freedom of small Nations.--Power of Great
  Nations.--Great Empires favorable to the Growth of
  Civilisation.--Strength often the first Element of national
  Prosperity.--Aim of the federal System to unite the twofold
  Advantages resulting from a small and from a large
  Territory.--Advantages derived by the United States from this
  System.--The Law adapts itself to the Exigencies of the
  Population; Population does not conform to the Exigencies of
  the Law.--Activity, Melioration, Love, and Enjoyment of Freedom
  in the American Communities.--Public Spirit of the Union the
  abstract of provincial Patriotism.--Principles and Things
  circulate freely over the Territory of the United States.--The
  Union is happy and free as a little Nation, and respected as a
  great Empire.


In small nations the scrutiny of society penetrates into every
part, and the spirit of improvement enters into the most trifling
details; as the ambition of the people is necessarily checked by
its weakness, all the efforts and resources of the citizens are
turned to the internal benefit of the community, and are not
likely to evaporate in the fleeting breath of glory. The desires
of every individual are limited, because extraordinary faculties
are rarely to be met with. The gifts of an equal fortune render
the various conditions of life uniform; and the manners of the
inhabitants are orderly and simple. Thus, if we estimate the
gradations of popular morality and enlightenment, we shall
generally find that in small nations there are more persons in
easy circumstances, a more numerous population, and a more
tranquil state of society than in great empires.

When tyranny is established in the bosom of a small nation, it is
more galling than elsewhere, because, as it acts within a narrow
circle, every point of that circle is subject to its direct
influence. It supplies the place of those great designs which it
cannot entertain, by a violent or an exasperating interference in
a multitude of minute details; and it leaves the political world
to which it properly belongs, to meddle with the arrangements of
domestic life. Tastes as well as actions are to be regulated at
its pleasure; and the families of the citizens as well as the
affairs of the state are to be governed by its decisions. This
invasion of rights occurs, however, but seldom, and freedom is in
truth the natural state of small communities. The temptations
which the government offers to ambition are too weak, and the
resources of private individuals are too slender, for the
sovereign power easily to fall within the grasp of a single
citizen: and should such an event have occurred, the subjects of
the state can without difficulty overthrow the tyrant and his
oppression by a simultaneous effort.

Small nations have therefore ever been the cradles of political
liberty: and the fact that many of them have lost their
immunities by extending their dominion, shows that the freedom
they enjoyed was more a consequence of their inferior size than
of the character of the people.

The history of the world affords no instance of a great nation
retaining the form of a republican government for a long series
of years,[Footnote:

I do not speak of a confederation of small republics, but of a
great consolidated republic.

] and this had led to the conclusion that such a state of things
is impracticable. For my own part, I cannot but censure the
imprudence of attempting to limit the possible, and to judge the
future, on the part of a being who is hourly deceived by the most
palpable realities of life, and who is constantly taken by
surprise in the circumstances with which he is most familiar.
But it may be advanced with confidence that the existence of a
great republic will always be exposed to far greater perils than
that of a small one.

All the passions which are most fatal to republican institutions
spread with an increasing territory, while the virtues which
maintain their dignity do not augment in the same proportion.
The ambition of the citizens increases with the power of the
state; the strength of parties, with the importance of the ends
they have in view; but that devotion to the common weal, which is
the surest check on destructive passions, is not stronger in a
large than in a small republic. It might, indeed, be proved
without difficulty that it is less powerful and less sincere.
The arrogance of wealth and the dejection of wretchedness,
capital cities of unwonted extent, a lax morality, a vulgar
egotism, and a great confusion of interests, are the dangers
which almost invariably arise from the magnitude of states. But
several of these evils are scarcely prejudicial to a monarchy,
and some of them contribute to maintain its existence. In
monarchical states the strength of the government is its own; it
may use, but it does not depend on, the community: and the
authority of the prince is proportioned to the prosperity of the
nation: but the only security which a republican government
possesses against these evils lies in the support of the
majority. This support is not, however, proportionably greater
in a large republic than it is in a small one; and thus while the
means of attack perpetually increase both in number and in
influence, the power of resistance remains the same; or it may
rather be said to diminish, since the propensities and interests
of the people are diversified by the increase of the population,
and the difficulty of forming a compact majority is constantly
augmented. It has been observed, moreover, that the intensity of
human passions is heightened, not only by the importance of the
end which they propose to attain, but by the multitude of
individuals who are animated by them at the same time. Every one
has had occasion to remark that his emotions in the midst of a
sympathizing crowd are far greater than those which he would have
felt in solitude. In great republics the impetus of political
passion is irresistible, not only because it aims at gigantic
purposes, but because it is felt and shared by millions of men at
the same time.

It may therefore be asserted as a general proposition, that
nothing is more opposed to the well-being and the freedom of man
than vast empires. Nevertheless it is important to acknowledge
the peculiar advantages of great states. For the very reason
which renders the desire of power more intense in these
communities than among ordinary men, the love of glory is also
more prominent in the hearts of a class of citizens, who regard
the applause of a great people as a reward worthy of their
exertions, and an elevating encouragement to man. If we would
learn why it is that great nations contribute more powerfully to
the spread of human improvement than small states, we shall
discover an adequate cause in the rapid and energetic circulation
of ideas, and in those great cities which are the intellectual
centres where all the rays of human genius are reflected and
combined. To this it may be added that most important
discoveries demand a display of national power which the
government of a small state is unable to make; in great nations
the government entertains a greater number of general notions,
and is more completely disengaged from the routine of precedent
and the egotism of local prejudice; its designs are conceived
with more talent, and executed with more boldness.

In time of peace the well-being of small nations is undoubtedly
more general and more complete; but they are apt to suffer more
acutely from the calamities of war than those great empires whose
distant frontiers may for ages avert the presence of the danger
from the mass of the people, which is more frequently afflicted
than ruined by the evil.

But in this matter, as in many others, the argument derived from
the necessity of the case predominates over all others. If none
but small nations existed, I do not doubt that mankind would be
more happy and more free; but the existence of great nations is
unavoidable.

This consideration introduces the element of physical strength as
a condition of national prosperity.

It profits a people but little to be affluent and free, if it is
perpetually exposed to be pillaged or subjugated; the number of
its manufactures and the extent of its commerce are of small
advantage, if another nation has the empire of the seas and gives
the law in all the markets of the globe. Small nations are often
impoverished, not because they are small, but because they are
weak; and great empires prosper less because they are great than
because they are strong. Physical strength is therefore one of
the first conditions of the happiness and even of the existence
of nations. Hence it occurs, that unless very peculiar
circumstances intervene, small nations are always united to large
empires in the end, either by force or by their own consent; yet
I am unacquainted with a more deplorable spectacle than that of a
people unable either to defend or to maintain its independence.

The federal system was created with the intention of combining
the different advantages which result from the greater and the
lesser extent of nations; and a single glance over the United
States of America suffices to discover the advantages which they
have derived from its adoption.

In great centralized nations the legislator is obliged to impart
a character of uniformity to the laws, which does not always suit
the diversity of customs and of districts; as he takes no
cognizance of special cases, he can only proceed upon general
principles; and the population is obligated to conform to the
exigencies of the legislation, since the legislation cannot adapt
itself to the exigencies and customs of the population; which is
the cause of endless trouble and misery. This disadvantage does
not exist in confederations; congress regulates the principal
measures of the national government, and all the details of the
administration are reserved to the provincial legislatures. It
is impossible to imagine how much this division of sovereignty
contributes to the well-being of each of the states which compose
the Union. In these small communities, which are never agitated
by the desire of aggrandizement or the cares of self-defence, all
public authority and private energy is employed in internal
melioration. The central government of each state, which is in
immediate juxtaposition to the citizens, is daily apprised of the
wants which arise in society; and new projects are proposed every
year, which are discussed either at town-meetings or by the
legislature of the state, and which are transmitted by the press
to stimulate the zeal and to excite the interest of the citizens.
This spirit of melioration is constantly alive in the American
republics, without compromising their tranquillity; the ambition
of power yields to the less refined and less dangerous love of
comfort. It is generally believed in America that the existence
and the permanence of the republican form of government in the
New World depend upon the existence and the permanence of the
federal system; and it is not unusual to attribute a large share
of the misfortunes which have befallen the new states of South
America to the injudicious erection of great republics, instead
of a divided and confederate sovereignty.

It is incontestably true that the love and the habits of
republican government in the United States were engendered in the
townships and the provincial assemblies. In a small state, like
that of Connecticut for instance, where cutting a canal or laying
down a road is a momentous political question, where the state
has no army to pay and no wars to carry on, and where much wealth
and much honor cannot be bestowed upon the chief citizens, no
form of government can be more natural or more appropriate than
that of a republic. But it is the same republican spirit, it is
these manners and customs of a free people, which are engendered
and nurtured in the different states, to be afterward applied to
the country at large. The public spirit of the Union is, so to
speak, nothing more than an abstract of the patriotic zeal of the
provinces. Every citizen of the United States transfuses his
attachment to his little republic into the common store of
American patriotism. In defending the Union, he defends the
increasing prosperity of his own district, the right of
conducting its affairs, and the hope of causing measures of
improvement to be adopted which may be favorable to his own
interests; and these are motives which are wont to stir men more
readily than the general interests of the country and the glory
of the nation.

On the other hand, if the temper and the manners of the
inhabitants especially fitted them to promote the welfare of a
great republic, the federal system smoothed the obstacles which
they might have encountered. The confederation of all the
American states presents none of the ordinary disadvantages
resulting from great agglomerations of men. The Union is a great
republic in extent, but the paucity of objects for which its
government provides assimilates it to a small state. Its acts
are important, but they are rare. As the sovereignty of the
Union is limited and incomplete, its exercise is not incompatible
with liberty; for it does not excite those insatiable desires of
fame and power which have proved so fatal to great republics. As
there is no common centre to the country, vast capital cities,
colossal wealth, abject poverty, and sudden revolutions are alike
unknown; and political passion, instead of spreading over the
land like a torrent of desolation, spends its strength against
the interests and the individual passions of every state.

Nevertheless, all commodities and ideas circulate throughout the
Union as freely as in a country inhabited by one people. Nothing
checks the spirit of enterprise. The government avails itself of
the assistance of all who have talents or knowledge to serve it.
Within the frontiers of the Union the profoundest peace prevails,
as within the heart of some great empire; abroad, it ranks with
the most powerful nations of the earth: two thousand miles of
coast are open to the commerce of the world; and as it possesses
the keys of the globe, its flag is respected in the most remote
seas. The Union is as happy and as free as a small people, and
as glorious and as strong as a great nation.

       *       *       *       *       *


      WHY THE FEDERAL SYSTEM IS NOT ADAPTED TO ALL PEOPLES,
           AND HOW THE ANGLO-AMERICANS WERE ENABLED TO
                            ADOPT IT.

Every federal System contains defects which baffle the efforts of
  the Legislator.--The federal System is complex.--It demands a
  daily Exercise of Discretion on the Part of the
  Citizens.--Practical knowledge of the Government common among
  the Americans.--Relative weakness of the Government of the
  Union another defect inherent in the federal System.--The
  Americans have diminished without remedying it.--The
  Sovereignty of the separate States apparently weaker, but
  really stronger, than that of the Union.--Why.--Natural causes
  of Union must exist between confederate Peoples beside the
  Laws.--What these Causes are among the Anglo-Americans.--Maine
  and Georgia, separated by a Distance of a thousand Miles, more
  naturally united than Normandy and Britany.--War, the main
  Peril of Confederations.--This proved even by the Example of
  the United States.--The Union has no great Wars to
  fear.--Why.--Dangers to which Europeans would be exposed if
  they adopted the federal System of the Americans.


When a legislator succeeds, after persevering efforts, in
exercising an indirect influence upon the destiny of nations, his
genius is lauded by mankind, while in point of fact, the
geographical position of the country which he is unable to
change, a social condition which arose without his co-operation,
manners and opinions which he cannot trace to their source, and
an origin with which he is unacquainted, exercise so irresistible
an influence over the courses of society, that he is himself
borne away by the current, after an ineffectual resistance. Like
the navigator, he may direct the vessel which bears him along,
but he can neither change its structure, nor raise the winds, nor
lull the waters which swell beneath him.

I have shown the advantages which the Americans derive from their
federal system; it remains for me to point out the circumstances
which render that system practicable, as its benefits are not to
be enjoyed by all nations. The incidental defects of the federal
system which originate in the laws may be corrected by the skill
of the legislator, but there are farther evils inherent in the
system which cannot be counteracted by the peoples which adopt
it. These nations must therefore find the strength necessary to
support the natural imperfections of the government.

The most prominent evil of all federal systems is the very
complex nature of the means they employ. Two sovereignties are
necessarily in the presence of each other. The legislator may
simplify and equalize the action of these two sovereignties, by
limiting each of them to a sphere of authority accurately
defined; but he cannot combine them into one, or prevent them
from running into collision at certain points. The federal
system therefore rests upon a theory which is necessarily
complicated, and which demands the daily exercise of a
considerable share of discretion on the part of those it governs.

A proposition must be plain to be adopted by the understanding of
a people. A false notion, which is clear and precise, will
always meet with a greater number of adherents in the world than
a true principle which is obscure or involved. Hence it arises
that parties, which are like small communities in the heart of
the nation, invariably adopt some principle or some name as a
symbol, which very inadequately represents the end they have in
view, and the means which are at their disposal, but without
which they could neither act nor subsist. The governments which
are founded upon a single principle or a single feeling which is
easily defined, are perhaps not the best, but they are
unquestionably the strongest and the most durable in the world.

In examining the constitution of the United States, which is the
most perfect federal constitution that ever existed, one is
startled, on the other hand, at the variety of information and
the excellence of discretion which it presupposes in the people
whom it is meant to govern. The government of the Union depends
entirely upon legal fictions; the Union is an ideal notion which
only exists in the mind, and whose limits and extent can only be
discerned by the understanding.

When once the general theory is comprehended, numerous
difficulties remain to be solved in its application; for the
sovereignty of the Union is so involved in that of the states,
that it is impossible to distinguish its boundaries at the first
glance. The whole structure of the government is artificial and
conventional; and it would be ill-adapted to a people which has
not long been accustomed to conduct its own affairs, or to one in
which the science of politics has not descended to the humblest
classes of society. I have never been more struck by the good
sense and the practical judgment of the Americans than in the
ingenious devices by which they elude the numberless difficulties
resulting from their federal constitution. I scarcely ever met
with a plain American citizen who could not distinguish, with
surprising facility, the obligations created by the laws of
congress from those created by the laws of his own state; and
who, after having discriminated between the matters which come
under the cognizance of the Union, and those which the local
legislature is competent to regulate, could not point out the
exact limit of the several jurisdictions of the federal courts
and the tribunals of the state.

The constitution of the United States is like those exquisite
productions of human industry which ensure wealth and renown to
their inventors, but which are profitless in any other hands.
This truth is exemplified by the condition of Mexico at the
present time. The Mexicans were desirous of establishing a
federal system, and they took the federal constitution of their
neighbors the Anglo-Americans as their model, and copied it with
considerable accuracy.[Footnote:

See the Mexican constitution of 1824.

]  But although they had borrowed the letter of the law, they
were unable to create or to introduce the spirit and the sense
which gave it life. They were involved in ceaseless
embarrassments between the mechanism of their double government;
the sovereignty of the states and that of the Union perpetually
exceeded their respective privileges, and entered into collision;
and to the present day Mexico is alternately the victim of
anarchy and the slave of military despotism.

The second and the most fatal of all the defects I have alluded
to, and that which I believe to be inherent in the federal
system, is the relative weakness of the government of the Union.
The principle upon which all confederations rest is that of a
divided sovereignty. The legislator may render this partition
less perceptible, he may even conceal it for a time from the
public eye, but he cannot prevent it from existing; and a divided
sovereignty must always be less powerful than an entire
supremacy. The reader has seen in the remarks I have made on the
constitution of the United States, that the Americans have
displayed singular ingenuity in combining the restriction of the
power of the Union within the narrow limits of the federal
government, with the semblance, and to a certain extent with the
force of a national government. By this means the legislators of
the Union have succeeded in diminishing, though not in
counteracting, the natural danger of confederations.

It has been remarked that the American government does not apply
itself to the states, but that it immediately transmits its
injunctions to the citizens, and compels them as isolated
individuals to comply with its demands. But if the federal law
were to clash with the interests and prejudices of a state, it
might be feared that all the citizens of that state would
conceive themselves to be interested in the cause of a single
individual who should refuse to obey. If all the citizens of the
state were aggrieved at the same time and in the same manner by
the authority of the Union, the federal government would vainly
attempt to subdue them individually; they would instinctively
unite in the common defence, and they would derive a
ready-prepared organization from the share of sovereignty which
the institution of their state allows them to enjoy. Fiction
would give way to reality, and an organized portion of the
territory might then contest the central authority.

The same observation holds good with regard to the federal
jurisdiction. If the courts of the Union violated an important
law of a state in a private case, the real, if not the apparent
contest would arise between the aggrieved state, represented by a
citizen, and the Union, represented by its courts of
justice.[Footnote:

For instance, the Union possesses by the constitution the right
of selling unoccupied lands for its own profit. Supposing that
the state of Ohio should claim the same right in behalf of
certain territories lying within its boundaries, upon the plea
that the constitution refers to those lands alone which do not
belong to the jurisdiction of any particular state, and
consequently should choose to dispose of them itself, the
litigation would be carried on in the name of the purchasers from
the state of Ohio, and the purchasers from the Union, and not in
the names of Ohio and the Union. But what would become of this
legal fiction if the federal purchaser was confirmed in his right
by the courts of the Union, while the other competitor was
ordered to retain possession by the tribunals of the state of
Ohio?

[The difficulty supposed by the author in this note is imaginary.
The question of title to the lands in the case put, must depend
upon the constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States;
and a decision in the state court adverse to the claim or title
set up under those laws, must, by the very words of the
constitution and of the judiciary act, be subject to review by
the supreme court of the United States, whose decision is final.

The remarks in the text of this page upon the relative weakness
of the government of the Union, are equally applicable to any
form of republican or democratic government, and are not peculiar
to a federal system. Under the circumstances supposed by the
author, of all the citizens of a state, or a large majority of
them, aggrieved at the same time and in the same manner, by the
operation of any law, the same difficulty would arise in
executing the laws of the state as those of the Union. Indeed,
such instances of the total inefficacy of state laws are not
wanting. The fact is, that all republics depend on the
willingness of the people to execute the laws. If they will not
enforce them, there is, so far, an end to the government, for it
possesses no power adequate to the control of the physical power
of the people.

Not only in theory, but in fact, a republican government must be
administered by the people themselves. They, and they alone,
must execute the laws. And hence, the first principles in such
governments, that on which all others depend, and without which
no other can exist, is and must be, obedience to the existing
laws at all times and under all circumstances. It is the vital
condition of the social compact. He who claims a dispensing
power for himself, by which he suspends the operation of the law
in his own case, is worse than a usurper, for he not only
tramples under foot the constitution of his country, but violates
the reciprocal pledge which he has given to his fellow-citizens,
and has received from them, that he will abide by the laws
constitutionally enacted; upon the strength of which pledge, his
own personal rights and acquisitions are protected by the rest of
the community.--_American Editor_.]

]

He would have but a partial knowledge of the world who should
imagine that it is possible, by the aid of legal fictions, to
prevent men from finding out and employing those means of
gratifying their passions which have been left open to them; and
it may be doubted whether the American legislators, when they
rendered a collision between the two sovereignties less probable,
destroyed the causes of such a misfortune. But it may even be
affirmed that they were unable to ensure the preponderance of the
federal element in a case of this kind. The Union is possessed
of money and of troops, but the affections and the prejudices of
the people are in the bosom of the states. The sovereignty of
the Union is an abstract being, which is connected with but few
external objects; the sovereignty of the states is hourly
perceptible, easily understood, constantly active; and if the
former is of recent creation, the latter is coeval with the
people itself. The sovereignty of the Union is factitious, that
of the states is natural, and derives its existence from its own
simple influence, like the authority of a parent. The supreme
power of the nation affects only a few of the chief interests of
society; it represents an immense but remote country, and claims
a feeling of patriotism which is vague and ill-defined; but the
authority of the states controls every individual citizen at
every hour and in all circumstances; it protects his property,
his freedom, and his life; and when we recollect the traditions,
the customs, the prejudices of local and familiar attachment with
which it is connected, we cannot doubt the superiority of a power
which is interwoven with every circumstance that renders the love
of one's native country instinctive to the human heart.

Since legislators are unable to obviate such dangerous collisions
as occur between the two sovereignties which co-exist in the
federal system, their first object must be, not only to dissuade
the confederate states from warfare, but to encourage such
institutions as may promote the maintenance of peace. Hence it
results that the federal compact cannot be lasting unless there
exists in the communities which are leagued together, a certain
number of inducements to union which render their common
dependance agreeable, and the task of the government light; and
that system cannot succeed without the presence of favorable
circumstances added to the influence of good laws. All the
people which have ever formed a confederation have been held
together by a certain number of common interests, which served as
the intellectual ties of association.

But the sentiments and the principles of man must be taken into
consideration as well as his immediate interest. A certain
uniformity of civilisation is not less necessary to the
durability of a confederation, than a uniformity of interests in
the states which compose it. In Switzerland the difference which
exists between the canton of Uri and the canton of Vaud is equal
to that between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries; and,
properly speaking, Switzerland has never possessed a federal
government. The Union between these two cantons only subsists
upon the map; and their discrepancies would soon be perceived if
an attempt were made by a central authority to prescribe the same
laws to the whole territory.

One of the circumstances which most powerfully contribute to
support the federal government in America, is that the states
have not only similar interests, a common origin, and a common
tongue, but that they are also arrived at the same stage of
civilisation; which almost always renders a union feasible. I do
not know of any European nation, how small soever it may be,
which does not present less uniformity in its different provinces
than the American people, which occupies a territory as extensive
as one half of Europe. The distance from the state of Maine to
that of Georgia is reckoned at about one thousand miles; but the
difference between the civilisation of Maine and that of Georgia
is slighter than the difference between the habits of Normandy
and those of Britany. Maine and Georgia, which are placed at the
opposite extremities of a great empire, are consequently in the
natural possession of more real inducements to form a
confederation than Normandy and Britany, which are only separated
by a bridge.

The geographical position of the country contributed to increase
the facilities which the American legislators derived from the
manners and customs of the inhabitants; and it is to this
circumstance that the adoption and the maintenance of the federal
system are mainly attributable.

The most important occurrence which can mark the annals of a
people is the breaking out of a war. In war a people struggle
with the energy of a single man against foreign nations, in the
defence of its very existence. The skill of a government, the
good sense of the community, and the natural fondness which men
entertain for their country, may suffice to maintain peace in the
interior of a district, and to favor its internal prosperity; but
a nation can only carry on a great war at the cost of more
numerous and more painful sacrifices; and to suppose that a great
number of men will of their own accord comply with the exigencies
of the state, is to betray an ignorance of mankind. All the
peoples which have been obliged to sustain a long and serious
warfare have consequently been led to augment the power of their
government. Those which have not succeeded in this attempt have
been subjugated. A long war almost always places nations in the
wretched alternative of being abandoned to ruin by defeat, or to
despotism by success. War therefore renders the symptoms of the
weakness of a government most palpable and most alarming; and I
have shown that the inherent defect of federal governments is
that of being weak.

The federal system is not only deficient in every kind of
centralized administration, but the central government itself is
imperfectly organized, which is invariably an influential cause
of inferiority when the nation is opposed to other countries
which are themselves governed by a single authority. In the
federal constitution of the United States, by which the central
government possesses more real force, this evil is still
extremely sensible. An example will illustrate the case to the
reader.

The constitution confers upon congress the right of "calling
forth militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress
insurrections, and repel invasions;" and another article declares
that the president of the United States is the commander-in-chief
of the militia. In the war of 1812, the president ordered the
militia of the northern states to march to the frontiers; but
Connecticut and Massachusetts, whose interests were impaired by
the war, refused to obey the command. They argued that the
constitution authorizes the federal government to call forth the
militia in cases of insurrection or invasion, but that, in the
present instance, there was neither invasion nor insurrection.
They added, that the same constitution which conferred upon the
Union the right of calling forth the militia, reserved to the
states that of naming the officers; and that consequently (as
they understood the clause) no officer of the Union had any right
to command the militia, even during war, except the president in
person: and in this case they were ordered to join an army
commanded by another individual. These absurd and pernicious
doctrines received the sanction not only of the governors and
legislative bodies, but also of the courts of justice in both
states; and the federal government was constrained to raise
elsewhere the troops which it required.[Footnote:

Kent's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 244. I have selected an example
which relates to a time posterior to the promulgation of the
present constitution. If I had gone back to the days of the
confederation, I might have given still more striking instances.
The whole nation was at that time in a state of enthusiastic
excitement; the revolution was represented by a man who was the
idol of the people; but at that very period congress had, to say
the truth, no resources at all at its disposal. Troops and
supplies were perpetually wanting. The best devised projects
failed in the execution, and the Union, which was constantly on
the verge of destruction, was saved by the weakness of its
enemies far more than by its own strength.

]

The only safeguard which the American Union, with all the
relative perfection of its laws, possesses against the
dissolution which would be produced by a great war, lies in its
probable exemption from that calamity. Placed in the centre of
an immense continent, which offers a boundless field for human
industry, the Union is almost as much insulated from the world as
if its frontiers were girt by the ocean. Canada contains only a
million of inhabitants, and its population is divided into two
inimical nations. The rigor of the climate limits the extension
of its territory, and shuts up its ports during the six months of
winter. From Canada to the Gulf of Mexico a few savage tribes
are to be met with, which retire, perishing in their retreat,
before six thousand soldiers. To the south, the Union has a
point of contact with the empire of Mexico; and it is thence that
serious hostilities may one day be expected to arise. But for a
long while to come, the uncivilized state of the Mexican
community, the depravity of its morals, and its extreme poverty,
will prevent that country from ranking high among nations. As
for the powers of Europe, they are too distant to be
formidable.[Footnote:

Appendix O.

]

The great advantage of the United States does not, then, consist
in a federal constitution which allows them to carry on great
wars, but in a geographical position, which renders such
enterprises improbable.

No one can be more inclined than I am myself to appreciate the
advantages of the federal system, which I hold to be one of the
combinations most favorable to the prosperity and freedom of man.
I envy the lot of those nations which have been enabled to adopt
it; but I cannot believe that any confederate peoples could
maintain a long or an equal contest with a nation of similar
strength in which the government should be centralised. A people
which should divide its sovereignty into fractional powers, in
the presence of the great military monarchies of Europe, would,
in my opinion, by that very act, abdicate its power, and perhaps
its existence and its name. But such is the admirable position
of the New World, that man has no other enemy than himself; and
that in order to be happy and to be free, it suffices to seek the
gifts of prosperity and the knowledge of freedom.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER IX.


I have hitherto examined the institutions of the United States; I
have passed their legislation in review, and I have depicted the
present characteristics of political society in that country.
But a sovereign power exists above these institutions and beyond
these characteristic features, which may destroy or modify them
at its pleasure; I mean that of the people. It remains to be
shown in what manner this power, which regulates the laws, acts:
its propensities and its passions remain to be pointed out, as
well as the secret springs which retard, accelerate, or direct
its irresistible course; and the effects of its unbounded
authority, with the destiny which is probably reserved for it.

       *       *       *       *       *


      WHY THE PEOPLE MAY STRICTLY BE SAID TO GOVERN IN THE
                         UNITED STATES.


In America the people appoints the legislative and the executive
power, and furnishes the jurors who punish all offences against
the laws. The American institutions are democratic, not only in
their principle but in all their consequences; and the people
elects its representatives _directly_, and for the most part
_annually_, in order to ensure their dependence. The people
is therefore the real directing power; and although the form of
government is representative, it is evident that the opinions,
the prejudices, the interests, and even the passions of the
community are hindered by no durable obstacles from exercising a
perpetual influence on society. In the United States the
majority governs in the name of the people, as is the case in all
the countries in which the people is supreme. This majority is
principally composed of peaceable citizens, who, either by
inclination or by interest, are sincerely desirous of the welfare
of their country. But they are surrounded by the incessant
agitation of parties, which attempt to gain their co-operation
and to avail themselves of their support.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER X.


                  PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES.

Great Division to be made between Parties.--Parties which are to
  each other as rival Nations.--Parties properly so
  called.--Difference between great and small Parties.--Epochs
  which produce them.--Their Characteristics.--America has had
  great Parties.--They are
  extinct.--Federalists.--Republicans.--Defeat of the
  Federalists.--Difficulty of creating Parties in the United
  States.--What is done with this Intention.--Aristocratic and
  democratic Character to be met with in all Parties.--Struggle
  of General Jackson against the Bank.


A great division must be made between parties. Some countries
are so large that the different populations which inhabit them
have contradictory interests, although they are the subjects of
the same government; and they may thence be in a perpetual state
of opposition. In this case the different fractions of the
people may more properly be considered as distinct nations than
as mere parties; and if a civil war breaks out, the struggle is
carried off by rival peoples rather than by factions in the
state.

But when the citizens entertain different opinions upon subjects
which affect the whole country alike, such, for instance, as the
principles upon which the government is to be conducted, then
distinctions arise which may correctly be styled parties.
Parties are a necessary evil in free governments; but they have
not at all times the same character and the same propensities.

At certain periods a nation may be oppressed by such
insupportable evils as to conceive the design of effecting a
total change in its political constitution; at other times the
mischief lies still deeper, and the existence of society itself
is endangered. Such are the times of great revolutions and of
great parties. But between these epochs of misery and of
confusion there are periods during which human society seems to
rest, and mankind to make a pause. This pause is, indeed, only
apparent; for time does not stop its course for nations any more
than for men; they are all advancing toward a goal with which
they are unacquainted; and we only imagine them to be stationary
when their progress escapes our observation; as men who are going
at a foot pace seem to be standing still to those who run.

But however this may be, there are certain epochs at which the
changes that take place in the social and political constitution
of nations are so slow and so insensible, that men imagine their
present condition to be a final state; and the human mind,
believing itself to be firmly based upon certain foundations,
does not extend its researches beyond the horizon which it
descries. These are the times of small parties and of intrigue.

The political parties which I style great are those which cling
to principles more than to consequences; to general, and not to
especial cases; to ideas, and not to men. These parties are
usually distinguished by a nobler character, by more generous
passions, more genuine convictions, and a more bold and open
conduct than the others. In them, private interest, which always
plays the chief part in political passions, is more studiously
veiled under the pretext of the public good; and it may even be
sometimes concealed from the eyes of the very person whom it
excites and impels.

Minor parties are, on the other hand, generally deficient in
political faith. As they are not sustained or dignified by a
lofty purpose, they ostensibly display the egotism of their
character in their actions. They glow with a factitious zeal;
their language is vehement, but their conduct is timid and
irresolute. The means they employ are as wretched as the end at
which they aim. Hence it arises that when a calm state of things
succeeds a violent revolution, the leaders of society seem
suddenly to disappear, and the powers of the human mind to lie
concealed. Society is convulsed by great parties, by minor ones
it is agitated; it is torn by the former, by the latter it is
degraded; and if these sometimes save it by a salutary
perturbation, those invariably disturb it to no good end.

America has already lost the great parties which once divided the
nation; and if her happiness is considerably increased, her
morality has suffered by their extinction. When the war of
independence was terminated, and the foundations of the new
government were to be laid down, the nation was divided between
two opinions--two opinions which are as old as the world, and
which are perpetually to be met with under all the forms and all
the names which have ever obtained in free communities--the one
tending to limit, the other to extend indefinitely, the power of
the people. The conflict of these two opinions never assumed
that degree of violence in America which it has frequently
displayed elsewhere. Both parties of the Americans were in fact
agreed upon the most essential points; and neither of them had to
destroy a traditionary constitution, or to overthrow the
structure of society, in order to insure its own triumph. In
neither of them, consequently, were a great number of private
interests affected by success or by defeat; but moral principles
of a high order, such as the love of equality and of
independence, were concerned in the struggle, and they sufficed
to kindle violent passions.

The party which desired to limit the power of the people,
endeavored to apply its doctrines more especially to the
constitution of the Union, whence it derived its name of
_federal_. The other party, which affected to be more
exclusively attached to the cause of liberty, took that of
_republican_. America is the land of democracy, and the
federalists were always in a minority; but they reckoned on their
side almost all the great men who had been called forth by the
war of independence, and their moral influence was very
considerable. Their cause was, moreover, favored by
circumstances. The ruin of the confederation had impressed the
people with a dread of anarchy, and the federalists did not fail
to profit by this transient disposition of the multitude. For
ten or twelve years they were at the head of affairs, and they
were able to apply some, though not all, of their principles; for
the hostile current was becoming from day to day too violent to
be checked or stemmed. In 1801 the republicans got possession of
the government: Thomas Jefferson was named president; and he
increased the influence of their party by the weight of his
celebrity, the greatness of his talents, and the immense extent
of his popularity.

The means by which the federalists had maintained their position
were artificial, and their resources were temporary: it was by
the virtues or the talents of their leaders that they had risen
to power. When the republicans attained to that lofty station,
their opponents were overwhelmed by utter defeat. An immense
majority declared itself against the retiring party, and the
federalists found themselves in so small a minority, that they at
once despaired of their future success. From that moment the
republican or democratic party has proceeded from conquest to
conquest, until it has acquired absolute supremacy in the
country. The federalists, perceiving that they were vanquished
without resource, and isolated in the midst of the nation, fell
into two divisions, of which one joined the victorious
republicans, and the other abandoned its rallying point and its
name. Many years have already elapsed since they ceased to exist
as a party.

The accession of the federalists to power was, in my opinion, one
of the most fortunate incidents which accompanied the formation
of the great American Union: they resisted the inevitable
propensities of their age and of their country. But whether
their theories were good or bad, they had the defect of being
inapplicable, as a system, to the society which they professed to
govern; and that which occurred under the auspices of Jefferson
must therefore have taken place sooner or later. But their
government gave the new republic time to acquire a certain
stability, and afterward to support the rapid growth of the very
doctrines which they had combated. A considerable number of
their principles were in point of fact embodied in the political
creed of their opponents; and the federal constitution, which
subsists at the present day, is a lasting monument of their
patriotism and their wisdom.

Great political parties are not, then, to be met with in the
United States at the present time. Parties, indeed, may be found
which threaten the future tranquillity of the Union; but there
are none which seem to contest the present form of government, or
the present course of society. The parties by which the Union is
menaced do not rest upon abstract principles, but upon temporal
interests. These interests, disseminated in the provinces of so
vast an empire, may be said to constitute rival nations rather
than parties. Thus, upon a recent occasion, the north contended
for the system of commercial prohibition, and the south look up
arms in favor of free trade, simply because the north is a
manufacturing, and the south an agricultural district; and that
the restrictive system which was profitable to the one, was
prejudicial to the other.

In the absence of great parties, the United States abound with
lesser controversies; and public opinion is divided into a
thousand minute shades of difference upon questions of very
little moment. The pains which are taken to create parties are
inconceivable, and at the present day it is no easy task. In the
United States there is no religious animosity, because all
religion is respected, and no sect is predominant; there is no
jealousy of rank, because the people is everything, and none can
contest its authority; lastly, there is no public misery to serve
as a means of agitation, because the physical position of the
country opens so wide a field to industry, that man is able to
accomplish the most surprising undertakings with his own native
resources. Nevertheless, ambitious men are interested in the
creation of parties, since it is difficult to eject a person from
authority upon the mere ground that his place is coveted by
others. The skill of the actors in the political world lies,
therefore, in the art of creating parties. A political aspirant
in the United States begins by discriminating his own interest,
and by calculating upon those interests which may be collected
around, and amalgamated with it; he then contrives to discover
some doctrine or some principle which may suit the purposes of
this new association, and which he adopts in order to bring
forward his party and to secure its popularity: just as the
_imprimatur_ of a king was in former days incorporated with
the volume which it authorized, but to which it nowise belonged.
When these preliminaries are terminated, the new party is ushered
into the political world.

All the domestic controversies of the Americans at first appear
to a stranger to be so incomprehensible and so puerile, that he
is at a loss whether to pity a people which takes such arrant
trifles in good earnest, or to envy that happiness which enables
it to discuss them. But when he comes to study the secret
propensities which govern the factions of America, he easily
perceives that the greater part of them are more or less
connected with one or the other of these two divisions which have
always existed in free communities. The deeper we penetrate into
the workings of these parties, the more do we perceive that the
object of the one is to limit, and that of the other to extend,
the popular authority. I do not assert that the ostensible end,
or even that the secret aim, of American parties is to promote
the rule of aristocracy or democracy in the country, but I affirm
that aristocratic or democratic passions may easily be detected
at the bottom of all parties, and that, although they escape a
superficial observation, they are the main point and the very
soul of every faction in the United States.

To quote a recent example: when the president attacked the bank,
the country was excited and parties were formed; the
well-informed classes rallied round the bank, the common people
round the president. But it must not be imagined that the people
had formed a rational opinion upon a question which offers so
many difficulties to the most experienced statesmen. The bank is
a great establishment which enjoys an independent existence, and
the people, accustomed to make and unmake whatsoever it pleases,
is startled to meet with this obstacle to its authority. In the
midst of the perpetual fluctuation of society, the community is
irritated by so permanent an institution, and is led to attack
it, in order to see whether it can be shaken and controlled, like
all the other institutions of the country.

       *       *       *       *       *


     REMAINS OF THE ARISTOCRATIC PARTY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Secret Opposition of wealthy Individuals to Democracy.--Their
  retirement.--Their tastes for exclusive Pleasures and for
  Luxury at Home.--Their Simplicity Abroad.--Their affected
  Condescension toward the People.


It sometimes happens in a people among which various opinions
prevail, that the balance of the several parties is lost, and one
of them obtains an irresistible preponderance, overpowers all
obstacles, harasses its opponents, and appropriates all the
resources of society to its own purposes. The vanquished
citizens despair of success, and they conceal their
dissatisfaction in silence and in a general apathy. The nation
seems to be governed by a single principle, and the prevailing
party assumes the credit of having restored peace and unanimity
to the country. But this apparent unanimity is merely a cloak to
alarming dissensions and perpetual opposition.

This is precisely what occurred in America; when the democratic
party got the upper hand, it took exclusive possession of the
conduct of affairs, and from that time the laws and customs of
society have been adapted to its caprices. At the present day
the more affluent classes of society are so entirely removed from
the direction of political affairs in the United States, that
wealth, far from conferring a right to the exercise of power, is
rather an obstacle than a means of attaining to it. The wealthy
members of the community abandon the lists, through unwillingness
to contend, and frequently to contend in vain, against the
poorest classes of their fellow-citizens. They concentrate all
their enjoyments in the privacy of their homes, where they occupy
a rank which cannot be assumed in public; and they constitute a
private society in the state, which has its own tastes and its
own pleasures. They submit to this state of things as an
irremediable evil, but they are careful not to show that they are
galled by its continuance; it is even not uncommon to hear them
laud the delights of a republican government, and the advantages
of democratic institutions when they are in public. Next to
hating their enemies, men are most inclined to flatter them.

Mark, for instance, that opulent citizen, who is as anxious as a
Jew of the middle ages to conceal his wealth. His dress is
plain, his demeanor unassuming; but the interior of his dwelling
glitters with luxury, and none but a few chosen guests whom he
haughtily styles his equals, are allowed to penetrate into this
sanctuary. No European noble is more exclusive in his pleasures,
or more jealous of the smallest advantages which his privileged
station confers upon him. But the very same individual crosses
the city to reach a dark counting-house in the centre of traffic,
where every one may accost him who pleases. If he meets his
cobbler upon the way, they stop and converse; the two citizens
discuss the affairs of the state in which they have an equal
interest, and they shake hands before they part.

But beneath this artificial enthusiasm, and these obsequious
attentions to the preponderating power, it is easy to perceive
that the wealthy members of the community entertain a hearty
distaste to the democratic institutions of their country. The
populace is at once the object of their scorn and of their fears.
If the mal-administration of the democracy ever brings about a
revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever become
practicable in the United States, the truth of what I advance
will become obvious.

The two chief weapons which parties use in order to ensure
success, are the _public press_, and the formation of
_associations_.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER XI.


           LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES.

Difficulty of restraining the Liberty of the Press.--Particular
  reasons which some Nations have to cherish this Liberty.--The
  Liberty of the Press a necessary Consequence of the Sovereignty
  of the people as it is understood in America.--Violent Language
  of the periodical Press in the United States.--Propensities of
  the periodical Press.--Illustrated by the United
  States.--Opinion of the Americans upon the Repression of the
  Abuse of the Liberty of the Press by judicial
  Prosecutions.--Reasons for which the Press is less powerful in
  America than in France.


The influence of the liberty of the press does not affect
political opinions alone, but it extends to all the opinions of
men, and it modifies customs as well as laws. In another part of
this work I shall attempt to determine the degree of influence
which the liberty of the press has exercised upon civil society
in the United States, and to point out the direction which it has
given to the ideas, as well as the tone which it has imparted to
the character and the feelings of the Anglo-Americans, but at
present I purpose simply to examine the effects produced by the
liberty of the press in the political world.

I confess that I do not entertain that firm and complete
attachment to the liberty of the press, which things that are
supremely good in their very nature are wont to excite in the
mind; and I approve of it more from a recollection of the evils
it prevents, than from a consideration of the advantages it
ensures.

If any one can point out an intermediate, and yet a tenable
position, between the complete independence and the entire
subjection of the public expression of opinion, I should perhaps
be inclined to adopt it; but the difficulty is to discover this
position. If it is your intention to correct the abuses of
unlicensed printing, and to restore the use of orderly language,
you may in the first instance try the offender by a jury; but if
the jury acquits him, the opinion which was that of a single
individual becomes the opinion of the country at large. Too much
and too little has therefore hitherto been done; if you proceed,
you must bring the delinquent before permanent magistrates; but
even here the cause must be heard before it can be decided; and
the very principles which no book would have ventured to avow are
blazoned forth in the pleadings, and what was obscurely hinted at
in a single composition is then repeated in a multitude of other
publications. The language in which a thought is embodied is the
mere carcase of the thought, and not the idea itself; tribunals
may condemn the form, but the sense and spirit of the work is too
subtle for their authority: too much has still been done to
recede, too little to attain your end: you must therefore
proceed. If you establish a censorship of the press, the tongue
of the public speaker will still make itself heard, and you have
only increased the mischief. The powers of thought do not rely,
like the powers of physical strength, upon the number of their
mechanical agents, nor can a host of authors be reckoned like the
troops which compose an army; on the contrary, the authority of a
principle is often increased by the smallness of the number of
men by whom it is expressed. The words of a strong-minded man,
which penetrate amid the passions of a listening assembly, have
more weight than the vociferations of a thousand orators; and if
it be allowed to speak freely in any public place, the
consequence is the same as if free speaking was allowed in every
village. The liberty of discourse must therefore be destroyed as
well as the liberty of the press; this is the necessary term of
your efforts; but if your object was to repress the abuses of
liberty, they have brought you to the feet of a despot. You have
been led from the extreme of independence to the extreme of
subjection, without meeting with a single tenable position for
shelter or repose.

There are certain nations which have peculiar reasons for
cherishing the press, independently of the general motives which
I have just pointed out. For in certain countries which profess
to enjoy the privileges of freedom, every individual agent of the
government may violate the laws with impunity, since those whom
he oppresses cannot prosecute him before the courts of justice.
In this case the liberty of the press is not merely a guarantee,
but it is the only guarantee of their liberty and their security
which the citizens possess. If the rulers of these nations
proposed to abolish the independence of the press, the people
would be justified in saying: "Give us the right of prosecuting
your offences before the ordinary tribunals, and perhaps we may
then waive our right of appeal to the tribunal of public
opinion."

But in the countries in which the doctrine of the sovereignty of
the people ostensibly prevails, the censorship of the press is
not only dangerous, but it is absurd. When the right of every
citizen to co-operate in the government of society is
acknowledged, every citizen must be presumed to possess the power
of discriminating between the different opinions of his
contemporaries, and of appreciating the different facts from
which inferences may be drawn. The sovereignty of the people and
the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as
correlative institutions; just as the censorship of the press and
universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcileably
opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the institutions
of the same people. Not a single individual of the twelve
millions who inhabit the territory of the United States has as
yet dared to propose any restrictions to the liberty of the
press. The first newspaper over which I cast my eyes, after my
arrival in America, contained the following article:

"In all this affair, the language of Jackson has been that of a
heartless despot, solely occupied with the preservation of his
own authority. Ambition is his crime, and it will be his
punishment too: intrigue is his native element, and intrigue will
confound his tricks, and will deprive him of his power; he
governs by means of corruption, and his immoral practices will
redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct in the political
arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He
succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches,
and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside
his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement where he
may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue
with which his heart is likely to remain for ever unacquainted."

It is not uncommonly imagined in France, that the virulence of
the press originates in the uncertain social condition, in the
political excitement, and the general sense of consequent evil
which prevail in that country; and it is therefore supposed that
as soon as society has resumed a certain degree of composure, the
press will abandon its present vehemence. I am inclined to think
that the above causes explain the reason of the extraordinary
ascendency it has acquired over the nation, but that they do not
exercise much influence upon the tone of its language. The
periodical press appears to me to be actuated by passions and
propensities independent of the circumstances in which it is
placed; and the present position of America corroborates this
opinion.

America is, perhaps, at this moment, the country of the whole
world which contains the fewest germs of revolution; but the
press is not less destructive in its principles than in France,
and it displays the same violence without the same reasons for
indignation. In America, as in France, it constitutes a singular
power, so strangely composed of mingled good and evil, that it is
at the same time indispensable to the existence of freedom, and
nearly incompatible with the maintenance of public order. Its
power is certainly much greater in France than in the United
States; though nothing is more rare in the latter country than to
hear of a prosecution having been instituted against it. The
reason of this is perfectly simple; the Americans having once
admitted the doctrine of sovereignty of the people, apply it with
perfect consistency. It was never their intention to found a
permanent state of things with elements which undergo daily
modifications; and there is consequently nothing criminal in an
attack upon the existing laws, provided it be not attended with a
violent infraction of them. They are moreover of opinion that
courts of justice are unable to check the abuses of the press;
and that as the subtlety of human language perpetually eludes the
severity of judicial analysis, offences of this nature are apt to
escape the hand which attempts to apprehend them. They hold that
to act with efficacy upon the press, it would be necessary to
find a tribunal, not only devoted to the existing order of
things, but capable of surmounting the influence of public
opinion; a tribunal which should conduct its proceedings without
publicity, which should pronounce its decrees without assigning
its motives, and punish the intentions even more than the
language of an author. Whosoever should have the power of
creating and maintaining a tribunal of this kind, would waste his
time in prosecuting the liberty of the press; for he would be the
supreme master of the whole community, and he would be as free to
rid himself of the authors as of their writings. In this
question, therefore, there is no medium between servitude and
extreme license; in order to enjoy the inestimable benefits which
the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to
the inevitable evils which it engenders. To expect to acquire
the former, and to escape the latter, is to cherish one of those
illusions which commonly mislead nations in their times of
sickness, when, tired with faction and exhausted by effort, they
attempt to combine hostile opinions and contrary principles upon
the same soil.

The small influence of the American journals is attributable to
several reasons, among which are the following:--

The liberty of writing, like all other liberty, is most
formidable when it is a novelty; for a people which has never
been accustomed to co-operate in the conduct of state affairs,
places implicit confidence in the first tribune who arouses its
attention. The Anglo-Americans have enjoyed this liberty ever
since the foundation of the settlements; moreover, the press
cannot create human passions by its own power, however skilfully
it may kindle them where they exist. In America politics are
discussed with animation and a varied activity, but they rarely
touch those deep passions which are excited whenever the positive
interest of a part of the community is impaired: but in the
United States the interests of the community are in a most
prosperous condition. A single glance upon a French and an
American newspaper is sufficient to show the difference which
exists between the two nations on this head. In France the space
allotted to commercial advertisements is very limited, and the
intelligence is not considerable, but the most essential part of
the journal is that which contains the discussion of the politics
of the day. In America three quarters of the enormous sheet
which is set before the reader are filled with advertisements,
and the remainder is frequently occupied by political
intelligence or trivial anecdotes: it is only from time to time
that one finds a corner devoted to passionate discussions like
those with which the journalists of France are wont to indulge
their readers.

It has been demonstrated by observation, and discovered by the
innate sagacity of the pettiest as well as the greatest of
despots, that the influence of a power is increased in proportion
as its direction is rendered more central. In France the press
combines a twofold centralisation: almost all its power is
centred in the same spot, and vested in the same hands, for its
organs are far from numerous. The influence of a public press
thus constituted, upon a sceptical nation, must be unbounded. It
is an enemy with which a government may sign an occasional truce,
but which it is difficult to resist for any length of time.

Neither of these kinds of centralisation exists in America. The
United States have no metropolis; the intelligence as well as the
power of the country is dispersed abroad, and instead of
radiating from a point, they cross each other in every direction;
the Americans have established no central control over the
expression of opinion, any more than over the conduct of
business. These are circumstances which do not depend on human
foresight; but it is owing to the laws of the Union that there
are no licenses to be granted to the printers, no securities
demanded from editors, as in France, and no stamp duty as in
France and England. The consequence of this is that nothing is
easier than to set up a newspaper, and a small number of readers
suffices to defray the expenses of the editor.

The number of periodical and occasional publications which appear
in the United States actually surpasses belief. The most
enlightened Americans attribute the subordinate influence of the
press to this excessive dissemination; and it is adopted as an
axiom of political science in that country, that the only way to
neutralise the effect of public journals is to multiply them
indefinitely. I cannot conceive why a truth which is so
self-evident has not already been more generally admitted in
Europe; it is comprehensible that the persons who hope to bring
about revolutions, by means of the press, should be desirous of
confining its action to a few powerful organs; but it is
perfectly incredible that the partisans of the existing state of
things, and the natural supporters of the laws, should attempt to
diminish the influence of the press by concentrating its
authority. The governments of Europe seem to treat the press
with the courtesy of the knights of old; they are anxious to
furnish it with the same central power which they have found to
be so trusty a weapon, in order to enhance the glory of their
resistance to its attacks.

In America there is scarcely a hamlet which has not its own
newspaper. It may readily be imagined that neither discipline
nor unity of design can be communicated to so multifarious a
host, and each one is constantly led to fight under his own
standard. All the political journals of the United States are
indeed arrayed on the side of the administration or against it;
but they attack and defend it in a thousand different ways. They
cannot succeed in forming those great currents of opinion which
overwhelm the most solid obstacles. This division of the
influence of the press produces a variety of other consequences
which are scarcely less remarkable. The facility with which
journals can be established induces a multitude of individuals to
take a part in them; but as the extent of competition precludes
the possibility of considerable profit, the most distinguished
classes of society are rarely led to engage in these
undertakings. But such is the number of the public prints, that
even if they were a source of wealth, writers of ability could
not be found to direct them all. The journalists of the United
States are usually placed in a very humble position, with a
scanty education, and a vulgar turn of mind. The will of the
majority is the most general of laws, and it establishes certain
habits which form the characteristics of each peculiar class of
society; thus it dictates the etiquette practised at courts and
the etiquette of the bar. The characteristics of the French
journalist consist in a violent, but frequently an eloquent and
lofty manner of discussing the politics of the day; and the
exceptions to this habitual practice are only occasional. The
characteristics of the American journalist consist in an open and
coarse appeal to the passions of the populace; and he habitually
abandons the principles of political science to assail the
characters of individuals, to track them into private life, and
disclose all their weaknesses and errors.

Nothing can be more deplorable than this abuse of the powers of
thought; I shall have occasion to point out hereafter the
influence of the newspapers upon the taste and the morality of
the American people, but my present subject exclusively concerns
the political world. It cannot be denied that the effects of
this extreme license of the press tend indirectly to the
maintenance of public order. The individuals who are already in
possession of a high station in the esteem of their fellow
citizens, are afraid to write in the newspapers, and they are
thus deprived of the most powerful instrument which they can use
to excite the passions of the multitude to their own
advantage.[Footnote:

They only write in the papers when they choose to address the
people in their own name; as, for instance, when they are called
upon to repel calumnious imputations, and to correct a
mis-statement of facts.

]

The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight in
the eyes of the public: the only use of a journal is, that it
imparts the knowledge of certain facts, and it is only by
altering or distorting those facts, that a journalist can
contribute to the support of his own views.

But although the press is limited to these resources, its
influence in America is immense. It is the power which impels
the circulation of political life through all the districts of
that vast territory. Its eye is constantly open to detect the
secret springs of political designs, and to summon the leaders of
all parties to the bar of public opinion. It rallies the
interests of the community round certain principles, and it draws
up the creed which factions adopt; for it affords a means of
intercourse between parties which hear, and which address each
other, without ever having been in immediate contact. When a
great number of the organs of the press adopt the same line of
conduct, their influence becomes irresistible; and public
opinion, when it is perpetually assailed from the same side,
eventually yields to the attack. In the United States each
separate journal exercises but little authority: but the power of
the periodical press is only second to that of the
people.[Footnote:

See Appendix P.

]

       *       *       *       *       *

The Opinions which are established in the United States under the
  Empire of the Liberty of the Press, are frequently more firmly
  rooted than those which are formed elsewhere under the Sanction
  of a Censor.


In the United States the democracy perpetually raises fresh
individuals to the conduct of public affairs; and the measures of
the administration are consequently seldom regulated by the
strict rules of consistency or of order. But the general
principles of the government are more stable, and the opinions
most prevalent in society are generally more durable than in many
other countries. When once the Americans have taken up an idea,
whether it be well or ill-founded, nothing is more difficult than
to eradicate it from their minds. The same tenacity of opinion
has been observed in England, where, for the last century,
greater freedom of conscience, and more invincible prejudices
have existed, than in all the other countries of Europe. I
attribute this consequence to a cause which may at first sight
appear to have a very opposite tendency, namely, to the liberty
of the press. The nations among which this liberty exists are as
apt to cling to their opinions from pride as from conviction.
They cherish them because they hold them to be just, and because
they exercised their own free will in choosing them; and they
maintain them, not only because they are true, but because they
are their own. Several other reasons conduce to the same end.

It was remarked by a man of genius, that "ignorance lies at the
two ends of knowledge." Perhaps it would have been more correct
to say that absolute convictions are to be met with at the two
extremities, and that doubt lies in the middle; for the human
intellect may be considered in three distinct states, which
frequently succeed one another.

A man believes implicitly, because he adopts a proposition
without inquiry. He doubts as soon as he is assailed by the
objections which his inquiries may have aroused. But he
frequently succeeds in satisfying these doubts, and then he
begins to believe afresh: he no longer lays hold on a truth in
its most shadowy and uncertain form, but he sees it clearly
before him, and he advances onward by the light it gives
him.[Footnote:

It may, however, be doubted whether this rational and
self-guiding conviction arouses as much fervor or enthusiastic
devotedness in men as their first dogmatical belief.

]

When the liberty of the press acts upon men who are in the first
of these three states, it does not immediately disturb their
habit of believing implicitly without investigation, but it
constantly modifies the objects of their intuitive convictions.
The human mind continues to discern but one point upon the whole
intellectual horizon, and that point is in continual motion.
Such are the symptoms of sudden revolutions, and of the
misfortunes that are sure to befall those generations which
abruptly adopt the unconditional freedom of the press.

The circle of novel ideas is, however, soon terminated; the torch
of experience is upon them, and the doubt and mistrust which
their uncertainty produces, become universal. We may rest
assured that the majority of mankind will either believe they
know not wherefore, or will not know what to believe. Few are
the beings who can ever hope to attain that state of rational and
independent conviction which true knowledge can beget, in
defiance of the attacks of doubt.

It has been remarked that in times of great religious fervor, men
sometimes change their religious opinions; whereas, in times of
general scepticism, every one clings to his own persuasion. The
same thing takes place in politics under the liberty of the
press. In countries where all the theories of social science
have been contested in their turn, the citizens who have adopted
one of them, stick to it, not so much because they are assured of
its excellence, as because they are not convinced of the
superiority of any other. In the present age men are not very
ready to die in defence of their opinions, but they are rarely
inclined to change them; and there are fewer martyrs as well as
fewer apostates.

Another still more valid reason may yet be adduced: when no
abstract opinions are looked upon as certain, men cling to the
mere propensities and external interest of their position, which
are naturally more tangible and more permanent than any opinions
in the world.

It is not a question of easy solution whether the aristocracy or
the democracy is most fit to govern a country. But it is certain
that democracy annoys one part of the community, and that
aristocracy oppresses another part. When the question is reduced
to the simple expression of the struggle between poverty and
wealth, the tendency of each side of the dispute becomes
perfectly evident without farther controversy.

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER XII.


          POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.

Daily use which the Anglo-Americans make of the Right of
  Association.--Three kinds of political Association.--In what
  Manner the Americans apply the representative System to
  Associations.--Dangers resulting to the State.--Great
  Convention of 1831 relative to the Tariff. Legislative
  character of this Convention.--Why the unlimited Exercise of
  the Right of Association is less dangerous in the United States
  than elsewhere.--Why it may be looked upon as
  necessary.--Utility of Associations in a democratic People.


In no country in the world has the principle of association been
more successfully used, or more unsparingly applied to a
multitude of different objects, than in America. Beside the
permanent associations which are established by law under the
names of townships, cities, and counties, a vast number of others
are formed and maintained by the agency of private individuals.

The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest
infancy to rely upon his own exertions, in order to resist the
evils and the difficulties of life; he looks upon the social
authority with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, and he only claims
its assistance when he is quite unable to shift without it. This
habit may even be traced in the schools of the rising generation,
where the children in their games are wont to submit to rules
which they have themselves established, and to punish
misdemeanors which they have themselves defined. The same spirit
pervades every act of social life. If a stoppage occurs in a
thoroughfare, and the circulation of the public is hindered, the
neighbors immediately constitute a deliberative body; and this
extemporaneous assembly gives rise to an executive power, which
remedies the inconvenience, before anybody has thought of
recurring to an authority superior to that of the persons
immediately concerned. If the public pleasures are concerned, an
association is formed to provide for the splendor and the
regularity of the entertainment. Societies are formed to resist
enemies which are exclusively of a moral nature, and to diminish
the vice of intemperance: in the United States associations are
established to promote public order, commerce, industry,
morality, and religion; for there is no end which the human will,
seconded by the collective exertions of individuals, despairs of
attaining.

I shall hereafter have occasion to show the effects of
association upon the course of society, and I must confine myself
for the present to the political world. When once the right of
association is recognized, the citizens may employ it in several
different ways.

An association consists simply in the public assent which a
number of individuals give to certain doctrines; and in the
engagement which they contract to promote the spread of those
doctrines by their exertions. The right of associating with
these views is very analogous to the liberty of unlicensed
writing; but societies thus formed possess more authority than
the press. When an opinion is represented by a society, it
necessarily assumes a more exact and explicit form. It numbers
its partisans, and compromises their welfare in its cause; they,
on the other hand, become acquainted with each other, and their
zeal is increased by their number. An association unites the
efforts of minds which have a tendency to diverge, in one single
channel, and urges them vigorously toward one single end which it
points out.

The second degree in the right of association is the power of
meeting. When an association is allowed to establish centres of
action at certain important points in the country, its activity
is increased, and its influence extended. Men have the
opportunity of seeing each other; means of execution are more
readily combined; and opinions are maintained with a degree of
warmth and energy which written language cannot approach.

Lastly, in the exercise of the right of political association,
there is a third degree: the partisans of an opinion may unite in
electoral bodies, and choose delegates to represent them in a
central assembly. This is, properly speaking, the application of
the representative system to a party.

Thus, in the first instance, a society is formed between
individuals professing the same opinion, and the tie which keeps
it together is of a purely intellectual nature: in the second
case, small assemblies are formed which only represent a fraction
of the party. Lastly, in the third case, they constitute a
separate nation in the midst of the nation, a government within
the government. Their delegates, like the real delegates of the
majority, represent the entire collective force of their party;
and they enjoy a certain degree of that national dignity and
great influence which belong to the chosen representatives of the
people. It is true that they have not the right of making the
laws; but they have the power of attacking those which are in
being, and of drawing up beforehand those which they may
afterward cause to be adopted.

If, in a people which is imperfectly accustomed to the exercise
of freedom, or which is exposed to violent political passions, a
deliberating minority, which confines itself to the contemplation
of future laws, be placed in juxtaposition to the legislative
majority, I cannot but believe that public tranquillity incurs
very great risks in that nation. There is doubtless a very wide
difference between proving that one law is in itself better than
another, and proving that the former ought to be substituted for
the latter. But the imagination of the populace is very apt to
overlook this difference, which is so apparent in the minds of
thinking men. It sometimes happens that a nation is divided into
two nearly equal parties, each of which affects to represent the
majority. If, in immediate contiguity to the directing power,
another power be established, which exercises almost as much
moral authority as the former, it is not to be believed that it
will long be content to speak without acting; or that it will
always be restrained by the abstract consideration of the nature
of associations, which are meant to direct, but not to enforce
opinions, to suggest but not to make the laws.

The more we consider the independence of the press in its
principal consequences, the more are we convinced that it is the
chief, and, so to speak, the constitutive element of freedom in
the modern world. A nation which is determined to remain free,
is therefore right in demanding the unrestrained exercise of this
independence. But the _unrestrained_ liberty of political
association cannot be entirely assimilated to the liberty of the
press. The one is at the same time less necessary and more
dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within certain
limits without forfeiting any part of its self-control; and it
may sometimes be obliged to do so in order to maintain its own
authority.

In America the liberty of association for political purposes is
unbounded. An example will show in the clearest light to what an
extent this privilege is tolerated.

The question of the Tariff, or of free trade, produced a great
manifestation of party feeling in America; the tariff was not
only a subject of debate as a matter of opinion, but it exercised
a favorable or a prejudicial influence upon several very powerful
interests of the states. The north attributed a great portion of
its prosperity, and the south all its sufferings, to this system.
Insomuch, that for a long time the tariff was the sole source of
the political animosities which agitated the Union.

In 1831, when the dispute was raging with the utmost virulence, a
private citizen of Massachusetts proposed to all the enemies of
the tariff, by means of the public prints, to send delegates to
Philadelphia in order to consult together upon the means which
were most fitted to promote the freedom of trade. This proposal
circulated in a few days from Maine to New Orleans by the power
of the printing press: the opponents of the tariff adopted it
with enthusiasm; meetings were formed on all sides, and delegates
were named. The majority of these individuals were well known,
and some of them had earned a considerable degree of celebrity.
South Carolina alone, which afterward took up arms in the same
cause, sent sixty-three delegates. On the 1st October, 1831,
this assembly, which, according to the American custom, had taken
the name of a convention, met at Philadelphia; it consisted of
more than two hundred members. Its debates were public, and they
at once assumed a legislative character; the extent of the powers
of congress, the theories of free trade, and the different
clauses of the tariff, were discussed in turn. At the end of ten
days' deliberation, the convention broke up, after having
published an address to the American people, in which it is
declared:

I. The congress had not the right of making a tariff, and that
the existing tariff was unconstitutional.

II. That the prohibition of free trade was prejudicial to the
interests of all nations, and to that of the American people in
particular.

It must be acknowledged that the unrestrained liberty of
political association has not hitherto produced, in the United
States, those fatal consequences which might perhaps be expected
from it elsewhere. The right of association was imported from
England, and it has always existed in America. So that the
exercise of this privilege is now amalgamated with the manners
and customs of the people. At the present time, the liberty of
association is become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny
of the majority. In the United States, as soon as a party has
become preponderant, all the public authority passes under its
control; its private supporters occupy all the places, and have
all the force of the administration at their disposal. As the
most distinguished partisans of the other side of the question
are unable to surmount the obstacles which exclude them from
power, they require some means of establishing themselves upon
their own basis, and of opposing the moral authority of the
minority to the physical power which domineers over it. Thus, a
dangerous expedient is used to obviate a still more formidable
danger.

The omnipotence of the majority appears to me to present such
extreme perils to the American republics, that the dangerous
measure which is used to repress it, seems to be more
advantageous than prejudicial. And here I am about to advance a
proposition which may remind the reader of what I said before in
speaking of municipal freedom. There are no countries in which
associations are more needed, to prevent the despotism of
faction, or the arbitrary power of a prince, than those which are
democratically constituted. In aristocratic nations, the body of
the nobles and the more opulent part of the community are in
themselves natural associations, which act as checks upon the
abuses of power. In countries in which those associations do not
exist, if private individuals are unable to create an artificial
and a temporary substitute for them, I can imagine no permanent
protection against the most galling tyranny; and a great people
may be oppressed by a small faction, or by a single individual,
with impunity.

The meeting of a great political convention (for there are
conventions of all kinds), which may frequently become a
necessary measure, is always a serious occurrence, even in
America, and one which is never looked forward to by the
judicious friends of the country, without alarm. This was very
perceptible in the convention of 1831, at which the exertions of
all the most distinguished members of the assembly tended to
moderate its language, and to restrain the subjects which it
treated within certain limits. It is probable, in fact, that the
convention of 1831 exercised a very great influence upon the
minds of the malecontents, and prepared them for the open revolt
against the commercial laws of the Union, which took place in
1832.

It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of association
for political purposes, is the privilege which a people is
longest in learning how to exercise. If it does not throw the
nation into anarchy, it perpetually augments the chances of that
calamity. On one point, however, this perilous liberty offers a
security against dangers of another kind; in countries where
associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America
there are numerous factions, but no conspiracies.

       *       *       *       *       *

Different ways in which the Right of Association is understood in
  Europe and in the United States. Different use which is made
  of it.


The most natural privilege of man, next to the right of acting
for himself, is that of combining his exertions with those of his
fellow-creatures, and of acting in common with them. I am
therefore led to conclude, that the right of association is
almost as inalienable as the right of personal liberty. No
legislator can attack it without impairing the very foundations
of society. Nevertheless, if the liberty of association is a
fruitful source of advantages and prosperity to some nations, it
may be perverted or carried to excess by others, and the element
of life may be changed into an element of destruction. A
comparison of the different methods which associations pursue, in
those countries in which they are managed with discretion, as
well as in those where liberty degenerates into license, may
perhaps be thought useful both to governments and to parties.
The greater part of Europeans look upon an association as a
weapon which is to be hastily fashioned, and immediately tried in
the conflict. A society is to be formed for discussion, but the
idea of impending action prevails in the minds of those who
constitute it: it is, in fact, an army; and the time given to
parley, serves to reckon up the strength and to animate the
courage of the host, after which they direct the march against
the enemy. Resources which lie within the bounds of the law may
suggest themselves to the persons who compose it, as means, but
never as the only means, of success.

Such, however, is not the manner in which the right of
association is understood in the United States. In America, the
citizens who form the minority associate, in order, in the first
place, to show their numerical strength, and so to diminish the
moral authority of the majority; and, in the second place, to
stimulate competition, and to discover those arguments which are
most fitted to act upon the majority; for they always entertain
hopes of drawing over their opponents to their own side, and of
afterward disposing of the supreme power in their name.
Political associations in the United States are therefore
peaceable in their intentions, and strictly legal in the means
which they employ; and they assert with perfect truth, that they
only aim at success by lawful expedients.

The difference which exists between the Americans and ourselves
depends on several causes. In Europe there are numerous parties
so diametrically opposed to the majority, that they can never
hope to acquire its support, and at the same time they think that
they are sufficiently strong in themselves to struggle and to
defend their cause. When a party of this kind forms an
association, its object is, not to conquer, but to fight. In
America, the individuals who hold opinions very much opposed to
those of the majority, are no sort of impediment to its power;
and all other parties hope to win it over to their own principles
in the end. The exercise of the right of association becomes
dangerous in proportion to the impossibility which excludes great
parties from acquiring the majority. In a country like the
United States, in which the differences of opinion are mere
differences of hue, the right of association may remain
unrestrained without evil consequences. The inexperience of many
of the European nations in the enjoyment of liberty, leads them
only to look upon the liberty of association as a right of
attacking the government. The first notion which presents itself
to a party, as well as to an individual, when it has acquired a
consciousness of its own strength, is that of violence: the
notion of persuasion arises at a later period, and is only
derived from experience. The English, who are divided into
parties which differ most essentially from each other, rarely
abuse the right of association, because they have long been
accustomed to exercise it. In France, the passion for war is so
intense that there is no undertaking so mad, or so injurious to
the welfare of the state, that a man does not consider himself
honored in defending it, at the risk of his life.

But perhaps the most powerful of the causes which tend to
mitigate the excesses of political association in the United
States is universal suffrage. In countries in which universal
suffrage exists, the majority is never doubtful, because neither
party can pretend to represent that portion of the community
which has not voted. The associations which are formed are
aware, as well as the nation at large, that they do not represent
the majority; this is, indeed, a condition inseparable from their
existence; for if they did represent the preponderating power,
they would change the law instead of soliciting its reform. The
consequence of this is, that the moral influence of the
government which they attack is very much increased, and their
own power is very much enfeebled.

In Europe there are few associations which do not affect to
represent the majority, or which do not believe that they
represent it. This conviction or this pretension tends to
augment their force amazingly, and contributes no less to
legalize their measures. Violence may seem to be excusable in
defence of the cause of oppressed right. Thus it is, in the vast
labyrinth of human laws, that extreme liberty sometimes corrects
abuses of license, and that extreme democracy obviates the
dangers of democratic government. In Europe, associations
consider themselves, in some degree, as the legislative and
executive councils of the people, which is unable to speak for
itself. In America, where they only represent a minority of the
nation, they argue and they petition.

The means which the associations of Europe employ, are in
accordance with the end which they propose to obtain. As the
principal aim of these bodies is to act, and not to debate, to
fight rather than to persuade, they are naturally led to adopt a
form of organization which differs from the ordinary customs of
civil bodies, and which assumes the habits and the maxims of
military life. They centralize the direction of their resources
as much as possible, and they intrust the power of the whole
party to a very small number of leaders.

The members of these associations reply to a watchword, like
soldiers on duty: they profess the doctrine of passive obedience;
say rather, that in uniting together they at once abjure the
exercise of their own judgment and free will; and the tyrannical
control, which these societies exercise, is often far more
insupportable than the authority possessed over society by the
government which they attack. Their moral force is much
diminished by these excesses, and they lose the powerful interest
which is always excited by a struggle between oppressors and the
oppressed. The man who in given cases consents to obey his
fellows with servility, and who submits his activity, and even
his opinions, to their control, can have no claim to rank as a
free citizen.

The Americans have also established certain forms of government
which are applied to their associations, but these are invariably
borrowed from the forms of the civil administration. The
independence of each individual is formally recognized; the
tendency of the members of the association points, as it does in
the body of the community, toward the same end, but they are not
obliged to follow the same track. No one abjures the exercise of
his reason and his free will; but every one exerts that reason
and that will for the benefit of a common undertaking.

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER XIII.


             GOVERNMENT OF THE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.


I am well aware of the difficulties which attend this part of my
subject, but although every expression which I am about to make
use of may clash, upon some one point, with the feelings of the
different parties which divide my country, I shall speak my
opinion with the most perfect openness.

In Europe we are at a loss how to judge the true character and
the more permanent propensities of democracy, because in Europe
two conflicting principles exist, and we do not know what to
attribute to the principles themselves, and what to refer to the
passions which they bring into collision. Such, however, is not
the case in America; there the people reigns without any
obstacle, and it has no perils to dread, and no injuries to
avenge. In America, democracy is swayed by its own free
propensities; its course is natural, and its activity is
unrestrained: the United States consequently afford the most
favorable opportunity of studying its real character. And to no
people can this inquiry be more vitally interesting than to the
French nation, which is blindly driven onward by a daily and
irresistible impulse, toward a state of things which may prove
either despotic or republican, but which will assuredly be
democratic.

       *       *       *       *       *


                       UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.


I have already observed that universal suffrage has been adopted
in all the states of the Union: it consequently occurs among
different populations which occupy very different positions in
the scale of society. I have had opportunities of observing its
effects in different localities, and among races of men who are
nearly strangers to each other by their language, their religion,
and their manner of life; in Louisiana as well as in New England,
in Georgia and in Canada. I have remarked that universal
suffrage is far from producing in America either all the good or
all the evil consequences which are assigned to it in Europe, and
that its effects differ very widely from those which are usually
attributed to it.

       *       *       *       *       *


      CHOICE OF THE PEOPLE, AND INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES OF THE
                     AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

In the United States the most talented Individuals are rarely
  placed at the Head of Affairs.--Reasons of this
  Peculiarity.--The Envy which prevails in the lower Orders of
  France against the higher Classes, is not a French, but a
  purely democratic Sentiment.--For what Reason the most
  distinguished Men in America frequently seclude themselves from
  public affairs.


Many people in Europe are apt to believe without saying it, or to
say without believing it, that one of the great advantages of
universal suffrage is, that it intrusts the direction of public
affairs to men who are worthy of the public confidence. They
admit that the people is unable to govern for itself, but they
aver that it is always sincerely disposed to promote the welfare
of the state, and that it instinctively designates those persons
who are animated by the same good wishes, and who are the most
fit to wield the supreme authority. I confess that the
observations I made in America by no means coincide with these
opinions. On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to
find so much distinguished talent among the subjects, and so
little among the heads of the government. It is a
well-authenticated fact, that at the present day the most
talented men in the United States are very rarely placed at the
head of affairs; and it must be acknowledged that such has been
the result, in proportion as democracy has outstepped all its
former limits. The race of American statesmen has evidently
dwindled most remarkably in the course of the last fifty years.

Several causes may be assigned to this phenomenon. It is
impossible, notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions, to
raise the intelligence of the people above a certain level.
Whatever may be the facilities of acquiring information, whatever
may be the profusion of easy methods and of cheap science, the
human mind can never be instructed and educated without devoting
a considerable space of time to those objects.

The greater or the lesser possibility of subsisting without labor
is therefore the necessary boundary of intellectual improvement.
This boundary is more remote in some countries, and more
restricted in others; but it must exist somewhere as long as the
people is constrained to work in order to procure the means of
physical subsistence, that is to say, as long as it retains its
popular character. It is therefore quite as difficult to imagine
a state in which all the citizens should be very well-informed,
as a state in which they should all be wealthy; these two
difficulties may be looked upon as correlative. It may very
readily be admitted that the mass of the citizens are sincerely
disposed to promote the welfare of their country; nay more, it
may even be allowed that the lower classes are less apt to be
swayed by considerations of personal interest than the higher
orders; but it is always more or less impossible for them to
discern the best means of attaining the end, which they desire
with sincerity. Long and patient observation, joined to a
multitude of different notions, is required to form a just
estimate of the character of a single individual; and can it be
supposed that the vulgar have the power of succeeding in an
inquiry which misleads the penetration of genius itself?  The
people has neither the time nor the means which are essential to
the prosecution of an investigation of this kind; its conclusions
are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more
prominent features of a question. Hence it often assents to the
clamor of a mountebank, who knows the secret of stimulating its
tastes; while its truest friends frequently fail in their
exertions.

Moreover, the democracy is not only deficient in that soundness
of judgment which is necessary to select men really deserving of
its confidence, but it has neither the desire nor the inclination
to find them out. It cannot be denied that democratic
institutions have a very strong tendency to promote the feeling
of envy in the human heart; not so much because they afford to
every one the means of rising to the level of any of his
fellow-citizens, as because those means perpetually disappoint
the persons who employ them. Democratic institutions awaken and
foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely
satisfy. This complete equality eludes the grasp of the people
at the very moment when it thinks to hold it fast, and "flies,"
as Pascal says, "with eternal flight;" the people is excited in
the pursuit of an advantage, which is the more precious because
it is not sufficiently remote to be unknown, or sufficiently near
to be enjoyed. The lower orders are agitated by the chance of
success, they are irritated by its uncertainty; and they pass
from the enthusiasm of pursuit to the exhaustion of ill-success,
and lastly to the acrimony of disappointment. Whatever
transcends their own limits appears to be an obstacle to their
desires, and there is no kind of superiority, however legitimate
it may be, which is not irksome in their sight.

It has been supposed that the secret instinct, which leads the
lower orders to remove their superiors as much as possible from
the direction of public affairs, is peculiar to France. This,
however, is an error; the propensity to which I allude is not
inherent in any particular nation, but in democratic institutions
in general; and although it may have been heightened by peculiar
political circumstances, it owes its origin to a higher cause.

In the United States, the people is not disposed to hate the
superior class of society; but it is not very favorably inclined
toward them, and it carefully excludes them from the exercise of
authority. It does not entertain any dread of distinguished
talents, but it is rarely captivated by them; and it awards its
approbation very sparingly to such as have risen without the
popular support.

While the natural propensities of democracy induce the people to
reject the most distinguished citizens as its rulers, these
individuals are no less apt to retire from a political career, in
which it is almost impossible to retain their independence, or to
advance without degrading themselves. This opinion has been very
candidly set forth by Chancellor Kent, who says, in speaking with
great eulogium of that part of the constitution which empowers
the executive to nominate the judges: "It is indeed probable that
the men who are best fitted to discharge the duties of this high
office would have too much reserve in their manners, and too much
austerity in their principles, for them to be returned by the
majority at an election where universal suffrage is adopted."
Such were the opinions which were printed without contradiction
in America in the year 1830.

I hold it to be sufficiently demonstrated, that universal
suffrage is by no means a guarantee of the wisdom of the popular
choice; and that whatever its advantages may be, this is not one
of them.

       *       *       *       *       *


       CAUSES WHICH MAY PARTLY CORRECT THESE TENDENCIES OF THE
                         DEMOCRACY.

Contrary Effects produced on Peoples as well as on individuals by
  great Dangers.--Why so many distinguished Men stood at the Head
  of Affairs in America fifty Years ago.--Influence which the
  intelligence and the Manners of the People exercise upon its
  choice.--Example of New England.--States of the
  Southwest.--Influence of certain Laws upon the Choice of the
  People.--Election by an elected Body.--Its Effects upon the
  Composition of the Senate.


When a state is threatened by serious dangers, the people
frequently succeed in selecting the citizens who are the most
able to save it. It has been observed that man rarely retains
his customary level in presence of very critical circumstances;
he rises above, or he sinks below, his usual condition, and the
same thing occurs in nations at large. Extreme perils sometimes
quench the energy of a people instead of stimulating it; they
excite without directing its passions; and instead of clearing,
they confuse its powers of perception. The Jews deluged the
smoking ruins of their temples with the carnage of the remnant of
their host. But it is more common, both in the case of nations
and in that of individuals, to find extraordinary virtues arising
from the very imminence of the danger. Great characters are then
thrown into relief, as the edifices which are concealed by the
gloom of night, are illuminated by the glare of a conflagration.
At those dangerous times genius no longer abstains from
presenting itself in the arena; and the people, alarmed by the
perils of its situation, buries its envious passions in a short
oblivion. Great names may then be drawn from the urn of an
election.

I have already observed that the American statesmen of the
present day are very inferior to those who stood at the head of
affairs fifty years ago. This is as much a consequence of the
circumstances, as of the laws of the country. When America was
struggling in the high cause of independence to throw off the
yoke of another country, and when it was about to usher a new
nation into the world, the spirits of its inhabitants were roused
to the height which their great efforts required. In this
general excitement, the most distinguished men were ready to
forestall the wants of the community, and the people clung to
them for support, and placed them at its head. But events of
this magnitude are rare; and it is from an inspection of the
ordinary course of affairs that our judgment must be formed.

If passing occurrences sometimes act as checks upon the passions
of democracy, the intelligence and the manners of the community
exercise an influence which is not less powerful, and far more
permanent. This is extremely perceptible in the United States.

In New England the education and the liberties of the communities
were engendered by the moral and religious principles of their
founders. Where society has acquired a sufficient degree of
stability to enable it to hold certain maxims and to retain fixed
habits, the lower orders are accustomed to respect intellectual
superiority, and to submit to it without complaint, although they
set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have
introduced among mankind. The democracy in New England
consequently makes a more judicious choice than it does
elsewhere.

But as we descend toward the south, to those states in which the
constitution of society is more modern and less strong, where
instruction is less general, and where the principles of
morality, of religion, and of liberty, are less happily combined,
we perceive that the talents and the virtues of those who are in
authority become more and more rare.

Lastly, when we arrive at the new southwestern states, in which
the constitution of society dates but from yesterday, and
presents an agglomeration of adventurers and speculators, we are
amazed at the persons who are invested with public authority, and
we are led to ask by what force, independent of the legislation
and of the men who direct it, the state can be protected, and
society be made to flourish.

There are certain laws of a democratic nature which contribute,
nevertheless, to correct, in some measure, the dangerous
tendencies of democracy. On entering the house of
representatives at Washington, one is struck by the vulgar
demeanor of that great assembly. The eye frequently does not
discover a man of celebrity within its walls. Its members are
almost all obscure individuals, whose names present no
associations to the mind: they are mostly village-lawyers, men in
trade, or even persons belonging to the lower classes of society.
In a country in which education is very general, it is said that
the representatives of the people do not always know how to write
correctly.

At a few yards distance from this spot is the door of the senate,
which contains within a small space a large proportion of the
celebrated men of America. Scarcely an individual is to be
perceived in it who does not recall the idea of an active and
illustrious career: the senate is composed of eloquent advocates,
distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of note,
whose language would at all times do honor to the most remarkable
parliamentary debates of Europe.

What then is the cause of this strange contrast, and why are the
most able citizens to be found in one assembly rather than in the
other?  Why is the former body remarkable for its vulgarity and
its poverty of talent, while the latter seems to enjoy a monopoly
of intelligence and of sound judgment?  Both of these assemblies
emanate from the people; both of them are chosen by universal
suffrage; and no voice has hitherto been heard to assert, in
America, that the senate is hostile to the interests of the
people. From what cause, then, does so startling a difference
arise?  The only reason which appears to me adequately to account
for it is, that the house of representatives is elected by the
populace directly, and that of the senate is elected by elected
bodies. The whole body of the citizens names the legislature of
each state, and the federal constitution converts these
legislatures into so many electoral bodies, which return the
members of the senate. The senators are elected by an indirect
application of universal suffrage; for the legislatures which
name them are not aristocratic or privileged bodies which
exercise the electoral franchise in their own right; but they are
chosen by the totality of the citizens; they are generally
elected every year, and new members may constantly be chosen, who
will employ their electoral rights in conformity with the wishes
of the public. But this transmission of the popular authority
through an assembly of chosen men, operates an important change
in it, by refining its discretion and improving the forms which
it adopts. Men who are chosen in this manner, accurately
represent the majority of the nation which governs them; but they
represent the elevated thoughts which are current in the
community, the generous propensities which prompt its nobler
actions, rather than the petty passions which disturb, or the
vices which disgrace it.

The time may be already anticipated at which the American
republics will be obliged to introduce the plan of election by an
elected body more frequently into their system of representation,
or they will incur no small risk of perishing miserably among the
shoals of democracy.

And here I have no scruple in confessing that I look upon this
peculiar system of election as the only means of bringing the
exercise of political power to the level of all classes of the
people. Those thinkers who regard this institution as the
exclusive weapon of a party, and those who fear, on the other
hand, to make use of it, seem to me to fall into as great an
error in the one case as in the other.

       *       *       *       *       *


      INFLUENCE WHICH THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS EXERCISED
               ON THE LAWS RELATING TO ELECTIONS.

When Elections are rare, they expose the State to a violent
  Crisis. When they are frequent, they keep up a degree of
  feverish Excitement.--The Americans have preferred the second
  of these two Evils.--Mutability of the Laws.--Opinions of
  Hamilton and Jefferson on this Subject.


When elections recur at long intervals, the state is exposed to
violent agitation every time they take place. Parties exert
themselves to the utmost in order to gain a prize which is so
rarely within their reach; and as the evil is almost irremediable
for the candidates who fail, the consequence of their
disappointed ambition may prove most disastrous: if, on the other
hand, the legal struggle can be repeated within a short space of
time, the defeated parties take patience.

When elections occur frequently, this recurrence keeps society in
a perpetual state of feverish excitement, and imparts a continual
instability to public affairs.

Thus, on the one hand, the state is exposed to the perils of a
revolution, on the other, to perpetual mutability; the former
system threatens the very existence of the government, the latter
is an obstacle to all steady and consistent policy. The
Americans have preferred the second of these evils to the first;
but they were led to this conclusion by their instinct much more
than by their reason; for a taste for variety is one of the
characteristic passions of democracy. An extraordinary
mutability has, by this means, been introduced into their
legislation.

Many of the Americans consider the instability of their laws as a
necessary consequence of a system whose general results are
beneficial. But no one in the United States affects to deny the
fact of this instability, or to contend that it is not a great
evil.

Hamilton, after having demonstrated the utility of a power which
might prevent, or which might at least impede, the promulgation
of bad laws, adds: "It may perhaps be said that the power of
preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones, and
may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this
objection will have but little weight with those who can properly
estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the
laws which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius
of our government."--(Federalist, No. 73.)

And again, in No. 62 of the same work, he observes: "The facility
and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our
governments are most liable.******* The mischievous effects of
the mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid
succession of new members, would fill a volume; every new
election in the states is found to change one half of the
representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change
of opinions and of measures which forfeits the respect and
confidence of nations, poisons the blessings of liberty itself,
and diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward
a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity."

Jefferson himself, the greatest democrat whom the democracy of
America has as yet produced, pointed out the same evils.

"The instability of our laws," he said in a letter to Madison,
"is really a very serious inconvenience. I think we ought to
have obviated it by deciding that a whole year should always be
allowed to elapse between the bringing in of a bill and the final
passing of it. It should afterward be discussed and put to the
vote without the possibility of making any alteration in it; and
if the circumstances of the case required a more speedy decision,
the question should not be decided by a simple majority, but by a
majority of at least two thirds of both houses."

       *       *       *       *       *


       PUBLIC OFFICERS UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRACY
                           OF AMERICA.

Simple Exterior of the American public Officers.--No official
  Costume.--All public Officers are remunerated.--Political
  Consequences of this System.--No public Career exists in
  America.--Result of this.


Public officers in the United States are commingled with the
crowd of citizens; they have neither palaces, nor guards, nor
ceremonial costumes. This simple exterior of the persons in
authority is connected, not only with the peculiarities of the
American character, but with the fundamental principles of that
society. In the estimation of the democracy, a government is not
a benefit, but a necessary evil. A certain degree of power must
be granted to public officers, for they would be of no use
without it. But the ostensible semblance of authority is by no
means indispensable to the conduct of affairs; and it is
needlessly offensive to the susceptibility of the public. The
public officers themselves are well aware that they only enjoy
the superiority over their fellow citizens, which they derive
from their authority, upon condition of putting themselves on a
level with the whole community by their manners. A public
officer in the United States is uniformly civil, accessible to
all the world, attentive to all requests, and obliging in all his
replies. I was pleased by these characteristics of a democratic
government; and I was struck by the manly independence of the
citizens, who respect the office more than the officer, and who
are less attached to the emblems of authority than to the man who
bears them.

I am inclined to believe that the influence which costumes really
exercise, in an age like that in which we live, has been a good
deal exaggerated. I never perceived that a public officer in
America was the less respected while he was in the discharge of
his duties because his own merit was set off by no adventitious
signs. On the other hand, it is very doubtful whether a peculiar
dress contributes to the respect which public characters ought to
have for their own position, at least when they are not otherwise
inclined to respect it. When a magistrate (and in France such
instances are not rare), indulges his trivial wit at the expense
of a prisoner, or derides a predicament in which a culprit is
placed, it would be well to deprive him of his robes of office,
to see whether he would recall some portion of the natural
dignity of mankind when he is reduced to the apparel of a private
citizen.

A democracy may, however, allow a certain show of magisterial
pomp, and clothe its officers in silks and gold, without
seriously compromising its principles. Privileges of this kind
are transitory; they belong to the place, and are distinct from
the individual: but if public officers are not uniformly
remunerated by the state, the public charges must be intrusted to
men of opulence and independence, who constitute the basis of an
aristocracy; and if the people still retains its right of
election, that election can only be made from a certain class of
citizens.

When a democratic republic renders offices which had formerly
been remunerated, gratuitous, it may safely be believed that that
state is advancing to monarchical institutions; and when a
monarchy begins to remunerate such officers as had hitherto been
unpaid, it is a sure sign that it is approaching toward a
despotic or a republican form of government. The substitution of
paid for unpaid functionaries is of itself, in my opinion,
sufficient to constitute a serious revolution.

I look upon the entire absence of gratuitous functionaries in
America as one of the most prominent signs of the absolute
dominion which democracy exercises in that country. All public
services, of whatsoever nature they may be, are paid; so that
every one has not merely a right, but also the means of
performing them. Although, in democratic states, all the
citizens are qualified to occupy stations in the government, all
are not tempted to try for them. The number and the capacities
of the candidates are more apt to restrict the choice of electors
than the conditions of the candidateship.

In nations in which the principle of election extends to every
place in the state, no political career can, properly speaking,
be said to exist. Men are promoted as if by chance to the rank
which they enjoy, and they are by no means sure of retaining it.
The consequence is that in tranquil times public functions offer
but few lures to ambition. In the United States the persons who
engage in the perplexities of political life are individuals of
very moderate pretensions The pursuit of wealth generally diverts
men of great talents and of great passions from the pursuit of
power; and it very frequently happens that a man does not
undertake to direct the fortune of the state until he has
discovered his incompetence to conduct his own affairs. The vast
number of very ordinary men who occupy public stations is quite
as attributable to these causes as to the bad choice of the
democracy. In the United States, I am not sure that the people
would return the men of superior abilities who might solicit its
support, but it is certain that men of this description do not
come forward.

       *       *       *       *       *


                 ARBITRARY POWER OF MAGISTRATES
[Footnote:

I here use the word _magistrates_ in the widest sense in
which it can be taken; I apply it to all the officers to whom the
execution of the laws is intrusted.

]
              UNDER THE RULE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

For what Reason the arbitrary Power of Magistrates is greater in
  absolute Monarchies and in democratic Republics that it is in
  limited Monarchies.--Arbitrary Power of the Magistrates in New
  England.


In two different kinds of government the magistrates exercise a
considerable degree of arbitrary power; namely, under the
absolute government of a single individual, and under that of a
democracy.

This identical result proceeds from causes which are nearly
analogous.

In despotic states the fortune of no citizen is secure; and
public officers are not more safe than private individuals. The
sovereign, who has under his control the lives, the property, and
sometimes the honor of the men whom he employs, does not scruple
to allow them a great latitude of action, because he is convinced
that they will not use it to his prejudice. In despotic states
the sovereign is so attached to the exercise of his power, that
he dislikes the constraint even of his own regulations; and he is
well pleased that his agents should follow a somewhat fortuitous
line of conduct, provided he be certain that their actions will
never counteract his desires.

In democracies, as the majority has every year the right of
depriving the officers whom it has appointed of their power, it
has no reason to fear abuse of their authority. As the people is
always able to signify its wishes to those who conduct the
government, it prefers leaving them to make their own exertions,
to prescribing an invariable rule of conduct which would at once
fetter their activity and the popular authority.

It may even be observed, on attentive consideration, that under
the rule of a democracy the arbitrary power of the magistrate
must be still greater than in despotic states. In the latter,
the sovereign has the power of punishing all the faults with
which he becomes acquainted, but it would be vain for him to hope
to become acquainted with all those which are committed. In the
former the sovereign power is not only supreme, but it is
universally present. The American functionaries are, in point of
fact, much more independent in the sphere of action which the law
traces out for them, than any public officer in Europe. Very
frequently the object which they are to accomplish is simply
pointed out to them, and the choice of the means is left to their
own discretion.

In New England, for instance, the selectmen of each township are
bound to draw up the list of persons who are to serve on the
jury; the only rule which is laid down to guide them in their
choice is that they are to select citizens possessing the
elective franchise and enjoying a fair reputation.[Footnote:

See the act 27th February, 1813. General Collection of the Laws
of Massachusetts, vol. ii., p. 331. It should be added that the
Jurors are afterward drawn from these lists by lot.

]  In France the lives and liberties of the subjects would be
thought to be in danger, if a public officer of any kind was
intrusted with so formidable a right. In New England, the same
magistrates are empowered to post the names of habitual drunkards
in public houses, and to prohibit the inhabitants of a town from
supplying them with liquor.[Footnote:

See the act of 28th February, 1787. General Collection of the
Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 302.

]  A censorial power of this excessive kind would be revolting to
the population of the most absolute monarchies; here, however, it
is submitted to without difficulty.

Nowhere has so much been left by the law to the arbitrary
determination of the magistrates as in democratic republics,
because this arbitrary power is unattended by any alarming
consequences. It may even be asserted that the freedom of the
magistrate increases as the elective franchise is extended, and
as the duration of the time of office is shortened. Hence arises
the great difficulty which attends the conversion of a democratic
republic into a monarchy. The magistrate ceases to be elective,
but he retains the rights and the habits of an elected officer,
which lead directly to despotism.

It is only in limited monarchies that the law which prescribes
the sphere in which public officers are to act, superintends all
their measures. The cause of this may be easily detected. In
limited monarchies the power is divided between the king and the
people, both of whom are interested in the stability of the
magistrate. The king does not venture to place the public
officers under the control of the people, lest they should be
tempted to betray his interests; on the other hand, the people
fears lest the magistrates should serve to oppress the liberties
of the country, if they were entirely dependent upon the crown:
they cannot therefore be said to depend on either the one or the
other. The same cause which induces the king and the people to
render public officers independent, suggests the necessity of
such securities as may prevent their independence from
encroaching upon the authority of the former and the liberties of
the latter. They consequently agree as to the necessity of
restricting the functionary to a line of conduct laid down
beforehand, and they are interested in confining him by certain
regulations which he cannot evade.

[The observations respecting the arbitrary powers of magistrates
are practically among the most erroneous in the work. The author
seems to have confounded the idea of magistrates being
_independent_ with their being arbitrary. Yet he had just
before spoken of their dependance on popular election as a reason
why there was no apprehension of the abuse of their authority.
The independence, then, to which he alludes must be an immunity
from responsibility to any other department. But it is a
fundamental principle of our system, that all officers are liable
to criminal prosecution "whenever they act partially or
oppressively from a malicious or corrupt motive." See 15
Wendell's Reports, 278. That our magistrates are independent
when they do not act partially or oppressively is very true, and,
it is to be hoped, is equally true in every form of government.
There would seem, therefore, not to be such a degree of
independence as necessarily to produce arbitrariness. The author
supposes that magistrates are more arbitrary in a despotism and
in a democracy than in a limited monarchy. And yet, the limits
of independence and of responsibility existing in the United
States are borrowed from and identical with those established in
England--the most prominent instance of a limited monarchy. See
the authorities referred to in the case in Wendell's Reports,
before quoted. Discretion in the execution of various
ministerial duties, and in the awarding of punishment by judicial
officers, is indispensable in every system of government, from
the utter impossibility of "laying down beforehand a line of
conduct" (as the author expresses it) in such cases. The very
instances of discretionary power to which he refers, and which he
considers _arbitrary_, exist in England. There, the persons
from whom juries are to be formed for the trial of causes, civil
and criminal, are selected by the sheriffs, who are appointed by
the crown--a power, certainly more liable to abuse in their
hands, than in those of selectmen or other town-officers, chosen
annually by the people. The other power referred to, that of
posting the names of habitual drunkards, and forbidding their
being supplied with liquor, is but a reiteration of the
principles contained in the English statute of 32 Geo. III.,
ch. 45, respecting idle and disorderly persons. Indeed it may be
said with great confidence, that there is not an instance of
discretionary power being vested in American magistrates which
does not find its prototype in the English laws. The whole
argument of the author on this point, therefore, would seem to
fail.--_American Editor_.]

       *       *       *       *       *


     INSTABILITY OF THE ADMINISTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

In America the public Acts of a Community frequently leave fewer
  Traces than the Occurrences of a Family.--Newspapers the only
  historical Remains.--Instability of the Administration
  prejudicial to the Art of Government.


The authority which public men possess in America is so brief,
and they are so soon commingled with the ever-changing population
of the country, that the acts of a community frequently leave
fewer traces than the occurrences of a private family. The
public administration is, so to speak, oral and traditionary.
But little is committed to writing, and that little is wafted
away for ever, like the leaves of the sibyl, by the smallest
breeze.

The only historical remains in the United States are the
newspapers; but if a number be wanting, the chain of time is
broken, and the present is severed from the past. I am convinced
that in fifty years it will be more difficult to collect
authentic documents concerning the social condition of the
Americans at the present day, than it is to find remains of the
administration of France during the middle ages; and if the
United States were ever invaded by barbarians, it would be
necessary to have recourse to the history of other nations, in
order to learn anything of the people which now inhabits them.

The instability of the administration has penetrated into the
habits of the people: it even appears to suit the general taste,
and no one cares for what occurred before his time. No
methodical system is pursued; no archives are formed; and no
documents are brought together when it would be very easy to do
so. Where they exist little store is set upon them; and I have
among my papers several original public documents which were
given to me in answer to some of my inquiries. In America
society seems to live from hand to mouth, like an army in the
field. Nevertheless, the art of administration may undoubtedly
be ranked as a science, and no sciences can be improved, if the
discoveries and observations of successive generations are not
connected together in the order in which they occur. One man, in
the short space of his life, remarks a fact; another conceives an
idea; the former invents a means of execution, the latter reduces
a truth to a fixed proposition; and mankind gathers the fruits of
individual experience upon its way, and gradually forms the
sciences. But the persons who conduct the administration in
America can seldom afford any instruction to each other; and when
they assume the direction of society, they simply possess those
attainments which are most widely disseminated in the community,
and no experience peculiar to themselves. Democracy, carried to
its farthest limits, is therefore prejudicial to the art of
government; and for this reason it is better adapted to a people
already versed in the conduct of an administration, than to a
nation which is uninitiated in public affairs.

This remark, indeed, is not exclusively applicable to the science
of administration. Although a democratic government is founded
upon a very simple and natural principle, it always presupposes
the existence of a high degree of culture and enlightenment in
society.[Footnote:

It is needless to observe, that I speak here of the democratic
form of government as applied to a people, not merely to a tribe.

]  At the first glance it may be imagined to belong to the
earliest ages of the world; but maturer observation will convince
us that it could only come last in the succession of human
history.


[These remarks upon the "instability of administration" in
America, are partly correct, but partly erroneous. It is
certainly true that our public men are not educated to the
business of government; even our diplomatists are selected with
very little reference to their experience in that department.
But the universal attention that is paid by the intelligent, to
the measures of government and to the discussions to which they
give rise, is in itself no slight preparation for the ordinary
duties of legislation. And, indeed, this the author subsequently
seems to admit. As to there being "no archives formed" of public
documents, the author is certainly mistaken. The journals of
congress, the journals of state legislatures, the public
documents transmitted to and originating in those bodies, are
carefully preserved and disseminated through the nation: and they
furnish in themselves the materials of a full and accurate
history. Our great defect, doubtless, is in the want of
statistical information. Excepting the annual reports of the
state of our commerce, made by the secretary of the treasury,
under law, and excepting the census which is taken every ten
years under the authority of congress, and those taken by the
states, we have no official statistics. It is supposed that the
author had this species of information in his mind when he
alluded to the general deficiency of our archives.--_American
Editor_.]

       *       *       *       *       *


        CHARGES LEVIED BY THE STATE UNDER THE RULE OF THE
                       AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

In all Communities Citizens divisible into three Classes.--Habits
  of each of these Classes in the Direction of public
  Finances.--Why public Expenditures must tend to increase when
  the People governs.--What renders the Extravagance of a
  Democracy less to be feared in America.--Public Expenditure
  under a Democracy.


Before we can affirm whether a democratic form of government is
economical or not, we must establish a suitable standard of
comparison. The question would be one of easy solution if we
were to attempt to draw a parallel between a democratic republic
and an absolute monarchy. The public expenditure would be found
to be more considerable under the former than under the latter;
such is the case with all free states compared to those which are
not so. It is certain that despotism ruins individuals by
preventing them from producing wealth, much more than by
depriving them of the wealth they have produced: it dries up the
source of riches, while it usually respects acquired property.
Freedom, on the contrary, engenders far more benefits than it
destroys; and the nations which are favored by free institutions,
invariably find that their resources increase even more rapidly
than their taxes.

My present object is to compare free nations to each other; and
to point out the influence of democracy upon the finances of a
state.

Communities, as well as organic bodies, are subject to certain
fixed rules in their formation which they cannot evade. They are
composed of certain elements which are common to them at all
times and under all circumstances. The people may always be
mentally divided into three distinct classes. The first of these
classes consists of the wealthy; the second, of those who are in
easy circumstances; and the third is composed of those who have
little or no property, and who subsist more especially by the
work which they perform for the two superior orders. The
proportion of the individuals who are included in these three
divisions may vary according to the condition of society; but the
divisions themselves can never be obliterated.

It is evident that each of these classes will exercise an
influence, peculiar to its own propensities, upon the
administration of the finances of the state. If the first of the
three exclusively possess the legislative power, it is probable
that it will not be sparing of the public funds, because the
taxes which are levied on a large fortune only tend to diminish
the sum of superfluous enjoyment, and are, in point of fact, but
little felt. If the second class has the power of making the
laws, it will certainly not be lavish of taxes, because nothing
is so onerous as a large impost which is levied upon a small
income. The government of the middle classes appears to me to be
the most economical, though perhaps not the most enlightened, and
certainly not the most generous, of free governments.

But let us now suppose that the legislative authority is vested
in the lowest orders: there are two striking reasons which show
that the tendency of the expenditure will be to increase, not to
diminish.

As the great majority of those who create the laws are possessed
of no property upon which taxes can be imposed, all the money
which is spent for the community appears to be spent to their
advantage, at no cost of their own; and those who are possessed
of some little property readily find means of regulating the
taxes so that they are burthensome to the wealthy and profitable
to the poor, although the rich are unable to take the same
advantage when they are in possession of the government.

In countries in which the poor[Footnote:

The word _poor_ is used here, and throughout the remainder
of this chapter, in a relative and not in an absolute sense.
Poor men in America would often appear rich in comparison with
the poor of Europe but they may with propriety be styled poor in
comparison with their more affluent countrymen.

] should be exclusively invested with the power of making the
laws, no great economy of public expenditure ought to be
expected; that expenditure will always be considerable; either
because the taxes do not weigh upon those who levy them, or
because they are levied in such a manner as not to weigh upon
those classes. In other words, the government of the democracy
is the only one under which the power which lays on taxes escapes
the payment of them.

It may be objected (but the argument has no real weight) that the
true interest of the people is indissolubly connected with that
of the wealthier portion of the community, since it cannot but
suffer by the severe measures to which it resorts. But is it not
the true interest of kings to render their subjects happy; and
the true interest of nobles to admit recruits into their order on
suitable grounds?  If remote advantages had power to prevail over
the passions and the exigencies of the moment, no such thing as a
tyrannical sovereign or an exclusive aristocracy could ever
exist.

Again, it may be objected that the poor are never invested with
the sole power of making the laws; but I reply, that wherever
universal suffrage has been established, the majority of the
community unquestionably exercises the legislative authority, and
if it be proved that the poor always constitute the majority, it
may be added, with perfect truth, that in the countries in which
they possess the elective franchise, they possess the sole power
of making laws. But it is certain that in all the nations of the
world the greater number has always consisted of those persons
who hold no property, or of those whose property is insufficient
to exempt them from the necessity of working in order to procure
an easy subsistence. Universal suffrage does therefore in point
of fact invest the poor with the government of society.

The disastrous influence which popular authority may sometimes
exercise upon the finances of a state, was very clearly seen in
some of the democratic republics of antiquity, in which the
public treasure was exhausted in order to relieve indigent
citizens, or to supply the games and theatrical amusements of the
populace. It is true that the representative system was then
very imperfectly known, and that, at the present time, the
influence of popular passions is less felt in the conduct of
public affairs; but it may be believed that the delegate will in
the end conform to the principles of his constituents, and favor
their propensities as much as their interests.

The extravagance of democracy is, however, less to be dreaded in
proportion as the people acquires a share of property, because on
the one hand the contributions of the rich are then less needed,
and on the other, it is more difficult to lay on taxes which do
not affect the interests of the lower classes. On this account
universal suffrage would be less dangerous in France than in
England, because in the latter country the property on which
taxes may be levied is vested in fewer hands. America, where the
great majority of the citizens is possessed of some fortune, is
in a still more favorable position than France.

There are still farther causes which may increase the sum of
public expenditures in democratic countries. When the
aristocracy governs, the individuals who conduct the affairs of
state are exempted, by their own station in society, from every
kind of privation: they are contented with their position; power
and renown are the objects for which they strive; and, as they
are placed far above the obscurer throng of citizens, they do not
always distinctly perceive how the well-being of the mass of the
people ought to redound to their own honor. They are not indeed,
callous to the sufferings of the poor, but they cannot feel those
miseries as acutely as if they were themselves partakers of them.
Provided that the people appear to submit to its lot, the rulers
are satisfied and they demand nothing farther from the
government. An aristocracy is more intent upon the means of
maintaining its influence, than upon the means of improving its
condition.

When, on the contrary, the people is invested with the supreme
authority, the perpetual sense of their own miseries impels the
rulers of society to seek for perpetual meliorations. A thousand
different objects are subjected to improvement; the most trivial
details are sought out as susceptible of amendment; and those
changes which are accompanied with considerable expense, are more
especially advocated, since the object is to render the condition
of the poor more tolerable, who cannot pay for themselves.

Moreover, all democratic communities are agitated by an
ill-defined excitement, and by a kind of feverish impatience,
that engenders a multitude of innovations, almost all of which
are attended with expense.

In monarchies and aristocracies, the natural taste which the
rulers have for power and for renown, is stimulated by the
promptings of ambition, and they are frequently incited by these
temptations to very costly undertakings. In democracies, where
the rulers labor under privations, they can only be courted by
such means as improve their well-being, and these improvements
cannot take place without a sacrifice of money. When a people
begins to reflect upon its situation, it discovers a multitude of
wants, to which it had not before been subject, and to satisfy
these exigencies, recourse must be had to the coffers of the
state. Hence it arises, that the public charges increase in
proportion as civilisation spreads, and that the imposts are
augmented as knowledge pervades the community.

The last cause which frequently renders a democratic government
dearer than any other is, that a democracy does not always
succeed in moderating its expenditure, because it does not
understand the art of being economical. As the designs which it
entertains are frequently changed, and the agents of those
designs are more frequently removed, its undertakings are often
ill-conducted or left unfinished; in the former case the state
spends sums out of all proportion to the end which it proposes to
accomplish; in the second, the expense itself is unprofitable.

       *       *       *       *       *


       TENDENCIES OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AS REGARDS THE
                  SALARIES OF PUBLIC OFFICERS.

In Democracies those who establish high Salaries have no Chance
  of profiting by them.--Tendency of the American Democracy to
  increase the Salaries of subordinate Officers, and to lower
  those of the more important functionaries.--Reason of
  this.--Comparative Statement of the Salaries of public Officers
  in the United States and in France.


There is a powerful reason which usually induces democracies to
economise upon the salaries of public officers. As the number of
citizens who dispense the remuneration is extremely large in
democratic countries, so the number of persons who can hope to be
benefited by the receipt of it is comparatively small. In
aristocratic countries, on the contrary, the individuals who
appoint high salaries, have almost always a vague hope of
profiting by them. These appointments may be looked upon as a
capital which they create for their own use, or at least, as a
resource for their children.

It must, however, be allowed that a democratic state is most
parsimonious toward its principal agents. In America the
secondary officers are much better paid, and the dignitaries of
the administration much worse than they are elsewhere.

These opposite effects result from the same cause: the people
fixes the salaries of the public officers in both cases; and the
scale of remuneration is determined by the consideration of its
own wants. It is held to be fair that the servants of the public
should be placed in the same easy circumstances as the public
itself;[Footnote:

The easy circumstances in which secondary functionaries are
placed in the United States, result also from another cause,
which is independent of the general tendencies of democracy:
every kind of private business is very lucrative, and the state
would not be served at all if it did not pay its servants. The
country is in the position of a commercial undertaking, which is
obliged to sustain an expensive competition, notwithstanding its
taste for economy.

] but when the question turns upon the salaries of the great
officers of state, this rule fails, and chance alone can guide
the popular decision. The poor have no adequate conceptions of
the wants which the higher classes of society may feel. The sum
which is scanty to the rich, appears enormous to the poor man,
whose wants do not extend beyond the necessaries of life: and in
his estimation the governor of a state, with his two or three
hundred a year, is a very fortunate and enviable being.[Footnote:

The state of Ohio, which contains a million of inhabitants, gives
its governor a salary of only $1,200 (260_l._) a year.

]  If you undertake to convince him that the representative of a
great people ought to be able to maintain some show of splendor
in the eyes of foreign nations, he will perhaps assent to your
meaning; but when he reflects on his own humble dwelling, and on
the hard-earned produce of his wearisome toil, he remembers all
that he could do with a salary which you say is insufficient, and
he is startled or almost frightened at the sight of such uncommon
wealth. Besides, the secondary public officer is almost on a
level with the people, while the others are raised above it. The
former may therefore excite his interest, but the latter begins
to arouse his envy.

This is very clearly seen in the United States, where the
salaries seem to decrease as the authority of those who receive
them augments.[Footnote:

To render this assertion perfectly evident, it will suffice to
examine the scale of salaries of the agents of the federal
government. I have added the salaries attached to the
corresponding officers in France, to complete the comparison:--

           UNITED STATES.                     FRANCE.
  _Treasury Department_.        _Ministre des Finances_
  Messenger . . . $   700   150_l_. Huissier, 3,500 fr. . . . 60_l_.
  Clerk with lowest salary            Clerk with lowest salary,
         . . . . . 1,000   217     1,000 to 1,300 fr. . . 40 to 72
  Clerk with highest                  Clerk with highest salary
     salary . . . . 1,600   347     3,200 to 3,600 fr. . 128 to 144
  Chief clerk  . . . 2,000   434   Secretaire-general, 20,000 fr. 800
  Secretary of state . 6,000 1,300   The minister, 80,000 fr. . 3,200
  The President  . . 25,000 5,400   The king, 12,000,000 fr. 480,000

I have perhaps done wrong in selecting France as my standard of
comparison. In France the democratic tendencies of the nation
exercise an ever-increasing influence upon the government, and
the chambers show a disposition to raise the lowest salaries and
to lower the principal ones. Thus the minister of finance, who
received 160,000 fr. under the empire, receives 80,000 fr., in
1835; the directeurs-generaux of finance, who then received
50,000 fr., now receive only 20,000 fr.

]

Under the rule of an aristocracy it frequently happens, on the
contrary, that while the high officers are receiving munificent
salaries, the inferior ones have not more than enough to procure
the necessaries of life. The reason of this fact is easily
discoverable from causes very analogous to those to which I have
just alluded. If a democracy is unable to conceive the pleasures
of the rich, or to see them without envy, an aristocracy is slow
to understand, or, to speak more correctly, is unacquainted with
the privations of the poor. The poor man is not (if we use the
term aright) the fellow of the rich one; but he is the being of
another species. An aristocracy is therefore apt to care but
little for the fate of its subordinate agents: and their salaries
are only raised when they refuse to perform their service for too
scanty a remuneration.

It is the parsimonious conduct of democracy toward its principal
officers, which has countenanced a supposition of far more
economical propensities than any which it really possesses. It
is true that it scarcely allows the means of honorable
subsistence to the individuals who conduct its affairs; but
enormous sums are lavished to meet the exigencies or to
facilitate the enjoyments of the people.[Footnote:

See the American budgets for the cost of indigent citizens and
gratuitous instruction. In 1831, 50,000_l_. were spent in
the state of New York for the maintenance of the poor; and at
least 200,000_l_. were devoted to gratuitous instruction.
(Williams's New York Annual Register, 1832, pp. 205, 243.) The
state of New York contained only 1,900,000 inhabitants in the
year 1830; which is not more than double the amount of population
in the department du Nord in France.

]  The money raised by taxation may be better employed, but it is
not saved. In general, democracy gives largely to the community,
and very sparingly to those who govern it. The reverse is the
case in the aristocratic countries, where the money of the state
is expended to the profit of the persons who are at the head of
affairs.

       *       *       *       *       *


    DIFFICULTY OF DISTINGUISHING THE CAUSES WHICH CONTRIBUTE
           TO THE ECONOMY OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.


We are liable to frequent errors in the research of those facts
which exercise a serious influence upon the fate of mankind,
since nothing is more difficult than to appreciate their real
value. One people is naturally inconsistent and enthusiastic;
another is sober and calculating; and these characteristics
originate in their physical constitution, or in remote causes
with which we are unacquainted.

There are nations which are fond of parade and the bustle of
festivity, and which do not regret the costly gaieties of an
hour. Others, on the contrary, are attached to more retiring
pleasures, and seem almost ashamed of appearing to be pleased.
In some countries the highest value is set upon the beauty of
public edifices; in others the productions of art are treated
with indifference, and everything which is unproductive is looked
down upon with contempt. In some renown, in others money, is the
ruling passion.

Independently of the laws, all these causes concur to exercise a
very powerful influence upon the conduct of the finances of the
state. If the Americans never spend the money of the people in
galas, it is not only because the imposition of taxes is under
the control of the people, but because the people takes no
delight in public rejoicings. If they repudiate all ornament
from their architecture, and set no store on any but the more
practical and homely advantages, it is not only because they live
under democratic institutions, but because they are a commercial
nation. The habits of private life are continued in public; and
we ought carefully to distinguish that economy which depends upon
their institutions, from that which is the natural result of
their manners and customs.

       *       *       *       *       *


       WHETHER THE EXPENDITURE OF THE UNITED STATES CAN BE
                   COMPARED TO THAT OF FRANCE.

Two Points to be established in order to estimate the Extent of
  the public Charges, viz.: the national Wealth, and the Rate of
  Taxation. The Wealth and the Charges of France not accurately
  known.--Why the Wealth and Charges of the Union cannot be
  accurately known. Researches of the Author with a View to
  discover the Amount of Taxation in Pennsylvania.--General
  Symptoms which may serve to indicate the Amount of the public
  Charges in a given Nation.--Result of this Investigation for
  the Union.


Many attempts have recently been made in France to compare the
public expenditure of that country with the expenditure of the
United States; all these attempts have, however, been unattended
by success; and a few words will suffice to show that they could
not have had a satisfactory result.

In order to estimate the amount of the public charges of a
people, two preliminaries are indispensable; it is necessary, in
the first place, to know the wealth of that people; and in the
second, to learn what portion of that wealth is devoted to the
expenditure of the state. To show the amount of taxation without
showing the resources which are destined to meet the demand, is
to undertake a futile labor; for it is not the expenditure, but
the relation of the expenditure to the revenue, which it is
desirable to know.

The same rate of taxation which may easily be supported by a
wealthy contributor, will reduce a poor one to extreme misery.
The wealth of nations is composed of several distinct elements,
of which population is the first, real property the second, and
personal property the third. The first of these three elements
may be discovered without difficulty.

Among civilized nations it is easy to obtain an accurate census
of the inhabitants; but the two others cannot be determined with
so much facility. It is difficult to take an exact account of
all the lands in a country which are under cultivation, with
their natural or their acquired value; and it is still more
impossible to estimate the entire personal property which is at
the disposal of the nation, and which eludes the strictest
analysis by the diversity and number of shapes under which it may
occur. And, indeed, we find that the most ancient civilized
nations of Europe, including even those in which the
administration is most central, have not succeeded, as yet, in
determining the exact condition of their wealth.

In America the attempt has never been made; for how would such an
investigation be possible in a country where society has not yet
settled into habits of regularity and tranquillity; where the
national government is not assisted by a multitude of agents
whose exertions it can command, and direct to one sole end; and
where statistics are not studied, because no one is able to
collect the necessary documents, or can find time to peruse them?
Thus the primary elements of the calculations which have been
made in France, cannot be obtained in the Union; the relative
wealth of the two countries is unknown: the property of the
former is not accurately determined, and no means exist of
computing that of the latter.

I consent, therefore, for the sake of the discussion, to abandon
this necessary term of the comparison, and I confine myself to a
computation of the actual amount of taxation, without
investigating the relation which subsists between the taxation
and the revenue. But the reader will perceive that my task has
not been facilitated by the limits which I here lay down for my
researches.

It cannot be doubted that the central administration of France,
assisted by all the public officers who are at its disposal,
might determine with exactitude the amount of the direct and
indirect taxes levied upon the citizens. But this investigation,
which no private individual can undertake, has not hitherto been
completed by the French government, or, at least, its results
have not been made public. We are acquainted with the sum total
of the state; we know the amount of the departmental expenditure;
but the expenses of the communal divisions have not been
computed, and the amount of the public expenses of France is
unknown.

If we now turn to America, we shall perceive that the
difficulties are multiplied and enhanced. The Union publishes an
exact return of the amount of its expenditure; the budgets of the
four-and-twenty states furnish similar returns of their revenues;
but the expenses incident to the affairs of the counties and the
townships are unknown.[Footnote:

The Americans, as we have seen, have four separate budgets; the
Union, the states, the counties, and the townships, having each
severally their own. During my stay in America I made every
endeavor to discover the amount of the public expenditure in the
townships and counties of the principal states of the Union, and
I readily obtained the budget of the larger townships, but I
found it quite impossible to procure that of the smaller ones. I
possess, however, some documents relating to county expenses,
which, although incomplete, are still curious. I have to thank
Mr. Richards, mayor of Philadelphia, for the budgets of thirteen
of the counties of Pennsylvania, viz.: Lebanon, Centre, Franklin,
Fayette, Montgomery, Luzerne, Dauphin, Butler, Allegany,
Columbia, Northampton, Northumberland, and Philadelphia, for the
year 1830. Their population at that time consisted of 495,207
inhabitants. On looking at the map of Pennsylvania, it will be
seen that these thirteen counties are scattered in every
direction, and so generally affected by the causes which usually
influence the condition of a country, that they may easily be
supposed to furnish a correct average of the financial state of
the counties of Pennsylvania in general; and thus, upon reckoning
that the expenses of these counties amounted in the year 1830 to
about 72,330_l_., or nearly 3_s_. for each inhabitant,
and calculating that each of them contributed in the same year
about 10_s_. 2_d_. toward the Union, and about
3_s_. to the state of Pennsylvania, it appears that they
each contributed as their share of all the public expenses
(except those of the townships), the sum of
16_s_. 2_d_. This calculation is doubly incomplete, as
it applies only to a single year and to one part of the public
charges; but it has at least the merit of not being conjectural.

]

The authority of the federal government cannot oblige the
provincial governments to throw any light upon this point; and
even if these governments were inclined to afford their
simultaneous co-operation, it may be doubted whether they possess
the means of procuring a satisfactory answer. Independently of
the natural difficulties of the task, the political organization
of the country would act as a hindrance to the success of their
efforts. The county and town magistrates are not appointed by
the authorities of the state, and they are not subjected to their
control. It is therefore very allowable to suppose, that if the
state was desirous of obtaining the returns which we require, its
designs would be counteracted by the neglect of those subordinate
officers whom it would be obliged to employ.[Footnote:

Those who have attempted to draw a comparison between the
expenses of France and America, have at once perceived that no
such comparison could be drawn between the total expenditures of
the two countries; but they have endeavored to contrast detached
portions of this expenditure. It may readily be shown that this
second system is not at all less defective than the first.

If I attempt to compare the French budget with the budget of the
Union, it must be remembered that the latter embraces much fewer
objects than the central government of the former country, and
that the expenditure must consequently be much smaller. If I
contrast the budgets of the departments to those of the states
which constitute the Union, it must be observed, that as the
power and control exercised by the states is much greater than
that which is exercised by the departments, their expenditure is
also more considerable. As for the budgets of the counties,
nothing of the kind occurs in the French system of finance; and
it is, again, doubtful whether the corresponding expenses should
be referred to the budget of the state or to those of the
municipal divisions.

Municipal expenses exist in both countries, but they are not
always analogous. In America the townships discharge a variety
of offices which are reserved in France to the departments or the
state. It may, moreover, be asked, what is to be understood by
the municipal expenses of America. The organization of the
municipal bodies or townships differs in the several states: Are
we to be guided by what occurs in New England or in Georgia, in
Pennsylvania or the state of Illinois?

A kind of analogy may very readily be perceived between certain
budgets in the two countries: but as the elements of which they
are composed always differ more or less, no fair comparison can
be instituted between them.

]  It is, in point of fact, useless to inquire what the Americans
might do to forward this inquiry, since it is certain that they
have hitherto done nothing at all. There does not exist a single
individual at the present day, in America or in Europe, who can
inform us what each citizen of the Union annually contributes to
the public charges of the nation.[Footnote:

Even if we knew the exact pecuniary contributions of every French
and American citizen to the coffers of the state, we should only
come at a portion of the truth. Governments not only demand
supplies of money, but they call for personal services, which may
be looked upon as equivalent to a given sum. When a state raises
an army, beside the pay of the troops which is furnished by the
entire nation, each soldier must give up his time, the value of
which depends on the use he might make of it if he were not in
the service. The same remark applies to the militia: the citizen
who is in the militia devotes a certain portion of valuable time
to the maintenance of the public peace, and he does in reality
surrender to the state those earnings which he is prevented from
gaining. Many other instances might be cited in addition to
these. The governments of France and America both levy taxes of
this kind, which weigh upon the citizens; but who can estimate
with accuracy their relative amount in the two countries?

This, however, is not the last of the difficulties which prevent
us from comparing the expenditure of the Union with that of
France. The French government contracts certain obligations
which do not exist in America, and _vice vers_. The
French government pays the clergy; in America, the voluntary
principle prevails. In America, there is a legal provision for
the poor; in France they are abandoned to the charity of the
public. The French public officers are paid by a fixed salary:
in America they are allowed certain perquisites. In France,
contributions in kind take place on very few roads; in America
upon almost all the thoroughfares: in the former country the
roads are free to all travellers: in the latter turnpikes abound.
All these differences in manner in which contributions are levied
in the two countries, enhance the difficulty of comparing their
expenditure; for there are certain expenses which the citizens
would not be subjected to, or which would at any rate be much
less considerable, if the state did not take upon itself to act
in the name of the public.

]

Hence we must conclude, that it is no less difficult to compare
the social expenditure, than it is to estimate the relative
wealth of France and of America. I will even add, that it would
be dangerous to attempt this comparison; for when statistics are
not founded upon computations which are strictly accurate, they
mislead instead of guiding aright. The mind is easily imposed
upon by the false affectation of exactitude which prevails even
in the mis-statements of the science, and adopts with confidence
the errors which are apparelled in the forms of mathematical
truth.

We abandon, therefore, our numerical investigation, with the hope
of meeting with data of another kind. In the absence of positive
documents, we may form an opinion as to the proportion which the
taxation of a people bears to its real prosperity, by observing
whether its external appearance is flourishing; whether, after
having discharged the calls of the state, the poor man retains
the means of subsistence, and the rich the means of enjoyment;
and whether both classes are contented with their position,
seeking however to meliorate it by perpetual exertions, so that
industry is never in want of capital, nor capital unemployed by
industry. The observer who draws his inferences from these signs
will, undoubtedly, be led to the conclusion, that the American of
the United States contributes a much smaller portion of his
income to the state than the citizen of France. Nor, indeed, can
the result be otherwise.

A portion of the French debt is the consequence of two successive
invasions; and the Union has no similar calamity to fear. A
nation placed upon the continent of Europe is obliged to maintain
a large standing army; the isolated position of the Union enables
it to have only 6,000 soldiers. The French have a fleet of 300
sail; the Americans have 52 vessels.[Footnote:

See the details in the budget of the French minister of marine,
and for America, the National Calendar of 1833, p. 228.

]  How, then, can the inhabitant of the Union be called upon to
contribute as largely as the inhabitant of France?  No parallel
can be drawn between the finances of two countries so differently
situated.

It is by examining what actually takes place in the Union, and
not by comparing the Union with France, that we may discover
whether the American government is really economical. On casting
my eyes over the different republics which form the
confederation, I perceive that their governments lack
perseverance in their undertakings, and that they exercise no
steady control over the men whom they employ. Whence I naturally
infer, that they must often spend the money of the people to no
purpose, or consume more of it than is really necessary to their
undertakings. Great efforts are made, in accordance with the
democratic origin of society, to satisfy the exigencies of the
lower orders, to open the career of power to their endeavors, and
to diffuse knowledge and comfort among them. The poor are
maintained, immense sums are annually devoted to public
instruction, all services whatsoever are remunerated, and the
most subordinate agents are liberally paid. If this kind of
government appears to me to be useful and rational, I am
nevertheless constrained to admit that it is expensive.

Wherever the poor direct public affairs and dispose of the
national resources, it appears certain, that as they profit by
the expenditure of the state, they are apt to augment that
expenditure.

I conclude therefore, without having recourse to inaccurate
computations, and without hazarding a comparison which might
prove incorrect, that the democratic government of the Americans
is not a cheap government, as is sometimes asserted; and I have
no hesitation in predicting, that if the people of the United
States is ever involved in serious difficulties, its taxation
will speedily be increased to the rate of that which prevails in
the greater part of the aristocracies and the monarchies of
Europe.

       *       *       *       *       *


     CORRUPTION AND VICES OF THE RULERS IN A DEMOCRACY, AND
            CONSEQUENT EFFECTS UPON PUBLIC MORALITY.

In Aristocracies Rulers sometimes endeavor to corrupt the
  People.--In Democracies Rulers frequently show themselves to be
  corrupt.--In the former their Vices are directly prejudicial to
  the Morality of the People.--In the latter their indirect
  Influence is still more pernicious.


A distinction must be made, when the aristocratic and the
democratic principles mutually inveigh against each other, as
tending to facilitate corruption. In aristocratic governments
the individuals who are placed at the head of affairs are rich
men, who are solely desirous of power. In democracies statesmen
are poor, and they have their fortunes to make. The consequence
is, that in aristocratic states the rulers are rarely accessible
to corruption, and have very little craving for money; while the
reverse is the case in democratic nations.

But in aristocracies, as those who are desirous of arriving at
the head of affairs are possessed of considerable wealth, and as
the number of persons by whose assistance they may rise is
comparatively small, the government is, if I may use the
expression, put up to a sort of auction. In democracies, on the
contrary, those who are covetous of power are very seldom
wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is
extremely great. Perhaps in democracies the number of men who
might be bought is by no means smaller, but buyers are rarely to
be met with; and, besides, it would be necessary to buy so many
persons at once, that the attempt is rendered nugatory.

Many of the men who have been in the administration in France
during the last forty years, have been accused of making their
fortunes at the expense of the state or of its allies; a reproach
which was rarely addressed to the public characters of the
ancient monarchy. But in France the practice of bribing electors
is almost unknown, while it is notoriously and publicly carried
on in England. In the United States I never heard a man accused
of spending his wealth in corrupting the populace; but I have
often heard the probity of public officers questioned; still more
frequently have I heard their success attributed to low intrigues
and immoral practices.

If, then, the men who conduct the government of an aristocracy
sometimes endeavor to corrupt the people, the heads of a
democracy are themselves corrupt. In the former case the
morality of the people is directly assailed; in the latter, an
indirect influence is exercised upon the people, which is still
more to be dreaded.

As the rulers of democratic nations are almost always exposed to
the suspicion of dishonorable conduct, they in some measure lend
the authority of the government to the base practices of which
they are accused. They thus afford an example which must prove
discouraging to the struggles of virtuous independence, and must
foster the secret calculations of a vicious ambition. If it be
asserted that evil passions are displayed in all ranks of
society; that they ascend the throne by hereditary right; and
that despicable characters are to be met with at the head of
aristocratic nations as well as in the sphere of a democracy;
this objection has but little weight in my estimation. The
corruption of men who have casually risen to power has a coarse
and vulgar infection in it, which renders it contagious to the
multitude. On the contrary, there is a kind of aristocratic
refinement, and an air of grandeur, in the depravity of the
great, which frequently prevents it from spreading abroad.

The people can never penetrate the perplexing labyrinth of court
intrigue, and it will always have difficulty in detecting the
turpitude which lurks under elegant manners, refined tastes, and
graceful language. But to pillage the public purse, and to vend
the favors of the state, are arts which the meanest villain may
comprehend, and hope to practise in his turn.

In reality it is far less prejudicial to be a witness to the
immorality of the great, than to that immorality which leads to
greatness. In a democracy, private citizens see a man of their
own rank in life, who rises from that obscure position, and who
becomes possessed of riches and of power in a few years: the
spectacle excites their surprise and their envy: and they are led
to inquire how the person who was yesterday their equal, is
to-day their ruler. To attribute his rise to his talents or his
virtues is unpleasant; for it is tacitly to acknowledge that they
are themselves less virtuous and less talented than he was. They
are therefore led (and not unfrequently their conjecture is a
correct one) to impute his success mainly to some of his defects;
and an odious mixture is thus formed of the ideas of turpitude
and power, unworthiness and success, utility and dishonor.

       *       *       *       *       *

            EFFORTS OF WHICH A DEMOCRACY IS CAPABLE.


The Union has only had one struggle hitherto for its
  Existence.--Enthusiasm at the Commencement of the
  War.--Indifference toward its Close.--Difficulty of
  establishing a military Conscription or impressment of Seamen
  in America.--Why a democratic People is less capable of
  sustained Effort than another.


I here warn the reader that I speak of a government which
implicitly follows the real desires of the people, and not of a
government which simply commands in its name. Nothing is so
irresistible as a tyrannical power commanding in the name of the
people, because, while it exercises that moral influence which
belongs to the decisions of the majority, it acts at the same
time with the promptitude and the tenacity of a single man.

It is difficult to say what degree of exertion a democratic
government may be capable of making, at a crisis in the history
of the nation. But no great democratic republic has hitherto
existed in the world. To style the oligarchy which ruled over
France in 1793, by that name, would be to offer an insult to the
republican form of government. The United States afford the
first example of the kind.

The American Union has now subsisted for half a century, in the
course of which time its existence has only once been attacked,
namely, during the war of independence. At the commencement of
that long war, various occurrences took place which betokened an
extraordinary zeal for the service of the country.[Footnote:

One of the most singular of these occurrences was the resolution
which the Americans took of temporarily abandoning the use of
tea. Those who know that men usually cling more to their habits
than to their life, will doubtless admire this great and obscure
sacrifice which was made by a whole people.

]  But as the contest was prolonged, symptoms of private egotism
began to show themselves. No money was poured into the public
treasury; few recruits could be raised to join the army; the
people wished to acquire independence, but was very ill disposed
to undergo the privations by which alone it could be obtained.
"Tax laws," says Hamilton in the Federalist (No. 12), "have in
vain been multiplied; new methods to enforce the collection have
in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly
disappointed; and the treasuries of the states have remained
empty. The popular system of administration inherent in the
nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity
of money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has
hitherto defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and
has at length taught the different legislatures the folly of
attempting them."

The United States have not had any serious war to carry on since
that period. In order, therefore, to appreciate the sacrifices
which democratic nations may impose upon themselves, we must wait
until the American people is obliged to put half its entire
income at the disposal of the government, as was done by the
English; or until it sends forth a twentieth part of its
population to the field of battle, as was done by France.

In America the use of conscription is unknown, and men are
induced to enlist by bounties. The notions and habits of the
people of the United States are so opposed to compulsory
enlistments, that I do not imagine that it can ever be sanctioned
by the laws. What is termed the conscription in France is
assuredly the heaviest tax upon the population of that country;
yet how could a great continental war be carried on without it?
The Americans have not adopted the British impressment of seamen,
and they have nothing which corresponds to the French system of
maritime conscription; the navy, as well as the merchant service,
is supplied by voluntary engagement. But it is not easy to
conceive how a people can sustain a great maritime war, without
having recourse to one or the other of these two systems.
Indeed, the Union, which has fought with some honor upon the
seas, has never possessed a very numerous fleet, and the
equipment of the small number of American vessels has always been
excessively expensive.


[The remark that "in America the use of conscription is unknown,
and men are induced to enlist by bounties," is not exactly
correct. During the last war with Great Britain, the state of
New York, in October, 1814 (see the laws of that session, p. 15),
passed an act to raise troops for the defence of the state, in
which the whole body of the militia were directed to be classed,
and each class to furnish one soldier, so as to make up the whole
number of 12,000 directed to be raised. In case of the refusal
of a class to furnish a man, one was to be detached from them by
ballot, and was compelled to procure a substitute or serve
personally. The intervention of peace rendered proceedings under
the act unnecessary, and we have not, therefore, the light of
experience to form an opinion whether such a plan of raising a
military force is practicable. Other states passed similar laws.
The system of classing was borrowed from the practice of the
revolution.--_American Editor_.]


I have heard American statesmen confess that the Union will have
great difficulty in maintaining its rank on the seas, without
adopting the system of impressment or of maritime conscription;
but the difficulty is to induce the people, which exercises the
supreme authority, to submit to impressment or any compulsory
system.

It is incontestable, that in times of danger a free people
displays far more energy than one which is not so. But I incline
to believe, that this is more especially the case in those free
nations in which the democratic element preponderates. Democracy
appears to me to be much better adapted for the peaceful conduct
of society, or for an occasional effort of remarkable vigor, than
for the hardy and prolonged endurance of the storms which beset
the political existence of nations. The reason is very evident;
it is enthusiasm which prompts men to expose themselves to
dangers and privations; but they will not support them long
without reflection. There is more calculation, even in the
impulses of bravery, than is generally attributed to them; and
although the first efforts are suggested by passion, perseverance
is maintained by a distinct regard of the purpose in view. A
portion of what we value is exposed, in order to save the
remainder.

But it is this distinct perception of the future, founded upon a
sound judgment and an enlightened experience, which is most
frequently wanting in democracies. The populace is more apt to
feel than to reason; and if its present sufferings are great, it
is to be feared that the still greater sufferings attendant upon
defeat will be forgotten.

Another cause tends to render the efforts of a democratic
government less persevering than those of an aristocracy, Not
only are the lower classes less awakened than the higher orders
to the good or evil chances of the future, but they are liable to
suffer far more acutely from present privations. The noble
exposes his life, indeed, but the chance of glory is equal to the
chance of harm. If he sacrifices a large portion of his income
to the state, he deprives himself for a time of the pleasure of
affluence; but to the poor man death is embellished by no pomp or
renown; and the imposts which are irksome to the rich are fatal
to him.

This relative impotence of democratic republics is, perhaps, the
greatest obstacle to the foundation of a republic of this kind in
Europe. In order that such a state should subsist in one country
of the Old World, it would be necessary that similar institutions
should be introduced into all the other nations.

I am of opinion that a democratic government tends in the end to
increase the real strength of society; but it can never combine,
upon a single point and at a given time, so much power as an
aristocracy or a monarchy. If a democratic country remained
during a whole century subject to a republican government, it
would probably at the end of that period be more populous and
more prosperous than the neighboring despotic states. But it
would have incurred the risk of being conquered much oftener than
they would in that lapse of years.

       *       *       *       *       *


             SELF-CONTROL OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

The American People acquiesces slowly, or frequently does not
  acquiesce in what is beneficial to its Interests.--The faults
  of the American Democracy are for the most part reparable.


The difficulty which a democracy has in conquering the passions,
and in subduing the exigencies of the moment, with a view to the
future, is conspicuous in the most trivial occurrences in the
United States. The people which is surrounded by flatterers, has
great difficulty in surmounting its inclinations; and whenever it
is solicited to undergo a privation or any kind of inconvenience,
even to attain an end which is sanctioned by its own rational
conviction, it almost always refuses to comply at first. The
deference of the Americans to the laws has been very justly
applauded; but it must be added, that in America the legislation
is made by the people and for the people. Consequently, in the
United States, the law favors those classes which are most
interested in evading it elsewhere. It may therefore be supposed
that an offensive law, which should not be acknowledged to be one
of immediate utility, would either not be enacted or would not be
obeyed.

In America there is no law against fraudulent bankruptcies; not
because they are few, but because there are a great number of
bankruptcies. The dread of being prosecuted as a bankrupt acts
with more intensity upon the mind of the majority of the people,
than the fear of being involved in losses or ruin by the failure
of other parties; and a sort of guilty tolerance is extended by
the public conscience, to an offence which every one condemns in
his individual capacity. In the new states of the southwest, the
citizens generally take justice into their own hands, and murders
are of very frequent occurrence. This arises from the rude
manners and the ignorance of the inhabitants of those deserts,
who do not perceive the utility of investing the law with
adequate force, and who prefer duels to prosecutions.

Some one observed to me one day, in Philadelphia, that almost all
crimes in America are caused by the abuse of intoxicating
liquors, which the lower classes can procure in great abundance
from their excessive cheapness.--"How comes it," said I, "that
you do not put a duty upon brandy?"--"Our legislators," rejoined
my informant, "have frequently thought of this expedient; but the
task of putting it in operation is a difficult one: a revolt
might be apprehended; and the members who should vote for a law
of this kind would be sure of losing their seats."--"Whence I am
to infer," I replied, "that the drinking population constitutes
the majority in your country and that temperance is somewhat
unpopular."

When these things are pointed out to the American statesmen, they
content themselves with assuring you that time will operate the
necessary change, and that the experience of evil will teach the
people its true interests. This is frequently true; although a
democracy is more liable to error than a monarch or a body of
nobles, the chances of its regaining the right path, when once it
has acknowledged its mistake, are greater also; because it is
rarely embarrassed by internal interests, which conflict with
those of the majority, and resist the authority of reason. But a
democracy can only obtain truth as the result of experience; and
many nations may forfeit their existence, while they are awaiting
the consequences of their errors.

The great privilege of the Americans does not simply consist in
their being more enlightened than other nations, but in their
being able to repair the faults they may commit. To which it
must be added, that a democracy cannot derive substantial benefit
from past experience, unless it be arrived at a certain pitch of
knowledge and civilisation. There are tribes and peoples whose
education has been so vicious, and whose character presents so
strange a mixture of passion, of ignorance, and of erroneous
notions upon all subjects, that they are unable to discern the
cause of their own wretchedness, and they fall a sacrifice to
ills with which they are unacquainted.

I have crossed vast tracts of country that were formerly
inhabited by powerful Indian nations which are now extinct; I
have myself passed some time in the midst of mutilated tribes,
which see the daily decline of their numerical strength, and of
the glory of their independence; and I have heard these Indians
themselves anticipate the impending doom of their race. Every
European can perceive means which would rescue these unfortunate
beings from inevitable destruction. They alone are insensible to
the expedient; they feel the wo which year after year heaps upon
their heads, but they will perish to a man without accepting the
remedy. It would be necessary to employ force to induce them to
submit to the protection and the constraint of civilisation.

The incessant revolutions which have convulsed the South American
provinces for the last quarter of a century have frequently been
adverted to with astonishment, and expectations have been
expressed that those nations would speedily return to their
natural state. But can it be affirmed that the turmoil of
revolution is not actually the most natural state of the South
American Spaniards at the present time?  In that country society
is plunged into difficulties from which all its efforts are
insufficient to rescue it. The inhabitants of that fair portion
of the western hemisphere seem obstinately bent on pursuing the
work of inward havoc. If they fall into a momentary repose from
the effects of exhaustion, that repose prepares them for a fresh
state of phrensy. When I consider their condition, which
alternates between misery and crime, I should be inclined to
believe that despotism itself would be a benefit to them, if it
were possible that the words despotism and benefit could ever be
united in my mind.

       *       *       *       *       *


      CONDUCT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS BY THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

Direction given to the foreign Policy of the United States by
  Washington and Jefferson.--Almost all the defects inherent in
  democratic Institutions are brought to light in the Conduct of
  foreign Affairs.--Their advantages are less perceptible.


We have seen that the federal constitution intrusts the permanent
direction of the external interests of the nation to the
president and the senate;[Footnote:

"The president," says the constitution, art. ii., sect. 2,  2,
"shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the
senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators
present concur." The reader is reminded that the senators are
returned for a term of six years, and that they are chosen by the
legislature of each state.

] which tends in some degree to detach the general foreign policy
of the Union from the control of the people. It cannot therefore
be asserted, with truth, that the external affairs of state are
conducted by the democracy. The policy of America owes its rise
to Washington, and after him to Jefferson, who established those
principles which it observes at the present day. Washington
said, in the admirable letter which he addressed to his
fellow-citizens, and which may be looked upon as his political
bequest to the country:--

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations
is, extending our commercial relations, to have with them as
little _political_ connexion as possible. So far as we have
already formed engagements, let them lie fulfilled with perfect
good faith. Here let us stop.

"Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or
a very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent
controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our
concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate
ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of
her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her
friendships or enmities.

"Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to
pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an
efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy
material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an
attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve
upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations,
under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not
lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose
peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?  Why quit
our own to stand upon foreign ground?  Why, by interweaving our
destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and
prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship,
interest, humor, or caprice?

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with
any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now
at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of
patronising infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim
no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that
honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let
those engagements be observed in their genuine sense; but in my
opinion it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to extend them.

"Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable
establishments, in a respectable defensive posture, we may safely
trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."

In a previous part of the same letter, Washington makes the
following admirable and just remark: "The nation which indulges
toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is,
in some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or its
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from
its duty and its interest."

The political conduct of Washington was always guided by these
maxims. He succeeded in maintaining his country in a state of
peace, while all the other nations of the globe were at war; and
he laid it down as a fundamental doctrine, that the true interest
of the Americans consisted in a perfect neutrality with regard to
the internal dissensions of the European powers.

Jefferson went still farther, and introduced a maxim into the
policy of the Union, which affirms, that "the Americans ought
never to solicit any privileges from foreign nations, in order
not to be obliged to grant similar privileges themselves."

These two principles, which were so plain and so just as to be
adapted to the capacity of the populace, have greatly simplified
the foreign policy of the United States. As the Union takes no
part in the affairs of Europe, it has, properly speaking, no
foreign interests to discuss, since it has at present no powerful
neighbors on the American continent. The country is as much
removed from the passions of the Old World by its position, as by
the line of policy which it has chosen; and it is neither called
upon to repudiate nor to espouse the conflicting interests of
Europe; while the dissensions of the New World are still
concealed within the bosom of the future.

The Union is free from all pre-existing obligations; and it is
consequently enabled to profit by the experience of the old
nations of Europe, without being obliged, as they are, to make
the best of the past, and to adapt it to their present
circumstances; or to accept that immense inheritance which they
derive from their forefathers--an inheritance of glory mingled
with calamities, and of alliances conflicting with national
antipathies. The foreign policy of the United States is reduced
by its very nature to await the chances of the future history of
the nation; and for the present it consists more in abstaining
from interference than in exerting its activity.

It is therefore very difficult to ascertain, at present, what
degree of sagacity the American democracy will display in the
conduct of the foreign policy of the country; and upon this point
its adversaries, as well as its advocates, must suspend their
judgment. As for myself, I have no hesitation in avowing my
conviction, that it is most especially in the conduct of foreign
relations, that democratic governments appear to me to be
decidedly inferior to governments carried on upon different
principles. Experience, instruction, and habit, may almost
always succeed in creating a species of practical discretion in
democracies, and that science of the daily occurrences of life
which is called good sense. Good sense may suffice to direct the
ordinary course of society; and among a people whose education
has been provided for, the advantages of democratic liberty in
the internal affairs of the country may more than compensate for
the evils inherent in a democratic government. But such is not
always the case in the mutual relations of foreign nations.

Foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which a
democracy possesses; and they require, on the contrary, the
perfect use of almost all those faculties in which it is
deficient. Democracy is favorable to the increase of the
internal resources of a state; it tends to diffuse a moderate
independence; it promotes the growth of public spirit, and
fortifies the respect which is entertained for law in all classes
of society: and these are advantages which only exercise an
indirect influence over the relations which one people bears to
another. But a democracy is unable to regulate the details of an
important undertaking, to persevere in a design, and to work out
its execution in the presence of serious obstacles. It cannot
combine its measures with secrecy, and will not await their
consequences with patience. These are qualities which more
especially belong to an individual or to an aristocracy; and they
are precisely the means by which an individual people attains a
predominant position.

If, on the contrary, we observe the natural defects of
aristocracy, we shall find that their influence is comparatively
innoxious in the direction of the external affairs of a state.
The capital fault of which aristocratic bodies may be accused, is
that they are more apt to contrive their own advantage than that
of the mass of the people. In foreign politics it is rare for
the interest of the aristocracy to be in any way distinct from
that of the people.

The propensity which democracies have to obey the impulse of
passion rather than the suggestions of prudence, and to abandon a
mature design for the gratification of a momentary caprice, was
very clearly seen in America on the breaking out of the French
revolution. It was then as evident to the simplest capacity as
it is at the present time, that the interests of the Americans
forbade them to take any part in the contest which was about to
deluge Europe with blood, but which could by no means injure the
welfare of their own country. Nevertheless the sympathies of the
people declared themselves with so much violence in behalf of
France, that nothing but the inflexible character of Washington,
and the immense popularity which he enjoyed, could have prevented
the Americans from declaring war against England. And even then,
the exertions, which the austere reason of that great man made to
repress the generous but imprudent passions of his
fellow-citizens, very nearly deprived him of the sole recompense
which he had ever claimed--that of his country's love. The
majority then reprobated the line of policy which he adopted and
which has since been unanimously approved by the
nation.[Footnote:

See the fifth volume of Marshall's Life of Washington. "In a
government constituted like that of the United States," he says,
"it is impossible for the chief magistrate, however firm he may
be, to oppose for any length of time the torrents of popular
opinion; and the prevalent opinion of that day seemed to incline
to war. In fact, in the session of congress held at the time, it
was frequently seen that Washington had lost the majority in the
house of representatives." The violence of the language used
against him in public was extreme, and in a political meeting
they did not scruple to compare him indirectly to the treacherous
Arnold. "By the opposition," says Marshall, "the friends of the
administration were declared to be an aristocratic and corrupt
faction, who, from a desire to introduce monarchy, were hostile
to France, and under the influence of Britain; that they were a
paper nobility, whose extreme sensibility at every measure which
threatened the funds, induced a tame submission to injuries and
insults, which the interests and honor of the nation required
them to resist."

]

If the constitution and the favor of the public had not intrusted
the direction of the foreign affairs of the country to
Washington, it is certain that the American nation would at that
time have taken the very measures which it now condemns.

Almost all the nations which have exercised a powerful influence
upon the destinies of the world, by conceiving, following up, and
executing vast designs--from the Romans to the English--have been
governed by aristocratic institutions. Nor will this be a
subject of wonder when we recollect that nothing in the world has
so absolute a fixity of purpose as an aristocracy. The mass of
the people may be led astray by ignorance or passion; the mind of
a king may be biased, and his perseverance in his designs may be
shaken--beside which a king is not immortal; but an aristocratic
body is too numerous to be led astray by the blandishments of
intrigue, and yet not numerous enough to yield readily to the
intoxicating influence of unreflecting passion: it has the energy
of a firm and enlightened individual, added to the power which it
derives from its perpetuity.

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER XIV.


       WHAT THE REAL ADVANTAGES ARE WHICH AMERICAN SOCIETY
          DERIVES FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DEMOCRACY.


Before I enter upon the subject of the present chapter, I am
induced to remind the reader of what I have more than once
adverted to in the course of this book. The political
institution of the United states appear to me to be one of the
forms of government which a democracy may adopt, but I do not
regard the American constitution as the best, or as the only one
which a democratic people may establish. In showing the
advantages which the Americans derive from the government of
democracy, I am therefore very far from meaning, or from
believing, that similar advantages can be obtained only from the
same laws.

       *       *       *       *       *


       GENERAL TENDENCY OF THE LAWS UNDER THE RULE OF THE
        AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, AND HABITS OF THOSE WHO APPLY
                              THEM.

Defects of a democratic Government easy to be discovered.--Its
  advantages only to be discerned by long Observation.--Democracy
  in America often inexpert, but the general Tendency of the Laws
  advantageous.--In the American Democracy public Officers have
  no permanent Interests distinct from those of the
  Majority.--Result of this State of Things.


The defects and the weaknesses of a democratic government may
very readily be discovered; they are demonstrated by the most
flagrant instances, while its beneficial influence is less
perceptibly exercised. A single glance suffices to detect its
evil consequences, but its good qualities can only be discerned
by long observation. The laws of the American democracy are
frequently defective or incomplete; they sometimes attack vested
rights, or give a sanction to others which are dangerous to the
community; but even if they were good, the frequent changes which
they undergo would be an evil. How comes it, then, that the
American republics prosper, and maintain their position?

In the consideration of laws, a distinction must be carefully
observed between the end at which they aim, and the means by
which they are directed to that end; between their absolute and
their relative excellence. If it be the intention of the
legislator to favor the interests of the minority at the expense
of the majority, and if the measures he takes are so combined as
to accomplish the object he has in view with the least possible
expense of time and exertion, the law may be well drawn up,
although its purpose be bad; and the more efficacious it is, the
greater is the mischief which it causes.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the
greatest possible number; for they emanate from a majority of the
citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an
interest opposed to their own advantage. The laws of an
aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to concentrate wealth and
power in the hands of the minority, because an aristocracy, by
its very nature, constitutes a minority. It may therefore be
asserted, as a general proposition, that the purpose of a
democracy, in the conduct of its legislation, is useful to a
greater number of citizens than that of an aristocracy. This is,
however, the sum total of its advantages.

Aristocracies are infinitely more expert in the science of
legislation than democracies ever can be. They are possessed of
a self-control which protects them from the errors of a temporary
excitement; and they form lasting designs which they mature with
the assistance of favorable opportunities. Aristocratic
government proceeds with the dexterity of art; it understands how
to make the collective force of all its laws converge at the same
time to a given point. Such is not the case with democracies,
whose laws are almost always ineffective, or inopportune. The
means of democracy are therefore more imperfect than those of
aristocracy, and the measures which it unwittingly adopts are
frequently opposed to its own cause; but the object it has in
view is more useful.

Let us now imagine a community so organized by nature, or by its
constitution, that it can support the transitory action of bad
laws, and it can await, without destruction, the general tendency
of the legislation: we shall then be able to conceive that a
democratic government, notwithstanding its defects, will be most
fitted to conduce to the prosperity of this community. This is
precisely what has occurred in the United States; and I repeat,
what I have before remarked, that the great advantage of the
Americans consists in their being able to commit faults which
they may afterward repair.

An analogous observation may be made respecting officers. It is
easy to perceive that the American democracy frequently errs in
the choice of the individuals to whom it intrusts the power of
the administration; but it is more difficult to say why the state
prospers under their rule. In the first place it is to be
remarked, that if in a democratic state the governors have less
honesty and less capacity than elsewhere, the governed on the
other hand are more enlightened and more attentive to their
interests. As the people in democracies is more incessantly
vigilant in its affairs, and more jealous of its rights, it
prevents its representatives from abandoning that general line of
conduct which its own interest prescribes. In the second place,
it must be remembered that if the democratic magistrate is more
apt to misuse his power, he possesses it for a shorter period of
time. But there is yet another reason which is still more
general and conclusive. It is no doubt of importance to the
welfare of nations that they should be governed by men of talents
and virtue; but it is perhaps still more important that the
interests of those men should not differ from the interests of
the community at large; for if such were the case, virtues of a
high order might become useless, and talents might be turned to a
bad account.

I say that it is important that the interests of the persons in
authority should not conflict with or oppose the interests of the
community at large; but I do not insist upon their having the
same interests as the _whole_ population, because I am not
aware that such a state of things ever existed in any country.

No political form has hitherto been discovered, which is equally
favorable to the prosperity and the development of all the
classes into which society is divided. These classes continue to
form, as it were, a certain number of distinct nations in the
same nation; and experience has shown that it is no less
dangerous to place the fate of these classes exclusively in the
hands of any one of them, than it is to make one people the
arbiter of the destiny of another. When the rich alone govern,
the interest of the poor is always endangered; and when the poor
make the laws, that of the rich incurs very serious risks. The
advantage of democracy does not consist, therefore, as has been
sometimes asserted, in favoring the prosperity of all, but simply
in contributing to the well-being of the greatest possible
number.

The men who are entrusted with the direction of public affairs in
the United States, are frequently inferior, both in point of
capacity and of morality, to those whom aristocratic institutions
would raise to power. But their interest is identified and
confounded with that of the majority of their fellow-citizens.
They may frequently be faithless, and frequently mistake; but
they will never systematically adopt a line of conduct opposed to
the will of the majority; and it is impossible that they should
give a dangerous or an exclusive tendency to the government.

The mal-administration of a democratic magistrate is a mere
isolated fact, which only occurs during the short period for
which he is elected. Corruption and incapacity do not act as
common interests, which may connect men permanently with one
another. A corrupt or an incapable magistrate will concert his
measures with another magistrate, simply because that individual
is as corrupt and as incapable as himself; and these two men will
never unite their endeavors to promote the corruption and
inaptitude of their remote posterity. The ambition and
manoeuvres of the one will serve, on the contrary, to unmask the
other. The vices of a magistrate, in democratic states, are
usually peculiar to his own person.

But under aristocratic governments public men are swayed by the
interests of their order, which, if it is sometimes confounded
with the interests of the majority, is very frequently distinct
from them. This interest is the common and lasting bond which
unites them together; it induces them to coalesce, and to combine
their efforts in order to attain an end which does not always
ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number; and it
serves not only to connect the persons in authority, but to unite
them to a considerable portion of the community, since a numerous
body of citizens belongs to the aristocracy, without being
invested with official functions. The aristocratic magistrate is
therefore constantly supported by a portion of the community, as
well as by the government of which he is a member.

The common purpose which connects the interest of the magistrates
in aristocracies, with that of a portion of their contemporaries,
identifies it with that of future generations; their influence
belongs to the future as much as to the present. The
aristocratic magistrate is urged at the same time toward the same
point, by the passions of the community, by his own, and I may
almost add, by those of his posterity. Is it, then, wonderful
that he does not resist such repeated impulses?  And, indeed,
aristocracies are often carried away by the spirit of their order
without being corrupted by it; and they unconsciously fashion
society to their own ends, and prepare it for their own
descendants.

The English aristocracy is perhaps the most liberal which ever
existed, and no body of men has ever, uninterruptedly, furnished
so many honorable and enlightened individuals to the government
of a country. It cannot, however, escape observation, that in
the legislation of England the good of the poor has been
sacrificed to the advantage of the rich, and the rights of the
majority to the privileges of the few. The consequence is, that
England, at the present day, combines the extremes of fortune in
the bosom of her society; and her perils and calamities are
almost equal to her power and her renown.

In the United States, where the public officers have no interests
to promote connected with their caste, the general and constant
influence of the government is beneficial, although the
individuals who conduct it are frequently unskilful and sometimes
contemptible. There is, indeed, a secret tendency in democratic
institutions to render the exertions of the citizens subservient
to the prosperity of the community, notwithstanding their private
vices and mistakes; while in aristocratic institutions there is a
secret propensity, which, notwithstanding the talents and the
virtues of those who conduct the government, leads them to
contribute to the evils which oppress their fellow creatures. In
aristocratic governments public men may frequently do injuries
which they do not intend; and in democratic states they produce
advantages which they never thought of.

       *       *       *       *       *


               PUBLIC SPIRIT IN THE UNITED STATES.

Patriotism of Instinct.--Patriotism of Reflection.--Their
  different Characteristics.--Nations ought to strive to acquire
  the second when the first has disappeared.--Efforts of the
  Americans to acquire it.--Interest of the Individual intimately
  connected with that of the Country.


There is one sort of patriotic attachment which principally
arises from that instinctive, disinterested, and undefinable
feeling which connects the affections of man with his birthplace.
This natural fondness is united to a taste for ancient customs,
and to a reverence for ancestral traditions of the past; those
who cherish it love their country as they love the mansion of
their fathers. They enjoy the tranquillity which it affords
them; they cling to the peaceful habits which they have
contracted within its bosom; they are attached to the
reminiscences which it awakens, and they are even pleased by the
state of obedience in which they are placed. This patriotism is
sometimes stimulated by religious enthusiasm, and then it is
capable of making the most prodigious efforts. It is in itself a
kind of religion; it does not reason, but it acts from the
impulse of faith and of sentiment. By some nations the monarch
has been regarded as a personification of the country; and the
fervor of patriotism being converted into the fervor of loyalty,
they took a sympathetic pride in his conquests, and gloried in
his power. At one time, under the ancient monarchy, the French
felt a sort of satisfaction in the sense of their dependence upon
the arbitrary pleasure of their king, and they were wont to say
with pride: "We are the subjects of the most powerful king in the
world."

But, like all instinctive passions, this kind of patriotism is
more apt to prompt transient exertion than to supply the motives
of continuous endeavor. It may save the state in critical
circumstances, but it will not unfrequently allow the nation to
decline in the midst of peace. While the manners of a people are
simple, and its faith unshaken, while society is steadily based
upon traditional institutions, whose legitimacy has never been
contested, this instinctive patriotism is wont to endure.

But there is another species of attachment to a country which is
more rational than the one we have been describing. It is
perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more fruitful
and more lasting; it is coeval with the spread of knowledge, it
is nurtured by the laws, it grows by the exercise of civil
rights, and in the end, it is confounded with the personal
interest of the citizen. A man comprehends the influence which
the prosperity of his country has upon his own welfare; he is
aware that the laws authorize him to contribute his assistance to
that prosperity, and he labors to promote it as a portion of his
interest in the first place, and as a portion of his right in the
second.

But epochs sometimes occur, in the course of the existence of a
nation, at which the ancient customs of a people are changed,
public morality destroyed, religious belief disturbed, and the
spell of tradition broken, while the diffusion of knowledge is
yet imperfect, and the civil rights of the community are ill
secured, or confined within very narrow limits. The country then
assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of the citizens; they
no longer behold it in the soil which they inhabit, for that soil
is to them a dull inanimate clod; nor in the usages of their
forefathers, which they have been taught to look upon as a
debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they doubt; nor in
the laws, which do not originate in their own authority; nor in
the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost
to their senses, they can neither discover it under its own, nor
under borrowed features, and they intrench themselves within the
dull precincts of a narrow egotism. They are emancipated from
prejudice, without having acknowledged the empire of reason; they
are animated neither by the instinctive patriotism of monarchical
subjects, nor by the thinking patriotism of republican citizens;
but they have stopped half-way between the two, in the midst of
confusion and of distress.

In this predicament, to retreat is impossible; for a people
cannot restore the vivacity of its earlier times, any more than a
man can return to the innocence and the bloom of childhood; such
things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. The only
thing, then, which remains to be done, is to proceed, and to
accelerate the union of private with public interests, since the
period of disinterested patriotism is gone by for ever.

I am certainly very far from averring, that, in order to obtain
this result, the exercise of political rights should be
immediately granted to all the members of the community. But I
maintain that the most powerful, and perhaps the only means of
interesting men in the welfare of their country, which we still
possess, is to make them partakers in the government. At the
present time civic zeal seems to me to be inseparable from the
exercise of political rights; and I hold that the number of
citizens will be found to augment or decrease in Europe in
proportion as those rights are extended.

In the United States, the inhabitants were thrown but as
yesterday upon the soil which they now occupy, and they brought
neither customs nor traditions with them there; they meet each
other for the first time with no previous acquaintance; in short,
the instinctive love of their country can scarcely exist in their
minds; but every one takes as zealous an interest in the affairs
of his township, his country, and of the whole state, as if they
were his own, because every one, in his sphere, takes an active
part in the government of society.

The lower orders in the United States are alive to the perception
of the influence exercised by the general prosperity upon their
own welfare; and simple as this observation is, it is one which
is but too rarely made by the people. But in America the people
regard this prosperity as the result of its own exertions; the
citizen looks upon the fortune of the public as his private
interest, and he co-operates in its success, not so much from a
sense of pride or of duty, as from what I shall venture to term
cupidity.

It is unnecessary to study the institutions and the history of
the Americans in order to discover the truth of this remark, for
their manners render it sufficiently evident. As the American
participates in all that is done in his country, he thinks
himself obliged to defend whatever may be censured; for it is not
only his country which is attacked upon these occasions, but it
is himself. The consequence is that his national pride resorts
to a thousand artifices, and to all the petty tricks of
individual vanity.

Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse of life
than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A stranger may
be well inclined to praise many of the institutions of their
country, but he begs permission to blame some of the
peculiarities which he observes--a permission which is however
inexorably refused. America is therefore a free country, in
which, lest anybody should be hurt by your remarks, you are not
allowed to speak freely of private individuals or of the state;
of the citizens or of the authorities; of public or of private
undertakings; or, in short, of anything at all, except it be of
the climate and the soil; and even then Americans will be found
ready to defend either the one or the other, as if they had been
contrived by the inhabitants of the country.

In our times, option must be made between the patriotism of all
and the government of a few; for the force and activity which the
first confers, are irreconcilable with the guarantees of
tranquillity which the second furnishes.

       *       *       *       *       *


             NOTION OF RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES.

No great People without a Notion of Rights.--How the Notion of
  Rights can be given to a People.--Respect of Rights in the
  United States.--Whence it arises.


After the idea of virtue, I am acquainted with no higher
principle than that of right; or, to speak more accurately, these
two ideas are commingled in one. The idea of right is simply
that of virtue introduced into the political world. It is the
idea of right which enabled men to define anarchy and tyranny;
and which taught them to remain independent without arrogance, as
well as to obey without servility. The man who submits to
violence is debased by his compliance; but when he obeys the
mandate of one who possesses that right of authority which he
acknowledges in a fellow creature, he rises in some measure above
the person who delivers the command. There are no great men
without virtue, and there are no great nations--it may also be
added that there would be no society--without the notion of
rights; for what is the condition of a mass of rational and
intelligent beings who are only united together by the bond of
force?

I am persuaded that the only means which we possess at the
present time of inculcating the notion of rights, and of
rendering it, as it were, palpable to the senses, is to invest
all the members of the community with the peaceful exercise of
certain rights: this is very clearly seen in children, who are
men without the strength and the experience of manhood. When a
child begins to move in the midst of the objects which surround
him, he is instinctively led to turn everything which he can lay
his hands upon to his own purpose; he has no notion of the
property of others; but as he gradually learns the value of
things, and begins to perceive that he may in his turn be
deprived of his possessions, he becomes more circumspect, and he
observes those rights in others which he wishes to have respected
in himself. The principle which the child derives from the
possession of his toys, is taught to the man by the objects which
he may call his own. In America those complaints against
property in general, which are so frequent in Europe, are never
heard, because in America there are no paupers; and as every one
has property of his own to defend, every one recognizes the
principle upon which he holds it.

The same thing occurs in the political world. In America the
lowest classes have conceived a very high notion of political
rights, because they exercise those rights; and they refrain from
attacking those of other people, in order to ensure their own
from attack. While in Europe the same classes sometimes
recalcitrate even against the supreme power, the American submits
without a murmur to the authority of the pettiest magistrate.

This truth is exemplified by the most trivial details of national
peculiarities. In France very few pleasures are exclusively
reserved for the higher classes; the poor are admitted wherever
the rich are received; and they consequently behave with
propriety, and respect whatever contributes to the enjoyments in
which they themselves participate. In England, where wealth has
a monopoly of amusement as well as of power, complaints are made
that whenever the poor happen to steal into the enclosures which
are reserved for the pleasures of the rich, they commit acts of
wanton mischief: can this be wondered at, since care has been
taken that they should have nothing to lose?

The government of the democracy brings the notion of political
rights to the level of the humblest citizens, just as the
dissemination of wealth brings the notion of property within the
reach of all the members of the community; and I confess that, to
my mind, this is one of its greatest advantages. I do not assert
that it is easy to teach men to exercise political rights; but I
maintain that when it is possible, the effects which result from
it are highly important: and I add that if there ever was a time
at which such an attempt ought to be made, that time is our own.
It is clear that the influence of religious belief is shaken, and
that the notion of divine rights is declining; it is evident that
public morality is vitiated, and the notion of moral rights is
also disappearing: these are general symptoms of the substitution
of argument for faith, and of calculation for the impulses of
sentiment. If, in the midst of this general disruption, you do
not succeed in connecting the notion of rights with that of
personal interest, which is the only immutable point in the human
heart, what means will you have of governing the world except by
fear?  When I am told that since the laws are weak and the
populace is wild, since passions are excited and the authority of
virtue is paralyzed, no measures must be taken to increase the
rights of the democracy; I reply that it is for these very
reasons that some measures of the kind must be taken; and I am
persuaded that governments are still more interested in taking
them than society at large, because governments are liable to be
destroyed, and society cannot perish.

I am not, however, inclined to exaggerate the example which
America furnishes. In those states the people was invested with
political rights at a time when they could scarcely be abused,
for the citizens were few in number and simple in their manners.
As they have increased, the Americans have not augmented the
power of the democracy, but they have, if I may use the
expression, extended its dominions.

It cannot be doubted that the moment at which political rights
are granted to a people that had before been without them, is a
very critical, though it be a very necessary one. A child may
kill before he is aware of the value of life; and he may deprive
another person of his property before he is aware that his own
may be taken away from him. The lower orders, when first they
are invested with political rights, stand in relation to those
rights, in the same position as a child does to the whole of
nature, and the celebrated adage may then be applied to them,
_Homo, puer robustus_. This truth may even be perceived in
America. The states in which the citizens have enjoyed their
rights longest are those in which they make the best use of them.

It cannot be repeated too often that nothing is more fertile in
prodigies than the art of being free; but there is nothing more
arduous than the apprenticeship of liberty. Such is not the case
with despotic institutions; despotism often promises to make
amends for a thousand previous ills; it supports the right, it
protects the oppressed, and it maintains public order. The
nation is lulled by the temporary prosperity which accrues to it,
until it is roused to a sense of its own misery. Liberty, on the
contrary, is generally established in the midst of agitation, it
is perfected by civil discord, and its benefits cannot be
appreciated until it is already old.

       *       *       *       *       *


            RESPECT FOR THE LAW IN THE UNITED STATES.

Respect of the Americans for the Law.--Parental Affection which
  they entertain for it.--Personal Interest of every one to
  increase the Authority of the Law.


It is not always feasible to consult the whole people, either
directly or indirectly, in the formation of the law; but it
cannot be denied that when such a measure is possible, the
authority of the law is very much augmented. This popular
origin, which impairs the excellence and the wisdom of
legislation, contributes prodigiously to increase its power.
There is an amazing strength in the expression of the
determination of a whole people; and when it declares itself, the
imagination of those who are most inclined to contest it, is
overawed by its authority. The truth of this fact is very well
known by parties; and they consequently strive to make out a
majority whenever they can. If they have not the greater number
of voters on their side, they assert that the true majority
abstained from voting; and if they are foiled even there, they
have recourse to the body of those persons who had no votes to
give.

In the United States, except slaves, servants, and paupers in the
receipt of relief from the townships, there is no class of
persons who do not exercise the elective franchise, and who do
not contribute indirectly to make the laws. Those who design to
attack the laws must consequently either modify the opinion of
the nation or trample upon its decision.

A second reason, which is still more weighty, may be farther
adduced: in the United States every one is personally interested
in enforcing the obedience of the whole community to the law; for
as the minority may shortly rally the majority to its principles,
it is interested in professing that respect for the decrees of
the legislator, which it may soon have occasion to claim for its
own. However irksome an enactment may be, the citizen of the
United States complies with it, not only because it is the work
of the majority, but because it originates in his own authority;
and he regards it as a contract to which he is himself a party.

In the United States, then, that numerous and turbulent multitude
does not exist, which always looks upon the law as its natural
enemy, and accordingly surveys it with fear and with distrust.
It is impossible, on the other hand, not to perceive that all
classes display the utmost reliance upon the legislation of their
country, and that they are attached to it by a kind of parental
affection.

I am wrong, however, in saying all classes; for as in America the
European scale of authority is inverted, the wealthy are there
placed in a position analogous to that of the poor in the Old
World, and it is the opulent classes which frequently look upon
the law with suspicion. I have already observed that the
advantage of democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted,
that it protects the interests of the whole community, but simply
that it protects those of the majority. In the United States,
where the poor rule, the rich have always some reason to dread
the abuses of their power. This natural anxiety of the rich may
produce a sullen dissatisfaction, but society is not disturbed by
it; for the same reason which induces the rich to withhold their
confidence in the legislative authority, makes them obey its
mandates; their wealth, which prevents them from making the law,
prevents them from withstanding it. Among civilized nations
revolts are rarely excited except by such persons as have nothing
to lose by them; and if the laws of a democracy are not always
worthy of respect, at least they always obtain it; for those who
usually infringe the laws have no excuse for not complying with
the enactments they have themselves made, and by which they are
themselves benefited, while the citizens whose interests might be
promoted by the infraction of them, are induced, by their
character and their station, to submit to the decisions of the
legislature, whatever they may be. Beside which, the people in
America obeys the law not only because it emanates from the
popular authority, but because that authority may modify it in
any points which may prove vexatory; a law is observed because it
is a self-imposed evil in the first place, and an evil of
transient duration in the second.

       *       *       *       *       *


      ACTIVITY WHICH PERVADES ALL THE BRANCHES OF THE BODY
   POLITIC IN THE UNITED STATES; INFLUENCE WHICH IT EXERCISES
                          UPON SOCIETY.

More difficult to conceive the political Activity which pervades
  the United States than the Freedom and Equality which reign
  here.--The great activity which perpetually agitates the
  legislative Bodies is only an Episode to the general
  Activity.--Difficult for an American to confine himself to his
  own Business.--Political Agitation extends to all social
  intercourse.--Commercial Activity of the Americans partly
  attributable to this cause.--Indirect Advantages which Society
  derives from a democratic Government.


On passing from a country in which free institutions are
established to one where they do not exist, the traveller is
struck by the change; in the former all is bustle and activity,
in the latter everything is calm and motionless. In the one,
melioration and progress are the general topics of inquiry; in
the other, it seems as if the community only aspired to repose in
the enjoyment of the advantages which it has acquired.
Nevertheless, the country which exerts itself so strenuously to
promote its welfare is generally more wealthy and more prosperous
than that which appears to be so contented with its lot; and when
we compare them together, we can scarcely conceive how so many
new wants are daily felt in the former, while so few seem to
occur in the latter.

If this remark is applicable to those free countries in which
monarchical and aristocratic institutions subsist, it is still
more striking with regard to democratic republics. In these
states it is not only a portion of the people which is busied
with the melioration of its social condition, but the whole
community is engaged in the task; and it is not the exigencies
and the convenience of a single class for which a provision is to
be made, but the exigencies and the convenience of all ranks of
life.

It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which the
Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of the extreme
equality which subsists among them; but the political activity
which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be
understood. No sooner do you set foot upon the American soil
than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused clamor is
heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand
the immediate satisfaction of their social wants. Everything is
in motion around you; here, the people of one quarter of a town
are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the
election of a representative is going on; a little further, the
delegates of a district are posting to the town in order to
consult upon some local improvements; or, in another place, the
laborers of a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon the
project of a road or a public school. Meetings are called for
the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation of the line of
conduct pursued by the government; while in other assemblies the
citizens salute the authorities of the day as the fathers of
their country. Societies are formed, which regard drunkenness as
the principal cause of the evils under which the state labors,
and which solemnly bind themselves to give a constant example of
temperance.[Footnote:

At the time of my stay in the United States the temperance
societies already consisted of more than 270,000 members; and
their effect had been to diminish the consumption of fermented
liquors by 500,000 gallons per annum in the state of Pennsylvania
alone.

]

The great political agitation of the American legislative bodies,
which is the only kind of excitement that attracts the attention
of foreign countries, is a mere episode or a sort of continuation
of that universal movement which originates in the lowest classes
of the people and extends successively to all the ranks of
society. It is impossible to spend more efforts in the pursuit
of enjoyment.

The cares of political life engross a most prominent place in the
occupation of a citizen in the United States; and almost the only
pleasure of which an American has any idea, is to take a part in
the government, and to discuss the part he has taken. This
feeling pervades the most trifling habits of life; even the women
frequently attend public meetings, and listen to political
harangues as a recreation after their household labors. Debating
clubs are to a certain extent a substitute for theatrical
entertainments: an American cannot converse, but he can discuss;
and when he attempts to talk he falls into a dissertation. He
speaks to you as if he were addressing a meeting; and if he
should warm in the course of the discussion, he will infallibly
say "gentlemen," to the person with whom he is conversing.

In some countries the inhabitants display a certain repugnance to
avail themselves of the political privileges with which the law
invests them; it would seem that they set too high a value upon
their time to spend it on the interests of the community; and
they prefer to withdraw within the exact limits of a wholesome
egotism, marked out by four sunk fences and a quickset hedge.
But if an American were condemned to confine his activity to his
own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence; he
would feel an immense void in the life which he is accustomed to
lead, and his wretchedness would be unbearable.[Footnote:

The same remark was made at Rome under the first Cesars.
Montesquieu somewhere alludes to the excessive despondency of
certain Roman citizens who, after the excitement of political
life, were all at once flung back into the stagnation of private
life.

]  I am persuaded that if ever a despotic government is
established in America, it will find it more difficult to
surmount the habits which free institutions have engendered, than
to conquer the attachment of the citizens to freedom.

This ceaseless agitation which democratic government has
introduced into the political world, influences all social
intercourse. I am not sure that upon the whole this is not the
greatest advantage of democracy; and I am much less inclined to
applaud it for what it does, than for what it causes to be done.

It is incontestable that the people frequently conducts public
business very ill; but it is impossible that the lower orders
should take a part in public business without extending the
circle of their ideas, and without quitting the ordinary routine
of their mental acquirements. The humblest individual who is
called upon to co-operate in the government of society, acquires
a certain degree of self-respect; and as he possesses authority,
he can command the services of minds much more enlightened than
his own. He is canvassed by a multitude of applicants, who seek
to deceive him in a thousand different ways, but who instruct him
by their deceit. He takes a part in political undertakings which
did not originate in his own conception, but which give him a
taste for undertakings of the kind. New meliorations are daily
pointed out in the property which he holds in common with others,
and this gives him the desire of improving that property which is
more peculiarly his own. He is perhaps neither happier nor
better than those who came before him, but he is better informed
and more active. I have no doubt that the democratic
institutions of the United States, joined to the physical
constitution of the country, are the cause (not the direct, as is
so often asserted, but the indirect cause) of the prodigious
commercial activity of the inhabitants. It is not engendered by
the laws, but the people learns how to promote it by the
experience derived from legislation.

When the opponents of democracy assert that a single individual
performs the duties which he undertakes much better than the
government of the community, it appears to me that they are
perfectly right. The government of an individual, supposing an
equality of instruction on either side, is more consistent, more
persevering, and more accurate than that of a multitude, and it
is much better qualified judiciously to discriminate the
characters of the men it employs. If any deny what I advance,
they have certainly never seen a democratic government, or have
formed their opinion upon very partial evidence. It is true that
even when local circumstances and the disposition of the people
allow democratic institutions to subsist, they never display a
regular and methodical system of government. Democratic liberty
is far from accomplishing all the projects it undertakes, with
the skill of an adroit despotism. It frequently abandons them
before they have borne their fruits, or risks them when the
consequences may prove dangerous; but in the end it produces more
than any absolute government, and if it do fewer things well, it
does a great number of things. Under its sway, the transactions
of the public administration are not nearly so important as what
is done by private exertion. Democracy does not confer the most
skilful kind of government upon the people, but it produces that
which the most skilful governments are frequently unable to
awaken, namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a
superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it,
and which may, under favorable circumstances, beget the most
amazing benefits. These are the true advantages of democracy.

In the present age, when the destinies of Christendom seem to be
in suspense, some hasten to assail democracy as its foe while it
is yet in its early growth; and others are ready with their vows
of adoration for this new duty which is springing forth from
chaos: but both parties are very imperfectly acquainted with the
object of their hatred or of their desires; they strike in the
dark, and distribute their blows by mere chance.

We must first understand what the purport of society and the aim
of government are held to be. If it be your intention to confer
a certain elevation upon the human mind, and to teach it to
regard the things of this world with generous feelings; to
inspire men with a scorn of mere temporal advantage; to give
birth to living convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of
honorable devotedness; if you hold it to be a good thing to
refine the habits, to embellish the manners, to cultivate the
arts of a nation, and to promote the love of poetry, of beauty,
and of renown; if you would constitute a people not unfitted to
act with power upon all other nations; nor unprepared for those
high enterprises, which, whatever be the result of its efforts,
will leave a name for ever famous in time--if you believe such to
be the principal object of society, you must avoid the government
of democracy, which would be a very uncertain guide to the end
you have in view.

But if you hold it to be expedient to divert the moral and
intellectual activity of man to the production of comfort, and to
the acquirement of the necessaries of life; if a clear
understanding be more profitable to men than genius; if your
object be not to stimulate the virtues of heroism, but to create
habits of peace; if you had rather behold vices than crimes, and
are content to meet with fewer noble deeds, provided offences be
diminished in the same proportion; if, instead of living in the
midst of a brilliant state of society, you are contented to have
prosperity around you; if, in short, you are of opinion that the
principal object of a government is not to confer the greatest
possible share of power and of glory upon the body of the nation,
but to ensure the greatest degree of enjoyment, and the least
degree of misery, to each of the individuals who compose it--if
such be your desires, you can have no surer means of satisfying
them than by equalizing the condition of men, and establishing
democratic institutions.

But if the time be past at which such a choice was possible, and
if some superhuman power impel us toward one or the other of
these two governments without consulting our wishes, let us at
least endeavor to make the best of that which is allotted to us:
and let us so inquire into its good and its evil propensities as
to be able to foster the former, and repress the latter to the
utmost.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           CHAPTER XV.


      UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY IN THE UNITED STATES
                      AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Natural Strength of the Majority in Democracies.--Most of the
  American Constitutions have increased this Strength by
  artificial Means.--How this has been done.--Pledged
  Delegates.--Moral Power of the Majority.--Opinions as to its
  Infallibility.--Respect for its Rights, how augmented in the
  United States.


The very essence of democratic government consists in the
absolute sovereignty of the majority: for there is nothing in
democratic states which is capable of resisting it. Most of the
American constitutions have sought to increase this natural
strength of the majority by artificial means.[Footnote:

We observed in examining the federal constitution that the
efforts of the legislators of the Union had been diametrically
opposed to the present tendency. The consequence has been that
the federal government is more independent in its sphere than
that of the states. But the federal government scarcely ever
interferes in any but external affairs; and the governments of
the states are in reality the authorities which direct society in
America.

]

The legislature is, of all political institutions, the one which
is most easily swayed by the wishes of the majority. The
Americans determined that the members of the legislature should
be elected by the people immediately, and for a very brief term,
in order to subject them not only to the general convictions, but
even to the daily passions of their constituents. The members of
both houses are taken from the same class in society, and are
nominated in the same manner; so that the modifications of the
legislative bodies are almost as rapid and quite as irresistible
as those of a single assembly. It is to a legislature thus
constituted, that almost all the authority of the government has
been intrusted.

But while the law increased the strength of those authorities
which of themselves were strong, it enfeebled more and more those
which were naturally weak. It deprived the representatives of
the executive of all stability and independence; and by
subjecting them completely to the caprices of the legislature, it
robbed them completely of the slender influence which the nature
of a democratic government might have allowed them to retain. In
several states the judicial power was also submitted to the
elective discretion of the majority; and in all of them its
existence was made to depend on the pleasure of the legislative
authority, since the representatives were empowered annually to
regulate the stipend of the judges.

Custom, however, has done even more than law. A proceeding which
will in the end set all the guarantees of representative
government at naught, is becoming more and more general in the
United States: it frequently happens that the electors, who
choose a delegate, point out a certain line of conduct to him,
and impose upon him a certain number of positive obligations
which he is pledged to fulfil. With the exception of the tumult,
this comes to the same thing as if the majority of the populace
held its deliberations in the market-place.

Several other circumstances concur in rendering the power of the
majority in America, not only preponderant, but irresistible.
The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the
notion, that there is more intelligence and more wisdom in a
great number of men collected together than in a single
individual, and that the quantity of legislators is more
important than their quality. The theory of equality is in fact
applied to the intellect of man; and human pride is thus assailed
in its last retreat, by a doctrine which the minority hesitate to
admit, and in which they very slowly concur. Like all other
powers, and perhaps more than all other powers, the authority of
the many requires the sanction of time; at first it enforces
obedience by constraint; but its laws are not respected until
they have long been maintained.

The right of governing society, which the majority supposes
itself to derive from its superior intelligence, was introduced
into the United States by the first settlers; and this idea,
which would be sufficient of itself to create a free nation, has
now been amalgamated with the manners of the people, and the
minor incidents of social intercourse.

The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim (which is
still a fundamental principle of the English constitution), that
the king could do no wrong; and if he did wrong, the blame was
imputed to his advisers. This notion was highly favorable to
habits of obedience; and it enabled the subject to complain of
the law, without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The
Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the
majority.

The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another
principle, which is, that the interests of the many are to be
preferred to those of the few. It will readily be perceived that
the respect here professed for the rights of the majority must
naturally increase or diminish according to the state of parties.
When a nation is divided into several irreconcilable factions,
the privilege of the majority is often overlooked, because it is
intolerable to comply with its demands.

If there existed in America a class of citizens whom the
legislating majority sought to deprive of exclusive privileges,
which they had possessed for ages, and to bring down from an
elevated station to the level of the ranks of the multitude, it
is probable that the minority would be less ready to comply with
its laws. But as the United States were colonized by men holding
an equal rank among themselves, there is as yet no natural or
permanent source of dissension between the interests of its
different inhabitants.

There are certain communities in which the persons who constitute
the minority can never hope to draw over the majority to their
side, because they must then give up the very point which is at
issue between them. Thus, an aristocracy can never become a
majority while it retains its exclusive privileges, and it cannot
cede its privileges without ceasing to be an aristocracy.

In the United States, political questions cannot be taken up in
so general and absolute a manner; and all parties are willing to
recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope to
turn those rights to their own advantage at some future time.
The majority therefore in that country exercises a prodigious
actual authority, and a moral influence which is scarcely less
preponderant; no obstacles exist which can impede, or so much as
retard its progress, or which can induce it to heed the
complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. This state of
things is fatal in itself and dangerous for the future.

       *       *       *       *       *


      HOW THE UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY INCREASES, IN
 AMERICA, THE INSTABILITY OF LEGISLATION AND THE ADMINISTRATION
                     INHERENT IN DEMOCRACY.

The Americans increase the mutability of the Laws which is
  inherent in Democracy by changing the Legislature every Year,
  and by vesting it with unbounded Authority.--The same Effect is
  produced upon the Administration.--In America social
  Melioration is conducted more energetically, but less
  perseveringly than in Europe.


I have already spoken of the natural defects of democratic
institutions, and they all of them increase in the exact ratio of
the power of the majority. To begin with the most evident of
them all; the mutability of the laws is an evil inherent in
democratic government, because it is natural to democracies to
raise men to power in very rapid succession. But this evil is
more or less sensible in proportion to the authority and the
means of action which the legislature possesses.

In America the authority exercised by the legislative bodies is
supreme; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their wishes
with celerity, and with irresistible power, while they are
supplied by new representatives every year. That is to say, the
circumstances which contribute most powerfully to democratic
instability, and which admit of the free application of caprice
to every object in the state, are here in full operation. In
conformity with this principle, America is, at the present day,
the country in the world where laws last the shortest time.
Almost all the American constitutions have been amended within
the course of thirty years: there is, therefore, not a single
American state which has not modified the principles of its
legislation in that lapse of time. As for the laws themselves, a
single glance upon the archives of the different states of the
Union suffices to convince one, that in America the activity of
the legislator never slackens. Not that the American democracy
is naturally less stable than any other, but that it is allowed
to follow its capricious propensities in the formation of the
laws.[Footnote:

The legislative acts promulgated by the state of Massachusetts
alone, from the year 1780 to the present time, already fill three
stout volumes: and it must not be forgotten that the collection
to which I allude was published in 1823, when many old laws which
had fallen into disuse were omitted. The state of Massachusetts,
which is not more populous than a department of France, may be
considered as the most stable, the most consistent, and the most
sagacious in its undertakings of the whole Union.

]

The omnipotence of the majority and the rapid as well as absolute
manner in which its decisions are executed in the United States,
have not only the effect of rendering the law unstable, but they
exercise the same influence upon the execution of the law and the
conduct of the public administration. As the majority is the
only power which it is important to court, all its projects are
taken up with the greatest ardor; but no sooner is its attention
distracted, than all this ardor ceases; while in the free states
of Europe, the administration is at once independent and secure,
so that the projects of the legislature are put into execution,
although its immediate attention may be directed to other
objects.

In America certain meliorations are undertaken with much more
zeal and activity than elsewhere; in Europe the same ends are
promoted by much less social effort, more continuously applied.

Some years ago several pious individuals undertook to meliorate
the condition of the prisons. The public was excited by the
statements which they put forward, and the regeneration of
criminals became a very popular undertaking. New prisons were
built; and, for the first time, the idea of reforming as well as
of punishing the delinquent, formed a part of prison discipline.
But this happy alteration, in which the public had taken so
hearty an interest, and which the exertions of the citizens had
irresistibly accelerated, could not be completed in a moment.
While the new penitentiaries were being erected (and it was the
pleasure of the majority they should be terminated with all
possible celerity), the old prisons existed, which still
contained a great number of offenders. These jails became more
unwholesome and more corrupt in proportion as the new
establishments were beautified and improved, forming a contrast
which may readily be understood. The majority was so eagerly
employed in founding the new prisons, that those which already
existed were forgotten; and as the general attention was diverted
to a novel object, the care which had hitherto been bestowed upon
the others ceased. The salutary regulations of discipline were
first relaxed, and afterward broken; so that in the immediate
neighborhood of a prison which bore witness to the mild and
enlightened spirit of our time, dungeons might be met with, which
reminded the visitor of the barbarity of the middle ages.

       *       *       *       *       *


                    TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY.

How the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People is to be
  understood.--Impossibility of conceiving a mixed
  Government.--The sovereign Power must centre
  somewhere.--Precautions to be taken to control its
  Action.--These Precautions have not been taken in the United
  States.--Consequences.


I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that,
politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it
pleases; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in
the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with
myself?

A general law--which bears the name of justice--has been made and
sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by
a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are
consequently confined within the limits of what is just. A
nation may be considered in the light of a jury which is
empowered to represent society at large, and to apply the great
and general law of justice. Ought such a jury, which represents
society, to have more power than the society in which the laws it
applies originate?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right
which the majority has of commanding, but I simply appeal from
the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. It
has been asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the
boundaries of justice and of reason in those affairs which are
more peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may
fearlessly be given to the majority by which it is represented.
But this language is that of a slave.

A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being whose
opinions, and most frequently whose interests, are opposed to
those of another being, which is styled a minority. If it be
admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that
power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be
liable to the same reproach?  Men are not apt to change their
characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the
presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their
strength.[Footnote:

No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong another
people: but parties may be looked upon as lesser nations within a
greater one, and they are aliens to each other: if therefore it
be admitted that a nation can act tyrannically toward another
nation, it cannot be denied that a party may do the same toward
another party.

]  And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number
of my fellow-creatures with that unlimited authority which I
should refuse to any one of them.

I do not think it is possible to combine several principles in
the same government, so as at the same time to maintain freedom,
and really to oppose them to one another. The form of government
which is usually termed _mixed_ has always appeared to me to
be a mere chimera. Accurately speaking, there is no such thing
as a mixed government (with the meaning usually given to that
word), because in all communities some one principle of action
may be discovered, which preponderates over the others. England
in the last century, which has been more especially cited as an
example of this form of government, was in point of fact an
essentially aristocratic state, although it comprised very
powerful elements of democracy: for the laws and customs of the
country were such, that the aristocracy could not but
preponderate in the end, and subject the direction of public
affairs to its own will. The error arose from too much attention
being paid to the actual struggle which was going on between the
nobles and the people, without considering the probable issue of
the contest, which was in reality the important point. When a
community really has a mixed government, that is to say, when it
is equally divided between two adverse principles, it must either
pass through a revolution, or fall into complete dissolution.

I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always
be made to predominate over the others; but I think that liberty
is endangered when this power is checked by no obstacles which
may retard its course, and force it to moderate its own
vehemence.

Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; human
beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion; and God
alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are
always equal to his power. But no power upon earth is so worthy
of honor for itself, or of reverential obedience to the rights
which it represents, that I would consent to admit its
uncontrolled and all-predominate authority. When I see that the
right and the means of absolute command are conferred on a people
or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or
a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny, and I journey onward
to a land of more hopeful institutions.

In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic
institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often
asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their
overpowering strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the
excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as at the very
inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.

When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to
whom can he apply for redress?  If to public opinion, public
opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it
represents the majority, and implicitly obeys its instructions:
if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and is
a passive tool in its hands; the public troops consist of the
majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the
right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the
judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd
the evil of which you complain may be, you must submit to it as
well as you can.[Footnote:

A striking instance of the excesses which may be occasioned by
the despotism of the majority occurred at Baltimore in the year
1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A
journal which had taken the other side of the question excited
the indignation of the inhabitants by its opposition. The
populace assembled, broke the printing-presses, and attacked the
houses of the newspaper editors. The militia was called out, but
no one obeyed the call; and the only means of saving the poor
wretches who were threatened by the phrensy of the mob, was to
throw them into prison as common malefactors. But even this
precaution was ineffectual; the mob collected again during the
night; the magistrates again made a vain attempt to call out the
militia; the prison was forced, one of the newspaper editors was
killed upon the spot, and the others were left for dead: the
guilty parties were acquitted by the jury when they were brought
to trial.

I said one day to an inhabitant of Pennsylvania: "Be so good as
to explain to me how it happens, that in a state founded by
quakers, and celebrated for its toleration, freed blacks are not
allowed to exercise civil rights. They pay the taxes: is it not
fair that they should have a vote."

"You insult us," replied my informant, "if you imagine that our
legislators could have committed so gross an act of injustice and
intolerance."

"What, then, the blacks possess the right of voting in this
country?"

"Without the smallest doubt."

"How comes it then, that at the polling-booth this morning I did
not perceive a single negro in the whole meeting?"

"This is not the fault of the law; the negroes have the
undisputed right of voting; but they voluntarily abstain from
making their appearance."

"A very pretty piece of modesty on their parts," rejoined I.

"Why, the truth is, that they are not disinclined to vote, but
they are afraid of being maltreated; in this country the law is
sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the support of
the majority. But in this case the majority entertains very
strong prejudices against the blacks, and the magistrates are
unable to protect them in the exercise of their legal
privileges."

"What, then, the majority claims the right not only of making the
laws, but of breaking the laws it has made?"

]

If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so
constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily
being the slave of its passions; an executive, so as to retain a
certain degree of uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as
to remain independent of the two other powers; a government would
be formed which would still be democratic, without incurring any
risk of tyrannical abuse.

I do not say that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in America
at the present day; but I maintain that no sure barrier is
established against them, and that the causes which mitigate the
government are to be found in the circumstances and the manners
of the country more than its laws.

       *       *       *       *       *


       EFFECTS OF THE UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY UPON
         THE ARBITRARY AUTHORITY OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
                            OFFICERS.

Liberty left by the American Laws to public Officers within a
  certain Sphere.--Their Power.


A distinction must be drawn between tyranny and arbitrary power.
Tyranny may be exercised by means of the law, and in that case it
is not arbitrary; arbitrary power may be exercised for the good
of the community at large, in which case it is not tyrannical.
Tyranny usually employs arbitrary means, but, if necessary, it
can rule without them.

In the United States the unbounded power of the majority, which
is favorable to the legal despotism of the legislature, is
likewise favorable to the arbitrary authority of the magistrates.
The majority has an entire control over the law when it is made
and when it is executed; and as it possesses an equal authority
over those who are in power, and the community at large, it
considers public officers as its passive agents, and readily
confides the task of serving its designs to their vigilance. The
details of their office and the privileges which they are to
enjoy are rarely defined beforehand; but the majority treats them
as a master does his servants, when they are always at work in
his sight, and he has the power of directing or reprimanding them
at every instant.

In general the American functionaries are far more independent
than the French civil officers, within the sphere which is
prescribed to them. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by the
popular authority to exceed those bounds; and as they are
protected by the opinion, and backed by the cooperation of the
majority, they venture upon such manifestations of their power as
astonish a European. By this means habits are formed in the
heart of a free country which may some day prove fatal to its
liberties.

       *       *       *       *       *


    POWER EXERCISED BY THE MAJORITY IN AMERICA UPON OPINION.

In America, when the Majority has once irrevocably decided a
  Question, all Discussion ceases.--Reason of this.--Moral Power
  exercised by the Majority upon Opinion.--Democratic Republics
  have deprived Despotism of its physical Instruments.--Their
  Despotism sways the Minds of Men.


It is in the examination of the display of public opinion in the
United States, that we clearly perceive how far the power of the
majority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted in
Europe. Intellectual principles exercise an influence which is
so invisible and often so inappreciable, that they baffle the
toils of oppression. At the present time the most absolute
monarchs in Europe are unable to prevent certain notions, which
are opposed to their authority, from circulating in secret
throughout their dominions, and even in their courts. Such is
not the case in America; so long as the majority is still
undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision
is irrevocably pronounced, a submissive silence is observed; and
the friends, as well as the opponents of the measure, unite in
assenting to its propriety. The reason of this is perfectly
clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers of
society in his own hands, and to conquer all opposition, with the
energy of a majority, which is invested with the right of making
and of executing the laws.

The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the
actions of the subject without subduing his private will; but the
majority possesses a power which is physical and moral at the
same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of
men, and it represses not only all contest, but all controversy.

I know no country in which there is so little true independence
of mind and freedom of discussion as in America. In any
constitutional state in Europe every sort of religious and
political theory may be advocated and propagated abroad; for
there is no country in Europe so subdued by any single authority,
as not to contain citizens who are ready to protect the man who
raises his voice in the cause of truth, from the consequences of
his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to live under an
absolute government, the people is upon his side; if he inhabits
a free country, he may find a shelter behind the authority of the
throne, if he require one. The aristocratic part of society
supports him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But
in a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like
those of the United States, there is but one sole authority, one
single element of strength and success, with nothing beyond it.

In America, the majority raises very formidable barriers to the
liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write
whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond
them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-f,
but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily
obloquy. His political career is closed for ever, since he has
offended the only authority which is able to promote his success.
Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to
him. Before he published his opinions, he imagined that he held
them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared
them openly, than he is loudly censured by his overbearing
opponents, while those who think, without having the courage to
speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length,
oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he
subsides into silence as if he was tormented by remorse for
having spoken the truth.

Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which tyranny
formerly employed; but the civilisation of our age has refined
the arts of despotism, which seemed however to have been
sufficiently perfected before. The excesses of monarchical power
had devised a variety of political means of oppression; the
democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as
entirely an affair of the mind, as that will which it is intended
to coerce. Under the absolute sway of an individual despot, the
body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; and the soul
escaped the blows which were directed against it, and rose
superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by
tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and
the soul is enslaved. The sovereign can no longer say, "You
shall think as I do on pain of death;" but he says, "You are free
to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your
property, and all that you possess; but if such be your
determination, you are henceforth an alien among your people.
You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to
you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens, if you
solicit their suffrages; and they will affect to scorn you, if
you solicit their esteem. You will remain among men, but you
will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures
will shun you like an impure being; and those who are most
persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they
should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace!  I have given you
your life, but it is an existence incomparably worse than death."

Absolute monarchies have thrown an odium upon despotism; let us
beware lest democratic republics should restore oppression, and
should render it less odious and less degrading in the eyes of
the many, by making it still more onerous to the few.

Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old
World, expressly intended to censure the vices and deride the
follies of the time; Labruyre inhabited the palace of Louis
XIV. when he composed his chapter upon the Great, and Molire
criticised the courtiers in the very pieces which were acted
before the court. But the ruling power in the United States is
not to be made game of; the smallest reproach irritates its
sensibility, and the slightest joke which has any foundation in
truth, renders it indignant; from the style of its language to
the more solid virtues of its character, everything must be made
the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever be his eminence,
can escape from this tribute of adulation to his fellow-citizens.
The majority lives in the perpetual exercise of self-applause;
and there are certain truths which the Americans can only learn
from strangers or from experience.

If great writers have not at present existed in America, the
reason is very simply given in these facts; there can be no
literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of
opinion does not exist in America. The inquisition has never
been able to prevent a vast number of anti-religious books from
circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds much
better in the United States, since it actually removes the wish
of publishing them. Unbelievers are to be met with in America,
but, to say the truth, there is no public organ of infidelity.
Attempts have been made by some governments to protect the
morality of nations by prohibiting licentious books. In the
United States no one is punished for this sort of works, but no
one is induced to write them; not because all the citizens are
immaculate in their manners, but because the majority of the
community is decent and orderly.

In these cases the advantages derived from the exercise of this
power are unquestionable; and I am simply discussing the nature
of the power itself. This irresistible authority is a constant
fact, and its beneficent exercise is an accidental occurrence.

       *       *       *       *       *


    EFFECTS OF THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY UPON THE NATIONAL
                   CHARACTER IN THE AMERICANS.

Effects of the Tyranny of the Majority more sensibly felt
  hitherto in the Manners than in the Conduct of Society.--They
  check the development of leading Characters.--Democratic
  Republics, organized like the United States, bring the Practice
  of courting favor within the reach of the many.--Proofs of this
  Spirit in the United States.--Why there is more Patriotism in
  the People than in those who govern in its name.


The tendencies which I have just alluded to are as yet very
slightly perceptible in political society; but they already begin
to exercise an unfavorable influence upon the national character
of the Americans. I am inclined to attribute the paucity of
distinguished political characters to the ever-increasing
activity of the despotism of the majority in the United States.

When the American revolution broke out, they arose in great
numbers; for public opinion then served, not to tyrannize over,
but to direct the exertions of individuals. Those celebrated men
took a full part in the general agitation of mind common at that
period, and they attained a high degree of personal fame, which
was reflected back upon the nation, but which was by no means
borrowed from it.

In absolute governments, the great nobles who are nearest to the
throne flatter the passions of the sovereign, and voluntarily
truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not
degrade itself by servitude; it often submits from weakness, from
habit, or from ignorance, and sometimes from loyalty. Some
nations have been known to sacrifice their own desires to those
of the sovereign with pleasure and with pride; thus exhibiting a
sort of independence in the very act of submission. These
peoples are miserable, but they are not degraded. There is a
great difference between doing what one does not approve, and
feigning to approve what one does; the one is the necessary case
of a weak person, the other befits the temper of a lacquey.

In free countries, where every one is more or less called upon to
give his opinions in the affairs of state; in democratic
republics, where public life is incessantly commingled with
domestic affairs, where the sovereign authority is accessible on
every side, and where its attention can almost always be
attracted by vociferation, more persons are to be met with who
speculate upon its foibles, and live at the cost of its passions,
than in absolute monarchies. Not because men are naturally worse
in these states than elsewhere, but the temptation is stronger,
and of easier access at the same time. The result is a far more
extensive debasement of the characters of citizens.

Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor with
the many, and they introduce it into a great number of classes at
once: this is one of the most serious reproaches that can be
addressed to them. In democratic states organized on the
principles of the American republics, this is more especially the
case, where the authority of the majority is so absolute and so
irresistible, that a man must give up his rights as a citizen,
and almost abjure his quality as a human being, if he intends to
stray from the track which it lays down.

In that immense crowd which throngs the avenues to power in the
United States, I found very few men who displayed any of that
manly candor, and that masculine independence of opinion, which
frequently distinguished the Americans in former times, and which
constitute the leading feature in distinguished characters
wheresoever they may be found. It seems, at first sight, as if
all the minds of the Americans were formed upon one model, so
accurately do they correspond in their manner of judging. A
stranger does, indeed, sometimes meet with Americans who dissent
from these rigorous formularies; with men who deplore the defects
of the laws, the mutability and the ignorance of democracy; who
even go so far as to observe the evil tendencies which impair the
national character, and to point out such remedies as it might be
possible to apply; but no one is there to hear these things
besides yourself, and you, to whom these secret reflections are
confided, are a stranger and a bird of passage. They are very
ready to communicate truths which are useless to you, but they
continue to hold a different language in public.

If ever these lines are read in America, I am well assured of two
things: in the first place, that all who peruse them will raise
their voices to condemn me; and in the second place, that very
many of them will acquit me at the bottom of their conscience.


[The author's views upon what he terms the tyranny of the
majority, the despotism of public opinion in the United States,
have already excited some remarks in this country, and will
probably give occasion to more. As stated in the preface to this
edition, the editor does not conceive himself called upon to
discuss the speculative opinions of the author and supposes he
will best discharge his duty by confining his observations to
what he deems errors of fact or law. But in reference to this
particular subject, it seems due to the author to remark, that he
visited the United States at a particular time, when a successful
political chieftain had succeeded in establishing his party in
power, as it seemed, firmly and permanently; when the
preponderance of that party was immense, and when there seemed
little prospect of any change. He may have met with men, who
sank under the astonishing popularity of General Jackson, who
despaired of the republic, and who therefore shrank from the
expression of their opinions. It must be confessed, however,
that the author is obnoxious to the charge which has been made,
of the want of perspicuity and distinctness in this part of his
work. He does not mean that the press was silent, for he has
himself not only noticed, but furnished proof of the great
freedom, not to say licentiousness, with which it assailed the
character of the president, and the measures of his
administration.

He does not mean to represent the opponents of the dominant party
as having thrown down their weapons of warfare, for his book
shows throughout his knowledge of the existence of an active and
able party, constantly opposing and harassing the administration.

But, after a careful perusal of the chapters on this subject, the
editor is inclined to the opinion, that M. de Tocqueville intends
to speak of the _tyranny of the party_ in excluding from
public employment all those who do not adopt the
_Shibboleth_ of the majority. The language at pp. 266, 267,
which he puts in the mouth of a majority, and his observations
immediately preceding this note, seem to furnish the key to his
meaning; although it must be admitted that there are other
passages to which a wider construction may be given. Perhaps
they may be reconciled by the idea that the author considers the
acts and opinions of the dominant party as the just and true
expression of public opinion. And hence, when he speaks of the
intolerance of public opinion, he means the exclusiveness of the
party, which, for the time being, may be predominant. He had
seen men of acknowledged competency removed from office, or
excluded from it, wholly on the ground of their entertaining
opinions hostile to those of the dominant party, or majority.
And he had seen this system extended to the very lowest officers
of the government, and applied by the electors in their choice of
all officers of all descriptions; and this he deemed
persecution--tyranny--despotism. But he surely is mistaken in
representing the effect of this system of terror as stifling all
complaint, silencing all opposition, and inducing "enemies and
friends to yoke themselves alike to the triumphant car of the
majority." He mistook a temporary state of parties for a
permanent and ordinary result, and he was carried away by the
immense majority that then supported the administration, to the
belief of a universal acquiescence. Without intending here to
speak of the merits or demerits of those who represented that
majority, it is proper to remark, that the great change which has
taken place since the period when the author wrote, in the
political condition of the very persons who he supposed then
wielded the terrors of disfranchisement against their opponents,
in itself furnishes a full and complete demonstration of the
error of his opinions respecting the "true independence of mind
and freedom of discussion" in America. For without such
discussion to enlighten the minds of the people, and without a
stern independence of the rewards and threats of those in power,
the change alluded to could not have occurred.

There is reason to complain not only of the ambiguity, but of the
style of exaggeration which pervades all the remarks of the
author on this subject--so different from the well considered and
nicely adjusted language employed by him on all other topics.
Thus, p. 262, he implies that there is no means of redress
afforded even by the judiciary, for a wrong committed by the
majority. His error is, _first,_ in supposing the jury to
constitute the judicial power; _second,_ overlooking what he
has himself elsewhere so well described, the independence of the
judiciary, and its means of controlling the action of a majority
in a state or in the federal government; and _thirdly,_ in
omitting the proper consideration of the frequent changes of
popular sentiment by which the majority of yesterday becomes the
minority of to-day, and its acts of injustice are reversed.

Certain it is that the instances which he cites at this page, do
not establish his position respecting the disposition of the
majority. The riot at Baltimore was, like other riots in England
and in France, the result of popular phrensy excited to madness
by conduct of the most provoking character. The majority in the
state of Maryland and throughout the United States, highly
disapproved the acts of violence committed on the occasion. The
acquittal by a jury of those arraigned for the murder of General
Lingan, proves only that there was not sufficient evidence to
identify the accused, or that the jury was governed by passion.
It is not perceived how the majority of the people are answerable
for the verdicts rendered. The guilty have often been
erroneously acquitted in all countries, and in France
particularly, recent instances are not wanting of acquittals
especially in prosecutions for political offences, against clear
and indisputable testimony. And it was entirely fortuitous that
the jury was composed of men whose sympathies were with the
rioters and murderers, if the fact was so. It not unfrequently
happens that a jury taken from lists furnished years perhaps, and
always a long time, before the trial, are decidedly hostile to
the temporary prevailing sentiments of their city, county, or
state.

As in the other instance, if the inhabitant of Pennsylvania
intended to intimate to our author, that a colored voter would be
in personal jeopardy for venturing to appear at the polls to
exercise his right, it must be said in truth, that the incident
was local and peculiar, and contrary to what is annually seen
throughout the states where colored persons are permitted to
vote, who exercise that privilege with as full immunity from
injury or oppression, as any white citizen. And, after all, it
is believed that the state of feeling intimated by the informant
of our author, is but an indication of dislike to a _caste_
degraded by servitude and ignorance; and it is not perceived how
it proves the despotism of a majority over the freedom and
independence of opinion. If it be true, it proves a detestable
tyranny over _acts,_ over the exercise of an acknowledged
right. The apprehensions of a mob committing violence deterred
the colored voters from approaching the polls. Are instances
unknown in England or even in France, of peaceable subjects being
prevented by mobs or the fear of them, from the exercise of a
right, from the discharge of a duty?  And are they evidences of
the despotism of a majority in those countries?--_American
Editor._]


I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and it is a
virtue which may be found among the people, but never among the
leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy;
despotism debases the oppressed, much more than the oppressor; in
absolute monarchies the king has often great virtues, but the
courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that the American
courtiers do not say, "sire," or "your majesty"--a distinction
without a difference. They are for ever talking of the natural
intelligence of the populace they serve; they do not debate the
question as to which of the virtues of their master are
pre-eminently worthy of admiration; for they assure him that he
possesses all the virtues under heaven without having acquired
them, or without caring to acquire them: they do not give him
their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to
the rank of his concubines, but, by sacrificing their opinions,
they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in
America are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil
of allegory; but, before they venture upon a harsh truth, they
say: "We are aware that the people which we are addressing is too
superior to all the weaknesses of human nature to lose the
command of its temper for an instant; and we should not hold this
language if we were not speaking to men, whom their virtues and
their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the
rest of the world."

It would have been impossible for the sycophants of Louis XIV. to
flatter more dexterously. For my part, I am persuaded that in
all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will
cower to force, and adulation will cling to power. The only
means of preventing men from degrading themselves, is to invest
no one with that unlimited authority which is the surest method
of debasing them.

       *       *       *       *       *


     THE GREATEST DANGERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS PROCEED
            FROM THE UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY.

Democratic Republics liable to perish from a misuse of their
  Power, and not by Impotence.--The Governments of the American
  Republics are more Centralized and more Energetic than those of
  the Monarchies of Europe.--Dangers resulting from
  this.--Opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson upon this Point.


Governments usually fall a sacrifice to impotence or to tyranny.
In the former case their power escapes from them: it is wrested
from their grasp in the latter. Many observers who have noticed
the anarchy of domestic states, have imagined that the government
of those states was naturally weak and impotent. The truth is,
that when once hostilities are begun between parties, the
government loses its control over society. But I do not think
that a democratic power is naturally without resources: say
rather, that it is almost always by the abuse of its force, and
the misemployment of its resources, that a democratic government
fails. Anarchy is almost always produced by its tyranny or its
mistakes, but not by its want of strength.

It is important not to confound stability with force, or the
greatness of a thing with its duration. In democratic republics,
the power which directs[Footnote:

This power may be centred in an assembly, in which case it will
be strong without being stable; or it may be centred in an
individual, in which case it will be less strong, but more
stable.

] society is not stable; for it often changes hands and assumes a
new direction. But whichever way it turns, its force is almost
irresistible. The governments of the American republics appear
to me to be as much centralized as those of the absolute
monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than they are. I do
not, therefore, imagine that they will perish from
weakness.[Footnote:

I presume that it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader
here, as well as throughout the remainder of this chapter, that I
am speaking not of the federal government, but of the several
governments of each state which the majority controls at its
pleasure.

]

If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that
event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the
majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to
desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force.
Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought
about by despotism.

Mr. Hamilton expresses the same opinion in the Federalist,
No. 51. "It is of great importance in a republic not only to
guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to
guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other
part. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil
society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued until it be
obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society,
under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite
and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as
in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured
against the violence of the stronger: and as in the latter state
even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of
their condition to submit to a government which may protect the
weak as well as themselves, so in the former state will the more
powerful factions be gradually induced by a like motive to wish
for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as
well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted, that if the
state of Rhode Island was separated from the confederacy and left
to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of
government within such narrow limits, would be displayed by such
reiterated oppression of the factious majorities, that some power
altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by
the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the
necessity of it."

Jefferson has also expressed himself in a letter to
Madison:[Footnote:

15th March, 1789.

] "The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps
not even the principal object of my solicitude. The tyranny of
the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will
continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the
executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant
period."

I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson upon this subject
rather than that of another, because I consider him to be the
most powerful advocate democracy has ever sent forth.

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER  XVI.


      CAUSES WHICH MITIGATE THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY IN
                       THE UNITED STATES.

       *       *       *       *       *


               ABSENCE OF CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION.

The national Majority does not pretend to conduct all
  Business.--Is obliged to employ the town and county Magistrates
  to execute its supreme Decisions.


I have already pointed out the distinction which is to be made
between a centralized government and a centralized
administration. The former exists in America, but the latter is
nearly unknown there. If the directing power of the American
communities had both these instruments of government at its
disposal, and united the habit of executing its own commands to
the right of commanding; if, after having established the general
principles of government, it descended to the details of public
business; and if, having regulated the great interests of the
country, it would penetrate into the privacy of individual
interest, freedom would soon be banished from the New World.

But in the United States the majority, which so frequently
displays the tastes and the propensities of a despot, is still
destitute of the more perfect instruments of tyranny.

In the American republics the activity of the central government
has never as yet been extended beyond a limited number of objects
sufficiently prominent to call forth its attention. The
secondary affairs of society have never been regulated by its
authority; and nothing has hitherto betrayed its desire of
interfering in them. The majority is become more and more
absolute, but it has not increased the prerogatives of the
central government; those great prerogatives have been confined
to a certain sphere; and although the despotism of the majority
may be galling upon one point, it cannot be said to extend to
all. However the predominant party of the nation may be carried
away by its passions; however ardent it may be in the pursuit of
its projects, it cannot oblige all the citizens to comply with
its desire in the same manner, and at the same time, throughout
the country. When the central government which represents that
majority has issued a decree, it must intrust the execution of
its will to agents, over whom it frequently has no control, and
whom it cannot perpetually direct. The townships, municipal
bodies, and counties, may therefore be looked upon as concealed
breakwaters, which check or part the tide of popular excitement.
If an oppressive law were passed, the liberties of the people
would still be protected by the means by which that law would be
put in execution: the majority cannot descend to the details, and
(as I will venture to style them) the puerilities of
administrative tyranny. Nor does the people entertain that full
consciousness of its authority, which would prompt it to
interfere in these matters; it knows the extent of its natural
powers, but it is unacquainted with the increased resources which
the art of government might furnish.

This point deserves attention; for if a democratic republic,
similar to that of the United States, were ever founded in a
country where the power of a single individual had previously
subsisted, and the effects of a centralized administration had
sunk deep into the habits and the laws of the people, I do not
hesitate to assert, that in that country a more insufferable
despotism would prevail than any which now exists in the absolute
monarchies of Europe; or indeed than any which could be found on
this side the confines of Asia.

       *       *       *       *       *


      THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW IN THE UNITED STATES SERVES
                 TO COUNTERPOISE THE DEMOCRACY.

Utility of discriminating the natural Propensities of the Members
  of the legal Profession--These Men called upon to act a
  prominent Part in future Society.--In what Manner the peculiar
  Pursuits of Lawyers give an aristocratic turn to their
  Ideas.--Accidental Causes which may check this Tendency.--Ease
  with which the Aristocracy coalesces with legal Men.--Use of
  Lawyers to a Despot.--The Profession of the Law constitutes the
  only aristocratic Element with which the natural Elements of
  Democracy will combine.--Peculiar Causes which tend to give an
  aristocratic turn of Mind to the English and American
  Lawyer.--The Aristocracy of America is on the Bench and at the
  Bar.--Influence of Lawyers upon American Society.--Their
  peculiar magisterial Habits affect the Legislature, the
  Administration, and even the People.


In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws, we perceive
that the authority they have intrusted to members of the legal
profession, and the influence which these individuals exercise in
the government, is the most powerful existing security against
the excesses of democracy.

This effect seems to me to result from a general cause which it
is useful to investigate, since it may produce analogous
consequences elsewhere.

The members of the legal profession have taken an important part
in all the vicissitudes of political society in Europe during the
last five hundred years. At one time they have been the
instruments of those who are invested with political authority,
and at another they have succeeded in converting political
authorities into their instrument. In the middle ages they
afforded a powerful support to the crown; and since that period
they have exerted themselves to the utmost to limit the royal
prerogative. In England they have contracted a close alliance
with the aristocracy; in France they have proved to be the most
dangerous enemies of that class. It is my object to inquire
whether, under all these circumstances, the members of the legal
profession have been swayed by sudden and momentary impulses; or
whether they have been impelled by principles which are inherent
in their pursuits, and which will always recur in history. I am
incited to this investigation by reflecting that this particular
class of men will most likely play a prominent part in that order
of things to which the events of our time are giving birth.

Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal
pursuits, derive from those occupations certain habits of order,
a taste for formalities, and a kind of instinctive regard for the
regular connexion of ideas, which naturally render them very
hostile to the revolutionary spirit and the unreflecting passions
of the multitude.

The special information which lawyers derive from their studies,
ensures them a separate station in society: and they constitute a
sort of privileged body in the scale of intelligence. This
notion of their superiority perpetually recurs to them in the
practice of their profession: they are the masters of a science
which is necessary, but which is not very generally known: they
serve as arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of
directing the blind passions of parties in litigation to their
purpose, inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment
of the multitude. To this it may be added, that they naturally
constitute _a body_; not by any previous understanding, or
by any agreement which directs them to a common end; but the
analogy of their studies and the uniformity of their proceedings
connect their minds together, as much as a common interest would
combine their endeavors.

A portion of the tastes and of the habits of the aristocracy may
consequently be discovered in the characters of men in the
profession of the law. They participate in the same instinctive
love of order and of formalities; and they entertain the same
repugnance to the actions of the multitude, and the same secret
contempt of the government of the people. I do not mean to say
that the natural propensities of lawyers are sufficiently strong
to sway them irresistibly; for they, like most other men, are
governed by their private interests and the advantages of the
moment.

In a state of society in which the members of the legal
profession are prevented from holding that rank in the political
world which they enjoy in private life, we may rest assured that
they will be the foremost agents of revolution. But it must then
be inquired whether the cause which induces them to innovate and
to destroy is accidental, or whether it belongs to some lasting
purpose which they entertain. It is true that lawyers mainly
contributed to the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789; but
it remains to be seen whether they acted thus because they had
studied the laws, or because they were prohibited from
co-operating in the work of legislation.

Five hundred years ago the English nobles headed the people, and
spoke in its name; at the present time, the aristocracy supports
the throne, and defends the royal prerogative. But aristocracy
has, notwithstanding this, its peculiar instincts and
propensities. We must be careful not to confound isolated
members of a body with the body itself. In all free governments,
of whatsoever form they may be, members of the legal profession
may be found at the head of all parties. The same remark is also
applicable to the aristocracy; for almost all the democratic
convulsions which have agitated the world have been directed by
nobles.

A privileged body can never satisfy the ambition of all its
members; it has always more talents and more passions than it can
find places to content and to employ; so that a considerable
number of individuals are usually to be met with, who are
inclined to attack those very privileges, which they find it
impossible to turn to their own account.

I do not, then, assert that _all_ the members of the legal
profession are at _all_ times the friends of order and the
opponents of innovation, but merely that most of them usually are
so. In a community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy,
without opposition, that high station which naturally belongs to
them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and
anti-democratic. When an aristocracy excludes the leaders of
that profession from its ranks, it excites enemies which are the
more formidable to its security as they are independent of the
nobility by their industrious pursuits; and they feel themselves
to be its equal in point of intelligence, although they enjoy
less opulence and less power. But whenever an aristocracy
consents to impart some of its privileges to these same
individuals, the two classes coalesce very readily, and assume,
as it were, the consistency of a single order of family
interests.

I am, in like manner, inclined to believe that a monarch will
always be able to convert legal practitioners into the most
serviceable instruments of his authority. There is a far greater
affinity between this class of individuals and the executive
power, than there is between them and the people; just as there
is a greater natural affinity between the nobles and monarch,
than between the nobles and the people, although the higher
orders of society have occasionally resisted the prerogative of
the crown in concert with the lower classes.

Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other
consideration, and the best security of public order is
authority. It must not be forgotten, that if they prize the free
institutions of their country much, they nevertheless value the
legality of those institutions far more; they are less afraid of
tyranny than of arbitrary power: and provided that the
legislature takes upon itself to deprive men of their
independence, they are not dissatisfied.[Footnote:

This translation does not accurately convey the meaning of M. de
Tocqueville's expression. He says: "Ils craignent moins la
tyrannie que l'arbitraire, et pourvu que le lgislateur se
charge lui-mme d'enlever aux hommes leur indpendance, ils
sont  peu prs content."

The more correct rendering would be: 'They fear tyranny less than
arbitrary sway, and provided it is the legislator himself who
undertakes to deprive men of their independence, they are almost
content.'--_Reviser_.

]

I am therefore convinced that the prince who, in presence of an
encroaching democracy, should endeavor to impair the judicial
authority in his dominions, and to diminish the political
influence of lawyers, would commit a great mistake. He would let
slip the substance of authority to grasp at the shadow. He would
act more wisely in introducing men connected with the law into
the government; and if he intrusted them with the conduct of a
despotic power, bearing some marks of violence, that power would
most likely assume the external features of justice and of
legality in their hands.

The government of democracy is favorable to the political power
of lawyers; for when the wealthy, the noble, and the prince, are
excluded from the government, they are sure to occupy the highest
stations in their own right, as it were, since they are the only
men of information and sagacity, beyond the sphere of the people,
who can be the object of the popular choice. If, then, they are
led by their tastes to combine with the aristocracy, and to
support the crown, they are naturally brought into contact with
the people by their interests. They like the government of
democracy, without participating in its propensities, and without
imitating its weaknesses; whence they derive a twofold authority
from it and over it. The people in democratic states does not
mistrust the members of the legal profession, because it is well
known that they are interested in serving the popular cause; and
it listens to them without irritation, because it does not
attribute to them any sinister designs. The object of lawyers is
not, indeed, to overthrow the institutions of democracy, but they
constantly endeavor to give it an impulse which diverts it from
its real tendency, by means which are foreign to its nature.
Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, to the
aristocracy by habit and by taste, and they may be looked upon as
the natural bond and connecting link of the two great classes of
society.

The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element which
can be amalgamated without violence with the natural elements of
democracy, and which can be advantageously and permanently
combined with them. I am not unacquainted with the defects which
are inherent in the character of that body of men; but without
this admixture of lawyer-like sobriety with the democratic
principle, I question whether democratic institutions could long
be maintained; and I cannot believe that a republic could subsist
at the present time, if the influence of lawyers in public
business did not increase in proportion to the power of the
people.

This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to the
legal profession, is much more distinctly marked in the United
States and in England than in any other country. This proceeds
not only from the legal studies of the English and American
lawyers, but from the nature of the legislation, and the position
which those persons occupy, in the two countries. The English
and the Americans have retained the law of precedents; that is to
say, they continue to found their legal opinions and the
decisions of their courts upon the opinions and decisions of
their forefathers. In the mind of an English or an American
lawyer, a taste and a reverence for what is old are almost always
united to a love of regular and lawful proceedings.

This predisposition has another effect upon the character of the
legal profession and upon the general course of society. The
English and American lawyers investigate what has been done; the
French advocate inquires what should have been done: the former
produces precedents; the latter reasons. A French observer is
surprised to hear how often an English or American lawyer quotes
the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own;
while the reverse occurs in France. There, the most trifling
litigation is never conducted without the introduction of an
entire system of ideas peculiar to the counsel employed; and the
fundamental principles of law are discussed in order to obtain a
perch of land by the decision of the court. This abnegation of
his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of
his forefathers, which are common to the English and American
lawyer, this subjection of thought which he is obliged to
profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more sluggish
inclinations in England and America than in France.

The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they
can be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more
impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon
precedents. The indispensable want of legal assistance which is
felt in England and in the United States, and the high opinion
which is generally entertained of the ability of the legal
profession, tend to separate it more and more from the people,
and to place it in a distinct class. The French lawyer is simply
a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of his country;
but the English or American lawyer resembles the hierophants of
Egypt, for, like them, he is the sole interpreter of an occult
science.


[The remark that English and American lawyers found their
opinions and their decisions upon those of their forefathers, is
calculated to excite surprise in an American reader, who supposes
that law, as a prescribed rule of action, can only be ascertained
in cases where the statutes are silent, by reference to the
decisions of courts. On the continent, and particularly in
France, as the writer of this note learned from the conversation
of M. de Tocqueville, the judicial tribunals do not deem
themselves bound by any precedents, or by any decisions of their
predecessors or of the appellate tribunals. They respect such
decisions as the opinions of distinguished men, and they pay no
higher regard to their own previous adjudications of any case.
It is not easy to perceive how the law can acquire any stability
under such a system, or how any individual can ascertain his
rights, without a lawsuit. This note should not be concluded
without a single remark upon what the author calls an implicit
deference to the opinions of our forefathers, and abnegation of
our own opinions. The common law consists of principles founded
on the common sense of mankind, and adapted to the circumstances
of man in civilized society. When these principles are once
settled by competent authority, or rather _declared_ by such
authority, they are supposed to express the common sense and the
common justice of the community; and it requires but a moderate
share of modesty for any one entertaining a different view of
them, to consider that the disinterested and intelligent judges
who have declared them, are more likely to be right than he is.
Perfection, even in the law, he does not consider attainable by
human beings, and the greatest approximation to it is all he
expects or desires. Besides, there are very few cases of
positive and abstract rule, where it is of any consequence which,
of any two or more modifications of it, should be adopted. The
great point is, that there should be _a rule_ by which
conduct may be regulated. Thus, whether in mercantile
transactions notice of a default by a principal shall be given to
an endorser, or a guarantor, and when and how such notice shall
be given, are not so important in themselves, as it is that there
should be some rule to which merchants may adapt themselves and
their transactions. Statutes cannot or at least do not,
prescribe the rules in a large majority of cases. If then they
are not drawn from the decision of courts, they will not exist,
and men will be wholly at a loss for a guide in the most
important transactions of business. Hence the deference paid to
legal decisions. But this is not implicit, as the author
supposes. The course of reasoning by which the courts have come
to their conclusions, is often assailed by the advocate and shown
to be fallacious, and the instances are not unfrequent of courts
disregarding prior decisions and overruling them when not fairly
deducible from sound reason.

Again, the principles of the common law are flexible, and adapt
themselves to changes in society, and a well-known maxim in our
system, that when the reason of the law ceases, the law itself
ceases, has overthrown many an antiquated rule. Within these
limits, it is conceived that there is range enough for the
exercise of all the reason of the advocate and the judge, without
unsettling everything and depriving the conduct of human affairs
of all guidance from human authority;--and the talent of our
lawyers and courts finds sufficient exercise in applying the
principles of one case to facts of another.--_American
Editor_.]


The station which lawyers occupy in England and America exercises
no less an influence upon their habits and their opinions. The
English aristocracy, which has taken care to attract to its
sphere whatever is at all analogous to itself, has conferred a
high degree of importance and of authority upon the members of
the legal profession. In English society lawyers do not occupy
the first rank, but they are contented with the station assigned
to them; they constitute, as it were, the younger branch of the
English aristocracy, and they are attached to their elder
brothers, although they do not enjoy all their privileges. The
English lawyers consequently mingle the tastes and the ideas of
the aristocratic circles in which they move, with the
aristocratic interest of their profession.

And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavoring to
depict, is most distinctly to be met with in England: there laws
are esteemed not so much because they are good, as because they
are old; and if it be necessary to modify them in any respect, or
to adapt them to the changes which time operates in society,
recourse is had to the most inconceivable contrivances in order
to uphold the traditionary fabric, and to maintain that nothing
has been done which does not square with the intentions, and
complete the labors, of former generations. The very individuals
who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of innovation,
and they had rather resort to absurd expedients than plead guilty
of so great a crime. This spirit more especially appertains to
the English lawyers; they seem indifferent to the real meaning of
what they treat, and they direct all their attention to the
letter, seeming inclined to infringe the rules of common sense
and of humanity, rather than to swerve one tittle from the law.
The English legislation may be compared to the stock of an old
tree, upon which lawyers have engrafted the most various shoots,
with the hope, that, although their fruits may differ, their
foliage at least will be confounded with the venerable trunk
which supports them all.

In America there are no nobles or literary men, and the people is
apt to mistrust the wealthy; lawyers consequently form the
highest political class, and the most cultivated circle of
society. They have therefore nothing to gain by innovation,
which adds a conservative interest to their natural taste for
public order. If I were asked where I place the American
aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation, that it is not
composed of the rich, who are united together by no common tie,
but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar.

The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States,
the more shall we be persuaded that the lawyers, as a body, form
the most powerful, if not the only counterpoise to the democratic
element. In that country we perceive how eminently the legal
profession is qualified by its powers, and even by its defects,
to neutralize the vices which are inherent in popular government.
When the American people is intoxicated by passion, or carried
away by the impetuosity of its ideas, it is checked and stopped
by the almost invisible influence of its legal counsellors, who
secretly oppose their aristocratic propensities to its democratic
instincts, their superstitious attachment to what is antique to
its love of novelty, their narrow views to its immense designs,
and their habitual procrastination to its ardent impatience.

The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the
legal profession is enabled to control the democracy. The judge
is a lawyer, who, independently of the taste for regularity and
order which he has contracted in the study of legislation,
derives an additional love of stability from his own inalienable
functions. His legal attainments have already raised him to a
distinguished rank among his fellow-citizens; his political power
completes the distinction of his station, and gives him the
inclinations natural to privileged classes.

Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be
unconstitutional,[Footnote:

See chapter vi., p. 94, on the judicial power in the United
States.

] the American magistrate perpetually interferes in political
affairs. He cannot force the people to make laws, but at least
he can oblige it not to disobey its own enactments, or to act
inconsistently with its own principles. I am aware that a secret
tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the United
States; and by most of the constitutions of the several states,
the government can, upon the demand of the two houses of the
legislature, remove the judges from their station. By some other
constitutions the members of the tribunals are elected, and they
are even subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to
predict that these innovations will sooner or later be attended
with fatal consequences; and that it will be found out at some
future period, that the attack which is made upon the judicial
power has affected the democratic republic itself.

It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which
I have been speaking has been confined in the United States to
the courts of justice; it extends far beyond them. As the
lawyers constitute the only enlightened class which the people
does not mistrust, they are naturally called upon to occupy most
of the public stations. They fill the legislative assemblies,
and they conduct the administration; they consequently exercise a
powerful influence upon the formation of the law, and upon its
execution. The lawyers are, however, obliged to yield to the
current of public opinion, which is too strong for them to resist
it; but it is easy to find indications of what their conduct
would be, if they were free to act as they chose. The Americans
who have made such copious innovations in their political
legislation, have introduced very sparing alterations in their
civil laws, and that with great difficulty, although those laws
are frequently repugnant to their social condition. The reason
of this is, that in matters of civil law the majority is obliged
to defer to the authority of the legal profession, and that the
American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left
to their own choice.

It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different
state of things, to hear the perpetual complaints which are made
in the United States, against the stationary propensities of
legal men, and their prejudices in favor of existing
institutions.

The influence of the legal habits which are common in America
extends beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely any
question arises in the United States which does not become,
sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate; hence all parties
are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in
judicial proceedings, in their daily controversies. As most
public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce
the customs and technicalities of their profession into the
affairs of the country. The jury extends this habitude to all
classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure,
a vulgar tongue; the spirit of the law, which is produced in the
schools and courts of justice, gradually penetrates beyond their
walls into the bosom of society, where it descends to the lowest
classes, so that the whole people contracts the habits and the
tastes of the magistrate. The lawyers of the United States form
a party which is but little feared and scarcely perceived, which
has no badge peculiar to itself, which adapts itself with great
flexibility to the exigencies of the time, and accommodates
itself to all the movements of the social body: but this party
extends over the whole community, and it penetrates into all
classes of society; it acts upon the country imperceptibly, but
it finally fashions it to suit its purposes.

       *       *       *       *       *


       TRIAL BY JURY IN THE UNITED STATES CONSIDERED AS A
                     POLITICAL INSTITUTION.

Trial by Jury, which is one of the Instruments of the Sovereignty
  of the People, deserves to be compared with the other Laws
  which establish that sovereignty.--Composition of the Jury in
  the United States.--Effect of Trial by Jury upon the national
  Character.--It educates the People.--It tends to establish the
  Authority of the Magistrates, and to extend a knowledge of Law
  among the People.


Since I have been led by my subject to recur to the
administration of justice in the United States, I will not pass
over this point without adverting to the institution of the jury.
Trial by jury may be considered in two separate points of view:
as a judicial, and as a political institution. If it entered
into my present purpose to inquire how far trial by jury (more
especially in civil cases) contributes to ensure the best
administration of justice, I admit that its utility might be
contested. As the jury was first introduced at a time when
society was in an uncivilized state, and when courts of justice
were merely called upon to decide on the evidence of facts, it is
not an easy task to adapt it to the wants of a highly civilized
community, when the mutual relations of men are multiplied to a
surprising extent, and have assumed the enlightened and
intellectual character of the age.[Footnote:

The investigation of trial by jury as a judicial institution, and
the appreciation of its effects in the United States, together
with the advantages the Americans have derived from it, would
suffice to form a book, and a book upon a very useful and
curious, subject. The state of Louisiana would in particular
afford the curious phenomenon of a French and English
legislation, as well as a French and English population, which
are generally combining with each other. See the "Digeste des
Lois de la Louisiane," in two volumes; and the "Trait sur les
Regles des Actions civiles," printed in French and English at New
Orleans in 1830.

]

My present object is to consider the jury as a political
institution; and any other course would divert me from my
subject. Of trial by jury, considered as a judicial institution,
I shall here say but very few words. When the English adopted
trial by jury they were a semi-barbarous people; they are become,
in course of time, one of the most enlightened nations of the
earth; and their attachment to this institution seems to have
increased with their increasing cultivation. They soon spread
beyond their insular boundaries to every corner of the habitable
globe; some have formed colonies, others independent states; the
mother-country has maintained its monarchical constitution; many
of its offspring have founded powerful republics; but wherever
the English have been, they have boasted of the privilege of
trial by jury.[Footnote:

All the English and American jurists are unanimous upon this
head. Mr. Story, judge of the supreme court of the United
States, speaks, in his treatise on the federal constitution, of
the advantages of trial by jury in civil cases: "The inestimable
privilege of a trial by jury in civil cases--a privilege scarcely
inferior to that in criminal cases, which is counted by all
persons to be essential to political and civil liberty"
... (Story, book iii, ch. xxxviii.)

]  They have established it, or hastened to re-establish it, in
all their settlements. A judicial institution which obtains the
suffrages of a great people for so long a series of ages, which
is zealously renewed at every epoch of civilisation, in all the
climates of the earth, and under every form of human government,
cannot be contrary to the spirit of justice.[Footnote:

If it were our province to point out the utility of the jury as a
judicial institution in this place, much might be said, and the
following arguments might be brought forward among others:--

By introducing the jury into the business of the courts, you are
enabled to diminish the number of judges; which is a very great
advantage. When judges are very numerous, death is perpetually
thinning the ranks of the judicial functionaries, and laying
places vacant for new comers. The ambition of the magistrates is
therefore continually excited, and they are naturally made
dependant upon the will of the majority, or the individual who
fills up vacant appointments: the officers of the courts then
rise like the officers of an army. This state of things is
entirely contrary to the sound administration of justice, and to
the intentions of the legislator. The office of a judge is made
inalienable in order that he may remain independent; but of what
advantage is it that his independence is protected, if he be
tempted to sacrifice it of his own accord?  When judges are very
numerous, many of them must necessarily be incapable of
performing their important duties; for a great magistrate is a
man of no common powers; and I am inclined to believe that a half
enlightened tribunal is the worst of all instruments for
obtaining those objects which it is the purpose of courts of
justice to accomplish. For my own part, I had rather submit the
decision of a case to ignorant jurors directed by a skilfull
judge, than to judges, a majority of whom are imperfectly
acquainted with jurisprudence and with the laws.

[I venture to remind the reader, lest this note should appear
somewhat redundant to an English eye, that the jury is an
institution which has only been naturalized in France within the
present century; that it is even now exclusively applied to those
criminal causes which come before the courts of assize, or to the
prosecutions of the public press; and that the judges and
counsellors of the numerous local tribunals of France--forming a
body of many thousand judical functionaries--try all civil
causes, appeals from criminal causes, and minor offences, without
the jury.--_Translator's Note._]

]

I turn, however, from this part of the subject. To look upon the
jury as a mere judicial institution, is to confine our attention
to a very narrow view of it; for, however great its influence may
be upon the decisions of the law-courts, that influence is very
subordinate to the powerful effects which it produces on the
destinies of the community at large. The jury is above all a
political institution, and it must be regarded in this light in
order to be duly appreciated.

By the jury, I mean a certain number of citizens chosen
indiscriminately, and invested with a temporary right of judging.
Trial by jury, as applied to the repression of crime, appears to
me to introduce an eminently republican element into the
government, upon the following grounds:--

The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic,
according to the class of society from which the jurors are
selected; but it always preserves its republican character,
inasmuch as it places the real direction of society in the hands
of the governed, or of a portion of the governed, instead of
leaving it under the authority of the government. Force is never
more than a transient element of success; and after force comes
the notion of right. A government which should only be able to
crush its enemies upon a field of battle, would very soon be
destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in
penal legislation, and if that sanction be wanting, the law will
sooner or later lose its cogency. He who punishes infractions of
the law is therefore the real master of society. Now, the
institution of the jury raises the people itself, or at least a
class of citizens, to the bench of judicial authority. The
institution of the jury consequently invests the people, or that
class of citizens, with the direction of society.[Footnote:

An important remark must however be made. Trial by jury does
unquestionably invest the people with a general control over the
actions of citizens, but it does not furnish means of exercising
this control in all cases, or with an absolute authority. When
an absolute monarch has the right of trying offences by his
representatives, the fate of the prisoner is, as it were, decided
beforehand. But even if the people were predisposed to convict,
the composition and the non-responsibility of the jury would
still afford some chances favorable to the protection of
innocence.

]

In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic portion of
the nation,[Footnote:

In France, the qualification of the jurors is the same as the
electoral qualification, namely, the payment of 200 francs per
annum in direct taxes: they are chosen by lot. In England they
are returned by the sheriff; the qualifications of jurors were
raised to 10_l_ per annum in England, and 6_l_in Wales,
of freehold land or copyhold, by the statute W. and M., c. 24:
leaseholders for a time determinable upon life or lives, of the
clear yearly value of 20_l_ per annum over and above the
rent reserved, are qualified to serve on juries; and jurors in
the courts of Westminster and city of London must be
householders, and possessed of real and personal estates of the
value of 100_l_. The qualifications, however, prescribed in
different statutes, vary according to the object for which the
jury is impannelled. See Blackstone's Commentaries, b. iii.,
c. 23.--_Translator's Note_.]

] the aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws, and punishes
all infractions of the laws; everything is established upon a
consistent footing, and England may with truth be said to
constitute an aristocratic republic. In the United States the
same system is applied to the whole people. Every American
citizen is qualified to be an elector, a juror, and is eligible
to office.[Footnote:

See Appendix Q.

]  The system of the jury, as it is understood in America,
appears to me to be as direct and as extreme a consequence of the
sovereignty of the people, as universal suffrage. These
institutions are two instruments of equal power, which contribute
to the supremacy of the majority. All the sovereigns who have
chosen to govern by their own authority, and to direct society
instead of obeying its direction, have destroyed or enfeebled the
institution of the jury. The monarchs of the house of Tudor sent
to prison jurors who refused to convict, and Napoleon caused them
to be returned by his agents.

However clear most of these truths may seem to be, they do not
command universal assent, and in France, at least, the
institution of trial by jury is still very imperfectly
understood. If the question arise as to the proper qualification
of jurors, it is confined to a discussion of the intelligence and
knowledge of the citizens who may be returned, as if the jury was
merely a judicial institution. This appears to me to be the
least part of the subject. The jury is pre-eminently a political
institution; it must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty
of the people; when that sovereignty is repudiated, it must be
rejected; or it must be adapted to the laws by which that
sovereignty is established. The jury is that portion of the
nation to which the execution of the laws is intrusted, as the
houses of parliament constitute that part of the nation which
makes the laws; and in order that society may be governed with
consistency and uniformity, the list of citizens qualified to
serve on juries must increase and diminish with the list of
electors. This I hold to be the point of view must worthy of the
attention of the legislator; and all that remains is merely
accessary.

I am so entirely convinced that the jury is pre-eminently a
political institution, that I still consider it in this light
when it is applied in civil causes. Laws are always unstable
unless they are founded upon the manners of a nation: manners are
the only durable and resisting power in a people. When the jury
is reserved for criminal offences, the people only sees its
occasional action in certain particular cases; the ordinary
course of life goes on without its interference, and it is
considered as an instrument, but not as the only instrument, of
obtaining justice. This is true _ fortiori_ when the
jury is only applied to certain criminal causes.

When, on the contrary, the influence of the jury is extended to
civil causes, its application is constantly palpable; it affects
all the interests of the community; every one co-operates in its
work: it thus penetrates into all the usages of life, it fashions
the human mind to its peculiar forms, and is gradually associated
with the idea of justice itself.

The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is
always in danger; but when once it is introduced into civil
proceedings, it defies the aggressions of time and of man. If it
had been as easy to remove the jury from the manners as from the
laws of England, it would have perished under Henry VIII. and
Elizabeth: and the civil jury did in reality, at that period,
save the liberties of the country. In whatever manner the jury
be applied, it cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence upon
the national character; but this influence is prodigiously
increased when it is introduced into civil causes. The jury, and
more especially the civil jury, serves to communicate the spirit
of the judges to the minds of all the citizens; and this spirit,
with the habits which attend it, is the soundest preparation for
free institutions. It imbues all classes with a respect for the
thing judged, and with the notion of right. If these two
elements be removed, the love of independence is reduced to a
more destructive passion. It teaches men to practise equity;
every man learns to judge his neighbor as he would himself be
judged: and this is especially true of the jury in civil causes;
for, while the number of persons who have reason to apprehend a
criminal prosecution is small, every one is liable to have a
civil action brought against him. The jury teaches every man not
to recoil before the responsibility of his own actions, and
impresses him with that manly confidence without which political
virtue cannot exist. It invests each citizen with a kind of
magistracy; it makes them all feel the duties which they are
bound to discharge toward society; and the part which they take
in the government. By obliging men to turn their attention to
affairs which are not exclusively their own, it rubs off that
individual egotism which is the rust of society.

The jury contributes most powerfully to form the judgment, and to
increase the natural intelligence of a people; and this is, in my
opinion, its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a
gratuitous public school ever open, in which every juror learns
to exercise his rights, enters into daily communication with the
most learned and enlightened members of the upper classes, and
becomes practically acquainted with the laws of his country,
which are brought within the reach of his capacity by the efforts
of the bar, the advice of the judge, and even by the passions of
the parties. I think that the practical intelligence and
political good sense of the Americans are mainly attributable to
the long use which they have made of the jury in civil causes.

I do not know whether the jury is useful to those who are in
litigation; but I am certain it is highly beneficial to those who
decide the litigation: and I look upon it as one of the most
efficacious means for the education of the people, which society
can employ.

What I have hitherto said, applies to all nations; but the remark
I am now about to make, is peculiar to the Americans and to
democratic peoples. I have already observed that in democracies
the members of the legal profession, and the magistrates,
constitute the only aristocratic body which can check the
irregularities of the people. This aristocracy is invested with
no physical power; but it exercises its conservative influence
upon the minds of men: and the most abundant source of its
authority is the institution of the civil jury. In criminal
causes, when society is armed against a single individual, the
jury is apt to look upon the judge as the passive instrument of
social power, and to mistrust his advice. Moreover, criminal
causes are entirely founded upon the evidence of facts which
common sense can readily appreciate; upon this ground the judge
and the jury are equal. Such, however, is not the case in civil
causes; then the judge appears as a disinterested arbiter between
the conflicting passions of the parties. The jurors look up to
him with confidence, and listen to him with respect, for in this
instance their intelligence is completely under the control of
his learning. It is the judge who sums up the various arguments
with which their memory has been wearied out, and who guides them
through the devious course of the proceedings; he points their
attention to the exact question of fact, which they are called
upon to solve, and he puts the answer to the question of law into
their mouths. His influence upon their verdict is almost
unlimited.

If I am called upon to explain why I am but little moved by the
arguments derived from the ignorance of jurors in civil causes, I
reply, that in these proceedings, whenever the question to be
solved is not a mere question of fact, the jury has only the
semblance of a judicial body. The jury sanctions the decisions
of the judge; they, by the authority of society which they
represent, and he, by that of reason and of law.[Footnote:

See Appendix R.

]

In England and in America the judges exercise an influence upon
criminal trials which the French judges have never possessed.
The reason of this difference may easily be discovered; the
English and American magistrates establish their authority in
civil causes, and only transfer it afterward to tribunals of
another kind, where that authority was not acquired. In some
cases (and they are frequently the most important ones), the
American judges have the right of deciding causes
alone.[Footnote:

The federal judges decide upon their own authority almost all the
questions most important to the country.

]  Upon these occasions they are, accidentally, placed in the
position which the French judges habitually occupy: but they are
still surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury, and their
judgment has almost as much authority as the voice of the
community at large, represented by that institution. Their
influence extends beyond the limits of the courts; in the
recreations of private life, as well as in the turmoil of public
business, abroad and in the legislative assemblies, the American
judge is constantly surrounded by men who are accustomed to
regard his intelligence as superior to their own; and after
having exercised his power in the decision of causes, he
continues to influence the habits of thought, and the character
of the individuals who took a part in his judgment.


[The remark in the text, that "in some cases, and they are
frequently the most important ones, the American judges have the
right of deciding causes alone," and the author's note, that "the
federal judges decide, upon their own authority, almost all the
questions most important to the country," seem to require
explanation in consequence of their connexion with the context in
which the author is speaking of the trial by jury. They seem to
imply that there are some cases which ought to be tried by jury,
that are decided by the judges. It is believed that the learned
author, although a distinguished advocate in France, never
thoroughly comprehended the grand divisions of our complicated
system of law, in civil cases. _First_, is the distinction
between cases in equity and those in which the rules of the
common law govern.--Those in equity are always decided by the
judge or judges, who _may_, however, send questions of fact
to be tried in the common law courts by a jury. But as a general
rule this is entirely in the discretion of the equity judge.
_Second_, in cases at common law, there are questions of
fact and questions of law:--the former are invariably tried by a
jury, the latter, whether presented in the course of a jury
trial, or by pleading, in which the facts are admitted, are
always decided by the judges.

_Third_, cases of admiralty jurisdiction, and proceedings
_in rem_ of an analogous nature, are decided by the judges
without the intervention of a jury. The cases in this last class
fall within the peculiar jurisdiction of the federal courts, and,
with this exception, the federal judges do not decide upon their
own authority any questions, which, if presented in the state
courts, would not also be decided by the judges of those courts.
The supreme court of the United States, from the nature of its
institution as almost wholly an appellant court, is called on to
decide merely questions of law, and in no case can that court
decide a question of fact, unless it arises in suits peculiar to
equity or admiralty jurisdiction. Indeed the author's original
note is more correct than the translation. It is as follows:
"Les juges fdraux tranchent presque toujours seuls les
questions qui touchent de plus prs au _gouvernement_ du
pays." And it is very true that the supreme court of the United
States, in particular, decides those questions which most nearly
affect the _government_ of the country, because those are
the very questions which arise upon the constitutionality of the
laws of congress and of the several states, the final and
conclusive determination of which is vested in that
tribunal.--_American Editor_.]


The jury, then, which seems to restrict the rights of magistracy,
does in reality consolidate its power; and in no country are the
judges so powerful as there where the people partakes their
privileges. It is more especially by means of the jury in civil
causes that the American magistrates imbue all classes of society
with the spirit of their profession. Thus the jury, which is the
most energetic means of making the people rule, is also the most
efficacious means of teaching it to rule well.

       *       *       *       *       *



                          CHAPTER XVII.


     PRINCIPAL CAUSES WHICH TEND TO MAINTAIN THE DEMOCRATIC
                 REPUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES.


A democratic republic subsists in the United States; and the
principal object of this book has been to account for the fact of
its existence. Several of the causes which contribute to
maintain the institutions of America have been voluntarily passed
by, or only hinted at, as I was borne along by my subject.
Others I have been unable to discuss and those on which I have
dwelt most, are, as it were, buried in the details of the former
part of this work.

I think, therefore, that before I proceed to speak of the future,
I cannot do better than collect within a small compass the
reasons which best explain the present. In this retrospective
chapter I shall be succinct; for I shall take care to remind the
reader very summarily of what he already knows; and I shall only
select the most prominent of those facts which I have not yet
pointed out.

All the causes which contribute to the maintenance of the
democratic republic in the United States are reducible to three
heads:

I. The peculiar and accidental situation in which Providence has
placed the Americans.

II. The laws.

III. The manners and customs of the people.

       *       *       *       *       *


      ACCIDENTAL OR PROVIDENTIAL CAUSES WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO
        THE MAINTENANCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE
                         UNITED STATES.

The Union has no Neighbors.--No Metropolis.--The Americans have
  had the Chances of Birth in their favor.--America an empty
  country.--How this circumstance contributes powerfully to the
  Maintenance of the democratic Republic in America.--How the
  American Wilds are Peopled.--Avidity of the Anglo-Americans in
  taking Possession of the Solitudes of the New World.--Influence
  of physical Prosperity upon the political Opinions of the
  Americans.


A thousand circumstances, independent of the will of man, concur
to facilitate the maintenance of a democratic republic in the
United States. Some of these peculiarities are known, the others
may easily be pointed out; but I shall confine myself to the most
prominent among them.

The Americans have no neighbors, and consequently they have no
great wars, or financial crises, or inroads, or conquests to
dread; they require neither great taxes, nor great armies, nor
great generals; and they have nothing to fear from a scourge
which is more formidable to republics than all these evils
combined, namely, military glory. It is impossible to deny the
inconceivable influence which military glory exercises upon the
spirit of a nation. General Jackson, whom the Americans have
twice elected to be the head of their government, is a man of
violent temper and mediocre talents; no one circumstance in the
whole course of his career ever proved that he is qualified to
govern a free people; and indeed the majority of the enlightened
classes of the Union has always been opposed to him. But he was
raised to the presidency, and has been maintained in that lofty
station, solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained,
twenty years ago, under the walls of New Orleans; a victory which
was, however, a very ordinary achievement, and which could only
be remembered in a country where battles are rare. Now the
people who are thus carried away by the illusions of glory, are
unquestionably the most cold and calculating, the most unmilitary
(if I may use the expression), and the most prosaic of all the
peoples of the earth.

America has no great capital city,[Footnote:

The United States have no metropolis; but they already contain
several very large cities. Philadelphia reckoned 161,000
inhabitants, and New York 202,000, in the year 1830. The lower
orders which inhabit these cities constitute a rabble even more
formidable than the populace of European towns. They consist of
freed blacks in the first place, who are condemned by the laws
and by public opinion, to an hereditary state of misery and
degradation. They also contain a multitude of Europeans who have
been driven to the shores of the New World by their misfortunes
or their misconduct; and these men inoculate the United States
with all our vices, without bringing with them any of those
interests which counteract their baneful influence. As
inhabitants of a country where they have no civil rights, they
are ready to turn all the passions which agitate the community to
their own advantage; thus, within the last few months serious
riots have broken out in Philadelphia and in New York.
Disturbances of this kind are unknown in the rest of the country,
which is nowise alarmed by them, because the population of the
cities has hitherto exercised neither power nor influence over
the rural districts.

Nevertheless, I look upon the size of certain American cities,
and especially on the nature of their population, as a real
danger which threatens the future security of the democratic
republics of the New World: and I venture to predict that they
will perish from this circumstance, unless the government succeed
in creating an armed force, which, while it remains under the
control of the majority of the nation, will be independent of the
town population, and able to repress its excesses.

] whose influence is directly or indirectly felt over the whole
extent of the country, which I hold to be one of the first causes
of the maintenance of republican institutions in the United
States. In cities, men cannot be prevented from concerting
together, and from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts
sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as
large assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are members; their
populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates,
and frequently executes its own wishes without their
intervention.

To subject the provinces to the metropolis, is therefore not only
to place the destiny of the empire in the hands of a portion of
the community, which may be reprobated as unjust, but to place it
in the hands of a populace acting under its own impulses, which
must be avoided as dangerous. The preponderance of capital
cities is therefore a serious blow upon the representative
system; and it exposes modern republics to the same defect as the
republics of antiquity, which all perished from not being
acquainted with that system.

It would be easy for me to adduce a great number of secondary
causes which have contributed to establish, and which concur to
maintain, the democratic republic of the United States. But I
discern two principal circumstances among these favorable
elements, which I hasten to point out. I have already observed
that the origin of the American settlements may be looked upon as
the first and most efficacious cause to which the present
prosperity of the United States may be attributed. The Americans
had the chances of birth in their favor; and their forefathers
imported that equality of conditions into the country, whence the
democratic republic has very naturally taken its rise. Nor was
this all they did; for besides this republican condition of
society, the early settlers bequeathed to their descendants those
customs, manners, and opinions, which contribute most to the
success of a republican form of government. When I reflect upon
the consequences of this primary circumstance, methinks I see the
destiny of America embodied in the first puritan who landed on
those shores, just as the human race was represented by the first
man.

The chief circumstance which has favored the establishment and
the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United
States, is the nature of the territory which the Americans
inhabit. Their ancestors gave them the love of equality and of
freedom: but God himself gave them the means of remaining equal
and free, by placing them upon a boundless continent, which is
open to their exertions. General prosperity is favorable to the
stability of all governments, but more particularly of a
democratic constitution, which depends upon the disposition of
the majority, and more particularly of that portion of the
community which is most exposed to feel the pressure of want.
When the people rules, it must be rendered happy, or it will
overturn the state: and misery is apt to stimulate it to those
excesses to which ambition rouses kings. The physical causes,
independent of the laws, which contribute to promote general
prosperity, are more numerous in America than they have ever been
in any other country in the world, at any other period of
history. In the United States, not only is legislation
democratic, but nature herself favors the cause of the people.

In what part of human tradition can be found anything at all
similar to that which is occurring under our eyes in North
America?  The celebrated communities of antiquity were all
founded in the midst of hostile nations, which they were obliged
to subjugate before they could flourish in their place. Even the
moderns have found, in some parts of South America, vast regions
inhabited by a people of inferior civilisation, but which
occupied and cultivated the soil. To found their new states, it
was necessary to extirpate or to subdue a numerous population,
until civilisation has been made to blush for their success. But
North America was only inhabited by wandering tribes, who took no
thought of the natural riches of the soil: and that vast country
was still, properly speaking, an empty continent, a desert land
awaiting its inhabitants.

Everything is extraordinary in America, the social condition of
the inhabitants, as well as the laws; but the soil upon which
these institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all the
rest. When man was first placed upon the earth by the Creator,
that earth was inexhaustible in its youth; but man was weak and
ignorant: and when he had learned to explore the treasures which
it contained, hosts of his fellow-creatures covered its surface,
and he was obliged to earn an asylum for repose and for freedom
by the sword. At that same period North America was discovered,
as if it had been kept in reserve by the Deity, and had just
risen from beneath the waters of the deluge.

That continent still presents, as it did in the primeval time,
rivers which rise from never-failing sources, green and moist
solitudes, and fields which the ploughshare of the husbandman has
never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in the
barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages, but to a
being who is already in possession of the most potent secrets of
the natural world, who is united to his fellow-men, and
instructed by the experience of fifty centuries. At this very
time thirteen millions of civilized Europeans are peaceably
spreading over those fertile plains, with whose resources and
whose extent they are not yet accurately acquainted. Three or
four thousand soldiers drive the wandering races of the
aborigines before them; these are followed by the pioneers, who
pierce the woods, scare off the beasts of prey, explore the
courses of the inland streams, and make ready the triumphal
procession of civilisation across the waste.

The favorable influence of the temporal prosperity of America
upon the institutions of that country has been so often described
by others, and adverted to by myself, that I shall not enlarge
upon it beyond the addition of a few facts. An erroneous notion
is generally entertained, that the deserts of America are peopled
by European emigrants, who annually disembark upon the coasts of
the New World, while the American population increases and
multiplies upon the soil which its forefathers tilled. The
European settler, however, usually arrives in the United States
without friends, and sometimes without resources; in order to
subsist he is obliged to work for hire, and he rarely proceeds
beyond that belt of industrious population which adjoins the
ocean. The desert cannot be explored without capital or credit,
and the body must be accustomed to the rigors of a new climate
before it can be exposed to the chances of forest life. It is
the Americans themselves who daily quit the spots which gave them
birth, to acquire extensive domains in a remote country. Thus
the European leaves his country for the transatlantic shores; and
the American, who is born on that very coast, plunges into the
wilds of central America. This double emigration is incessant:
it begins in the remotest parts of Europe, it crosses the
Atlantic ocean, and it advances over the solitudes of the New
World. Millions of men are marching at once toward the same
horizon; their language, their religion, their manners differ,
their object is the same. The gifts of fortune are promised in
the west, and to the west they bend their course.

No event can be compared with this continuous removal of the
human race, except perhaps those irruptions which preceded the
fall of the Roman Empire. Then, as well as now, generations of
men were impelled forward in the same direction to meet and
struggle on the same spot; but the designs of Providence were not
the same; then, every new comer was the harbinger of destruction
and of death; now, every adventurer brings with him the elements
of prosperity and of life. The future still conceals from us the
ulterior consequences of this emigration of the American toward
the west; but we can hardly apprehend its more immediate results.
As a portion of the inhabitants annually leave the states in
which they were born, the population of these states increases
very slowly, although they have long been established: thus in
Connecticut, which only contains 59 inhabitants to the square
mile, the population has not been increased by more than one
quarter in forty years, while that of England has been augmented
by one third in the lapse of the same period. The European
emigrant always lands, therefore, in a country which is but half
full, and where hands are in request: he becomes a workman in
easy circumstances; his son goes to seek his fortune in unpeopled
regions, and he becomes a rich landowner. The former amasses the
capital which the latter invests, and the stranger as well as the
native is unacquainted with want.

The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to the
division of property; but a cause which is more powerful than the
laws prevents property from being divided to excess.[Footnote:

In New England the estates are exceedingly small, but they are
rarely subjected to farther division.

]  This is very perceptible in the states which are beginning to
be thickly peopled; Massachusetts is the most populous part of
the Union, but it contains only 80 inhabitants to the square
mile, which is much less than in France, where 162 are reckoned
to the same extent of country. But in Massachusetts estates are
very rarely divided; the eldest son takes the land, and the
others go to seek their fortune in the desert. The law has
abolished the right of primogeniture, but circumstances have
concurred to re-establish it under a form of which none can
complain, and by which no just rights are impaired.

A single fact will suffice to show the prodigious number of
individuals who leave New England, in this manner, to settle
themselves in the wilds. We were assured in 1830, that
thirty-six of the members of congress were born in the little
state of Connecticut. The population of Connecticut, which
constitutes only one forty-third part of that of the United
States, thus furnished one-eighth of the whole body of
representatives. The state of Connecticut, however, only sends
five delegates to congress; and the thirty-one others sit for the
new western states. If these thirty-one individuals had remained
in Connecticut, it is probable that instead of becoming rich
landowners they would have remained humble laborers, that they
would have lived in obscurity without being able to rise into
public life, and that, far from becoming useful members of the
legislature, they might have been unruly citizens.

These reflections do not escape the observation of the Americans
any more than of ourselves. "It cannot be doubted," says
Chancellor Kent in his Treatise on American Law, "that the
division of landed estates must produce great evils when it is
carried to such excess that each parcel of land is insufficient
to support a family; but these disadvantages have never been felt
in the United States, and many generations must elapse before
they can be felt. The extent of our inhabited territory, the
abundance of adjacent land, and the continual stream of
emigration flowing from the shores of the Atlantic toward the
interior of the country, suffice as yet, and will long suffice,
to prevent the parcelling out of estates."

It is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the American
rushes forward to secure the immense booty which fortune proffers
to him. In the pursuit he fearlessly braves the arrow of the
Indian and the distempers of the forest; he is unimpressed by the
silence of the woods; the approach of beasts of prey does not
disturb him; for he is goaded onward by a passion more intense
than the love of life. Before him lies a boundless continent,
and he urges onward as if time pressed, and he was afraid of
finding no room for his exertions. I have spoken of the
emigration from the older states, but how shall I describe that
which takes place from the more recent ones?  Fifty years have
scarcely elapsed since that of Ohio was founded; the greater part
of its inhabitants were not born within its confines; its capital
has only been built thirty years, and its territory is still
covered by an immense extent of uncultivated fields;
nevertheless, the population of Ohio is already proceeding
westward, and most of the settlers who descend to the fertile
savannahs of Illinois are citizens of Ohio. These men left their
first country to improve their condition; they quit their
resting-place to meliorate it still more; fortune awaits them
everywhere, but happiness they cannot attain. The desire of
prosperity has become an ardent and restless passion in their
minds, which grows by what it gains. They early broke the ties
which bound them to their natal earth, and they have contracted
no fresh ones on their way. Emigration was at first necessary to
them as a means of subsistence; and it soon becomes a sort of
game of chance, which they pursue for the emotions it excites, as
much as for the gain it procures.

Sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert
reappears behind him. The woods stoop to give him a passage, and
spring up again when he has passed. It is not uncommon in
crossing the new states of the west to meet with deserted
dwellings in the midst of the wilds; the traveller frequently
discovers the vestiges of a log-house in the most solitary
retreats, which bear witness to the power, and no less to the
inconstancy of man. In these abandoned fields, and over those
ruins of a day, the primeval forest soon scatters a fresh
vegetation; the beasts resume the haunts which were once their
own; and nature covers the traces of man's path with branches and
with flowers, which obliterate his evanescent track.

I remember that in crossing one of the woodland districts which
still cover the state of New York, I reached the shore of a lake,
which was embosomed with forests coeval with the world. A small
island, covered with woods, whose thick foliage concealed its
banks, rose from the centre of the waters. Upon the shores of
the lake no object attested the presence of man, except a column
of smoke which might be seen on the horizon rising from the tops
of the trees to the clouds, and seeming to hang from heaven
rather than to be mounting to the sky. An Indian shallop was
hauled up on the sand, which tempted me to visit the islet that
had at first attracted my attention, and in a few minutes I set
foot upon its banks. The whole island formed one of those
delicious solitudes of the New World, which almost lead civilized
man to regret the haunts of the savage. A luxuriant vegetation
bore witness to the incomparable fruitfulness of the soil. The
deep silence, which is common to the wilds of North America, was
only broken by the hoarse cooing of the wood-pigeon and the
tapping of the woodpecker upon the bark of trees. I was far from
supposing that this spot had ever been inhabited, so completely
did nature seem to be left to her own caprices; but when I
reached the centre of the isle I thought that I discovered some
traces of man. I then proceeded to examine the surrounding
objects with care, and I soon perceived that an European had
undoubtedly been led to seek a refuge in this retreat. Yet what
changes had taken place in the scene of his labors!  The logs
which he had hastily hewn to build himself a shed had sprouted
afresh; the very props were intertwined with living verdure, and
his cabin was transformed into a bower. In the midst of these
shrubs a few stones were to be seen, blackened with fire and
sprinkled with thin ashes; here the hearth had no doubt been, and
the chimney in falling had covered it with rubbish. I stood for
some time in silent admiration of the exuberance of nature and
the littleness of man; and when I was obliged to leave that
enchanting solitude, I exclaimed with melancholy, "Are ruins,
then, already here?"

In Europe we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, an
unbounded desire of riches, and an excessive love of
independence, as propensities very formidable to society. Yet
these are the very elements which ensure a long and peaceful
duration to the republics of America. Without these unquiet
passions the population would collect in certain spots, and would
soon be subject to wants like those of the Old World, which it is
difficult to satisfy; for such is the present good fortune of the
New World, that the vices of its inhabitants are scarcely less
favorable to society than their virtues. These circumstances
exercise a great influence on the estimation in which human
actions are held in the two hemispheres. The Americans
frequently term what we should call cupidity a laudable industry;
and they blame as faint-heartedness what we consider to be the
virtue of moderate desires.

In France simple tastes, orderly manners, domestic affections,
and the attachment which men feel to the place of their birth,
are looked upon as great guarantees of the tranquillity and
happiness of the state. But in America nothing seems to be more
prejudicial to society than these virtues. The French Canadians,
who have faithfully preserved the traditions of their pristine
manners, are already embarrassed for room upon their small
territory; and this little community, which has so recently begun
to exist, will shortly be a prey to the calamities incident to
old nations. In Canada the most enlightened, patriotic, and
humane inhabitants, make extraordinary efforts to render the
people dissatisfied with those simple enjoyments which still
content it. There the seductions of wealth are vaunted with as
much zeal, as the charms of an honest but limited income in the
Old World: and more exertions are made to excite the passions of
the citizens there than to calm them elsewhere. If we listen to
the eulogies, we shall hear that nothing is more praiseworthy
than to exchange the pure and homely pleasures which even the
poor man tastes in his own country, for the dull delights of
prosperity under a foreign sky; to leave the patrimonial hearth,
and the turf beneath which his forefathers sleep; in short, to
abandon the living and the dead in quest of fortune.

At the present time America presents a field for human effort,
far more extensive than any sum of labor which can be applied to
work it. In America, too much knowledge cannot be diffused; for
all knowledge, while it may serve him who possesses it, turns
also to the advantage of those who are without it. New wants are
not to be feared, since they can be satisfied without difficulty;
the growth of human passions need not be dreaded, since all
passions may find an easy and a legitimate object: nor can men be
put in possession of too much freedom, since they are scarcely
ever tempted to misuse their liberties.

The American republics of the present day are like companies of
adventurers, formed to explore in common the waste lands of the
New World, and busied in a flourishing trade. The passions which
agitate the Americans most deeply, are not their political, but
their commercial passions; or, to speak more correctly, they
introduce the habits they contract in business into their
political life. They love order, without which affairs do not
prosper; and they set an especial value upon a regular conduct,
which is the foundation of a solid business; they prefer the good
sense which amasses large fortunes, to that enterprising spirit
which frequently dissipates them; general ideas alarm their
minds, which are accustomed to positive calculations; and they
hold practice in more honor than theory.

It is in America that one learns to understand the influence
which physical prosperity exercises over political actions, and
even over opinions which ought to acknowledge no sway but that of
reason; and it is more especially among strangers that this truth
is perceptible. Most of the European emigrants to the New World
carry with them that wild love of independence and of change,
which our calamities are apt to engender. I sometimes met with
Europeans, in the United States, who had been obliged to leave
their own country on account of their political opinions. They
all astonished me by the language they held; but one of them
surprised me more than all the rest. As I was crossing one of
the most remote districts of Pennsylvania, I was benighted, and
obliged to beg for hospitality at the gate of a wealthy planter,
who was a Frenchman by birth. He bade me sit down beside his
fire, and we began to talk with that freedom which befits persons
who meet in the backwoods, two thousand leagues from their native
country. I was aware that my host had been a great leveller and
an ardent demagogue, forty years ago, and that his name was not
unknown to fame. I was therefore not a little surprised to hear
him discuss the rights of property as an economist or a landowner
might have done: he spoke of the necessary gradations which
fortune established among men, of obedience to established laws,
of the influence of good morals in commonwealths, and of the
support which religious opinions give to order and to freedom; he
even went so far as to quote an evangelical authority in
corroboration of one of his political tenets.

I listened, and marvelled at the feebleness of human reason. A
proposition is true or false, but no art can prove it to be one
or the other, in the midst of the uncertainties of science and
the conflicting lessons of experience, until a new incident
disperses the clouds of doubt; I was poor, I become rich; and I
am not to expect that prosperity will act upon my conduct, and
leave my judgment free: my opinions change with my fortune, and
the happy circumstances which I turn to my advantage, furnish me
with that decisive argument which was before wanting.


[The sentence beginning "I was poor, I become rich," &c, struck
the editor, on perusal, as obscure, if not contradictory. The
original seems more explicit, and justice to the author seems to
require that it should be presented to the reader. "J'tais
pauvre, me voici riche; du moins, si le bien-tre, en agissant
sur ma conduite, laissait mon jugement en libert!  Mais non,
mes opinions sont en effet changes avec ma fortune, et, dans
l'vnement heureux dont je profite, j'ai rellement
dcouvert la raison dterminante qui jusque-l m'avait
manqu."--_American Editor_.]


The influence of prosperity acts still more freely upon the
American than upon strangers. The American has always seen the
connexion of public order and public prosperity, intimately
united as they are, go on before his eyes; he does not conceive
that one can subsist without the other; he has therefore nothing
to forget: nor has he, like so many Europeans, to unlearn the
lessons of his early education.

       *       *       *       *       *


        INFLUENCE OF THE LAWS UPON THE MAINTENANCE OF THE
            DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES.

Three principal Causes of the Maintenance of the democratic
  Republic.--Federal Constitutions.--Municipal
  Institutions.--Judicial Power.


The principal aim of this book has been to make known the laws of
the United States; if this purpose has been accomplished, the
reader is already enabled to judge for himself which are the laws
that really tend to maintain the democratic republic, and which
endanger its existence. If I have not succeeded in explaining
this in the whole course of my work, I cannot hope to do so
within the limits of a single chapter. It is not my intention to
retrace the path I have already pursued; and a very few lines
will suffice to recapitulate what I have previously explained.

Three circumstances seem to me to contribute most powerfully to
the maintenance of the democratic republic in the United States.

The first is that federal form of government which the Americans
have adopted, and which enables the Union to combine the power of
a great empire with the security of a small state;--

The second consists in those municipal institutions which limit
the despotism of the majority, and at the same time impart a
taste for freedom, and a knowledge of the art of being free, to
the people;--

The third is to be met with in the constitution of the judicial
power. I have shown in what manner the courts of justice serve
to repress the excesses of democracy; and how they check and
direct the impulses of the majority, without stopping its
activity.

       *       *       *       *       *


        INFLUENCE OF MANNERS UPON THE MAINTENANCE OF THE
            DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES.

I have previously remarked that the manners of the people may be
considered as one of the general causes to which the maintenance
of a democratic republic in the United States is attributable. I
here use the word _manners_, with the meaning which the
ancients attached to the word _mores_; for I apply it not
only to manners, in their proper sense of what constitutes the
character of social intercourse, but I extend it to the various
notions and opinions current among men, and to the mass of those
ideas which constitute their character of mind. I comprise,
therefore, under this term the whole moral and intellectual
condition of a people. My intention is not to draw a picture of
American manners, but simply to point out such features of them
as are favorable to the maintenance of political institutions.

       *       *       *       *       *


      RELIGION CONSIDERED AS A POLITICAL INSTITUTION, WHICH
        POWERFULLY CONTRIBUTES TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE
            DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC AMONG THE AMERICANS.

North America peopled by Men who professed a democratic and
  republican Christianity.--Arrival of the Catholics.--For what
  Reason the Catholics form the most democratic and the most
  republican Class at the present Time.


Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political
opinion, which is connected with it by affinity. If the human
mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the
temporal and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform
principle; and man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to
harmonize the state in which he lives upon earth, with the state
he believes to await him in heaven.

The greatest part of British America was peopled by men who,
after having shaken off the authority of the pope, acknowledged
no other religious supremacy: they brought with them into the New
World a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe,
than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This
sect contributed powerfully to the establishment of a democracy
and a republic; and from the earliest settlement of the
emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has
never been dissolved.

About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a catholic population
into the United States; on the other hand, the catholics of
America made proselytes, and at the present moment more than a
million of Christians, professing the truths of the church of
Rome, are to be met with in the Union. These catholics are
faithful to the observances of their religion; they are fervent
and zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines.
Nevertheless they constitute the most republican and the most
democratic class of citizens which exists in the United States;
and although this fact may surprise the observer at first, the
cause by which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon
reflection.

I think that the catholic religion has erroneously been looked
upon as the natural enemy of democracy. Among the various sects
of Christians, catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be
one of those which are most favorable to the equality of
conditions. In the catholic church, the religious community is
composed of only two elements; the priest and the people. The
priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and all below him
are equal.

On doctrinal points the catholic faith places all human
capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and the
ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details
of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich
and needy, it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and
the weak, it listens to no compromises with mortal man, but
reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds
all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar,
even as they are confounded in the sight of God. If catholicism
predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not
prepare them for inequality; but the contrary may be said of
protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent,
more than to render them equal.

Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy; if the sovereign be
removed, all the other classes of society are more equal than
they are in republics. It has not unfrequently occurred that the
catholic priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the
governing powers of society, and to make his place among the
civil gradations of men. This religious influence has sometimes
been used to secure the interests of that political state of
things to which he belonged. At other times catholics have taken
the side of aristocracy from a spirit of religion.

But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the
government, as is the case in the United States, than it is found
that no class of men are more naturally disposed than the
catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions
into the political world. If, then, the catholic citizens of the
United States are not forcibly led by the nature of their tenets
to adopt democratic and republican principles, at least they are
not necessarily opposed to them; and their social position, as
well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these
opinions. Most of the catholics are poor, and they have no
chance of taking a part in the government unless it be open to
all the citizens. They constitute a minority, and all rights
must be respected in order to ensure to them the free exercise of
their own privileges. These two causes induce them,
unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines which they would
perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich and
preponderant.

The catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to
oppose this political tendency; but it seeks rather to justify
its results. The priests in America have divided the
intellectual world into two parts: in the one they place the
doctrines of revealed religion, which command their assent; in
the other they leave those truths, which they believe to have
been freely left open to the researches of political inquiry.
Thus the catholics of the United States are at the same time the
most faithful believers and the most zealous citizens.

It may be asserted that in the United States no religious
doctrine displays the slightest hostility to democratic and
republican institutions. The clergy of all the different sects
holds the same language; their opinions are consonant to the
laws, and the human intellect flows onward in one sole current.

I happened to be staying in one of the largest towns in the
Union, when I was invited to attend a public meeting which had
been called for the purpose of assisting the Poles, and of
sending them supplies of arms and money. I found two or three
thousand persons collected in a vast hall which had been prepared
to receive them. In a short time a priest in his ecclesiastical
robes advanced to the front of the hustings: the spectators rose,
and stood uncovered, while he spoke in the following terms:--

"Almighty God!  the God of armies!  Thou who didst strengthen the
hearts and guide the arms of our fathers when they were fighting
for the sacred rights of national independence; thou who didst
make them triumph over a hateful oppression, and hast granted to
our people the benefits of liberty and peace; turn, O Lord, a
favorable eye upon the other hemisphere; pitifully look down upon
that heroic nation which is even now struggling as we did in the
former time, and for the same rights which we defended with our
blood. Thou, who didst create man in the likeness of the same
image, let no tyranny mar thy work, and establish inequality upon
the earth. Almighty God! do thou watch over the destiny of the
Poles, and render them worthy to be free. May thy wisdom direct
their councils, and may thy strength sustain their arms!  Shed
forth thy terror over their enemies; scatter the powers which
take counsel against them; and vouchsafe that the injustice which
the world has beheld for fifty years, be not consummated in our
time. O Lord, who holdest alike the hearts of nations and of men
in thy powerful hand, raise up allies to the sacred cause of
right; arouse the French nation from the apathy in which its
rulers retain it, that it go forth again to fight for the
liberties of the world.

"Lord, turn not thou thy face from us, and grant that we may
always be the most religious as well as the freest people of the
earth. Almighty God, hear our supplications this day. Save the
Poles, we beseech thee, in the name of thy well beloved Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for the salvation of
men. Amen."

The whole meeting responded "Amen!" with devotion.

       *       *       *       *       *


     INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS UPON POLITICAL
                  SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Christian Morality common to all Sects.--Influence of Religion
  upon the Manners of the Americans.--Respect for the marriage
  Tie.--In what manner Religion confines the Imagination of the
  Americans within certain Limits, and checks the Passion of
  Innovation.--Opinion of the Americans on the political Utility
  of Religion.--Their Exertions to extend and secure its
  Predominance.


I have just shown what the direct influence of religion upon
politics is in the United States; but its indirect influence
appears to me to be still more considerable, and it never
instructs the Americans more fully in the art of being free than
when it says nothing of freedom.

The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They
all differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his
Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are
due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own
peculiar manner; but all the sects preach the same moral law in
the name of God. If it be of the slightest importance to man, as
an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of
society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for
or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the
peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to
its interests. Moreover, almost all the sects of the United
States are comprised within the great unity of christianity, and
Christian morality is everywhere the same.

It may be believed without unfairness, that a certain number of
Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit more than
from conviction. In the United States the sovereign authority is
religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there
is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion
retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in
America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of
its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most
powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the
earth.

I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in
general, without even excepting those who do not admit religious
liberty, are all in favor of civil freedom; but they do not
support any particular political system. They keep aloof from
parties, and from public affairs. In the United States religion
exercises but little influence upon the laws, and upon the
details of public opinion; but it directs the manners of the
community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the
state.

I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is
observable in the United States, arises, in the first instance,
from religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man
from the numberless temptations of fortune; nor can it check that
passion for gain which every incident of his life contributes to
arouse; but its influence over the mind of women is supreme, and
women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no
country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much
respected as in America, or where conjugal happiness is more
highly or worthily appreciated. In Europe almost all the
disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic
life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of
home, is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of
heart, and the evil of fluctuating desires. Agitated by the
tumultuous passions which frequently disturb his dwelling, the
European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers
of the state exact. But when the American retires from the
turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it
the image of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple
and natural, his joys are innocent and calm; and as he finds that
an orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he accustoms
himself without difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as
his tastes. While the European endeavors to forget his domestic
troubles by agitating society, the American derives from his own
home that love of order, which he afterward carries with him into
public affairs.

In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to
the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people.
Among the Anglo-Americans, there are some who profess the
doctrines of Christianity from a sincere belief in them, and
others who do the same because they are afraid to be suspected of
unbelief. Christianity, therefore, reigns without any obstacle,
by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before
observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and
determinate, although the political world is abandoned to the
debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human mind is never
left to wander across a boundless field; and, whatever may be its
pretensions, it is checked from time to time by barriers which it
cannot surmount. Before it can perpetrate innovation, certain
primal and immutable principles are laid down, and the boldest
conceptions of human device are subjected to certain forms which
retard and stop their completion.

The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights,
is circumspect and undecided; its impulses are checked, and its
works unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political
society, and are singularly favorable both to the tranquillity of
the people and the durability of the institutions it has
established. Nature and circumstances concurred to make the
inhabitants of the United States bold men, as is sufficiently
attested by the enterprising spirit with which they seek for
fortune. If the minds of the Americans were free from all
trammels, they would very shortly become the most daring
innovators and the most implacable disputants in the world. But
the revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an
ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does
not easily permit them to violate the laws that oppose their
designs; nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of
their partisans, even if they were able to get over their own.
Hitherto no one, in the United States, has dared to advance the
maxim, that everything is permissible with a view to the
interests of society; an impious adage, which seems to have been
invented in an age of freedom, to shelter all the tyrants of
future ages. Thus while the law permits the Americans to do what
they please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids
them to commit, what is rash and unjust.

Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of
society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of
the political institutions of that country; for if it does not
impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free
institutions. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the
inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious
belief. I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere
faith in their religion; for who can search the human heart? but
I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the
maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not
peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to
the whole nation, and to every rank of society.

In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect,
this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from
supporting him; but if he attacks all the sects together, every
one abandons him, and he remains alone.

While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at
the assizes of the county of Chester (state of New York),
declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in
the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his
evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand
all the confidence of the court in what he was about to
say.[Footnote:

The New York Spectator of August 23d, 1831, relates the fact in
the following terms: "The court of common pleas of Chester county
(New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his
disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge remarked,
that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who
did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief
constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice;
and that he knew of no cause in a Christian country, where a
witness had been permitted to testify without such belief."

[The instance given by the author, of a person offered as a
witness having been rejected on the ground that he did not
believe in the existence of a God, seems to be adduced to prove
either his assertion that the Americans hold religion to be
indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions--or
his assertion, that if a man attacks all the sects together,
every one abandons him and he remains alone. But it is
questionable how far the fact quoted proves either of these
positions. The rule which prescribes as a qualification for a
witness the belief in a Supreme Being who will punish falsehood,
without which he is deemed wholly incompetent to testify, is
established for the protection of personal rights, and not to
compel the adoption of any system of religious belief. It came
with all our fundamental principles from England as a part of the
common law which the colonists brought with them. It is supposed
to prevail in every country in Christendom, whatever may be the
form of its government; and the only doubt that arises respecting
its existence in France, is created by our author's apparent
surprise at finding such a rule in America.--_American
Editor_.]

]  The newspapers related the fact without any farther comment.

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty
so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them
conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction
does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems
to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.

I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send out
ministers of the gospel into the new western states, to found
schools and churches there, lest religion should be suffered to
die away in those remote settlements, and the rising states be
less fitted to enjoy free institutions than the people from which
they emanated. I met with wealthy New Englanders who abandoned
the country in which they were born, in order to lay the
foundations of Christianity and of freedom on the banks of the
Missouri or in the prairies of Illinois. Thus religious zeal is
perpetually stimulated in the United States by the duties of
patriotism. These men do not act from an exclusive consideration
of the promises of a future life; eternity is only one motive of
their devotion to the cause; and if you converse with these
missionaries of Christian civilisation, you will be surprised to
find how much value they set upon the goods of this world, and
that you meet with a politician where you expected to find a
priest. They will tell you that "all the American republics are
collectively involved with each other; if the republics of the
west were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot,
the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of
the Atlantic ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our
interest that the new states should be religious, in order to
maintain our liberties."

Such are the opinions of the Americans; and if any hold that the
religious spirit which I admire is the very thing most amiss in
America, and that the only element wanting to the freedom and
happiness of the human race is to believe in some blind
cosmogony, or to assert with Cabanis the secretion of thought by
the brain, I can only reply, that those who hold this language
have never been in America, and that they have never seen a
religious or a free nation. When they return from their
expedition, we shall hear what they have to say.

There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions
as a temporary means of power, of wealth and distinction; men who
are the _condottieri_ of liberty, and who fight for their
own advantage, whatever be the colors they wear: it is not to
these that I address myself. But there are others who look
forward to the republican form of government as a tranquil and
lasting state, toward which modern society is daily impelled by
the ideas and manners of the time, and who sincerely desire to
prepare men to be free When these men attack religious opinions,
they obey the dictates of their passions to the prejudice of
their interests. Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty
cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic which
they set forth in glowing colors, than in the monarchy which they
attack; and it is more needed in democratic republics than in any
others. How is it possible that society should escape
destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as
the political tie is relaxed?  and what can be done with a people
which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?

       *       *       *       *       *


   PRINCIPAL CAUSES WHICH RENDER RELIGION POWERFUL IN AMERICA.

Care taken by the Americans to separate the Church from the
  State.--The Laws, public Opinion, and even the Exertions of the
  Clergy concur to promote this end.--Influence of Religion upon
  the Mind, in the United States, attributable to this
  Cause.--Reason of this.--What is the natural State of Men with
  regard to Religion at the present time.--What are the peculiar
  and incidental Causes which prevent Men, in certain Countries,
  from arriving at this State.


The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained the gradual
decay of religious faith in a very simple manner. Religious
zeal, said they, must necessarily fail, the more generally
liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately,
facts are by no means in accordance with their theory. There are
certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equalled by
their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the
freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfils all the
outward duties of religion with fervor.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the
country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the
longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great
political consequences resulting from this state of things, to
which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the
spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses
diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that
they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over
the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this
phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it, I
questioned the members of all the different sects; and I more
especially sought the society of the clergy, who are the
depositaries of the different persuasions, and who are more
especially interested in their duration. As a member of the
Roman catholic church I was more particularly brought into
contact with several of its priests, with whom I became
intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my
astonishment and I explained my doubts: I found that they
differed upon matters of detail alone; and that they mainly
attributed the peaceable dominion of religion in their country,
to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to
affirm that during my stay in America, I did not meet with a
single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of
the same opinion upon this point.

This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done,
the station which the American clergy occupy in political
society. I learned with surprise that they fill no public
appointments;[Footnote:

Unless this term be applied to the functions which many of them
fill in the schools. Almost all education is intrusted to the
clergy.

] not one of them is to be met with in the administration, and
they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies. In
several states[Footnote:

See the constitution of New York, art. 7,  4:--

"And whereas, the ministers of the gospel are, by their
profession, dedicated to the service of God and the care of
souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of
their functions; therefore no minister of the gospel, or priest
of any denomination whatsoever, shall, at any time hereafter,
under any pretence or description whatever, be eligible to, or
capable of holding any civil or military office or place within
this state."

See also the constitutions of North Carolina, art. 31. Virginia.
South Carolina, art. 1,  23. Kentucky, art. 2,  26.
Tennessee, art S,  1. Louisiana, art. 2,  22.

] the law excludes them from political life; public opinion in
all. And when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of
the clergy, I found that most of its members seemed to retire of
their own accord from the exercise of power, and that they made
it the pride of their profession to abstain from politics.

I heard them inveigh against ambition and deceit, under whatever
political opinions these vices might chance to lurk; but I
learned from their discourses that men are not guilty in the eye
of God for any opinions concerning political government, which
they may profess with sincerity, any more than they are for their
mistakes in building a house or in driving a furrow. I perceived
that these ministers of the gospel eschewed all parties, with the
anxiety attendant upon personal interest. These facts convinced
me that what I had been told was true; and it then became my
object to investigate their causes, and to inquire how it
happened that the real authority of religion was increased by a
state of things which diminished its apparent force: these causes
did not long escape my researches.

The short space of threescore years can never content the
imagination of man; nor can the imperfect joys of this world
satisfy his heart. Man alone, of all created beings, displays a
natural contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to
exist; he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These
different feelings incessantly urge his soul to the contemplation
of a future state, and religion directs his musings thither.
Religion, then, is simply another form of hope; and it is no less
natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot abandon
their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect,
and a sort of violent distortion of their true natures; but they
are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments; for
unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of
mankind. If we only consider religious institutions in a purely
human point of view, they may be said to derive an inexhaustible
element of strength from man himself, since they belong to one of
the constituent principles of human nature.

I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this
influence, which originates in itself, by the artificial power of
the laws, and by the support of those temporal institutions which
direct society. Religions, intimately united to the governments
of the earth, have been known to exercise a sovereign authority
derived from the twofold source of terror and of faith; but when
a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not
hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error, as a man who
should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in
obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that
authority which is rightfully its own. When a religion founds
its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every
human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion: but when it
connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt
maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in
forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments its
authority over a few, and forfeits the hope of reigning over all.

As long as a religion rests upon those sentiments which are the
consolation of all affliction, it may attract the affections of
mankind. But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of the
world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its interests,
and not the principle of love, have given to it; or to repel as
antagonists men who are still attached to its own spirit, however
opposed they may be to the powers to which it is allied. The
church cannot share the temporal power of the state, without
being the object of a portion of that animosity which the latter
excites.

The political powers which seem to be most firmly established
have frequently no better guarantee for their duration, than the
opinions of a generation, the interests of the time, or the life
of an individual. A law may modify the social condition which
seems to be most fixed and determinate; and with the social
condition everything else must change. The powers of society are
more or less fugitive, like the years which we spend upon the
earth; they succeed each other with rapidity like the fleeting
cares of life; and no government has ever yet been founded upon
an invariable disposition of the human heart, or upon an
imperishable interest.

As long as religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities,
and passions, which are found to occur under the same forms at
all the different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of
time; or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion.
But when religion clings to the interests of the world, it
becomes almost as fragile a thing as the powers of the earth. It
is the only one of them all which can hope for immortality; but
if it be connected with their ephemeral authority, it shares
their fortunes, and may fall with those transient passions which
supported them for a day. The alliance which religion contracts
with political powers must needs be onerous to itself; since it
does not require their assistance to live, and by giving them its
assistance it may be exposed to decay.

The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, but it is
not always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be
imperishable, in others the existence of society appears to be
more precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge
the citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them
to feverish excitement. When government appears to be so strong,
and laws so stable, men do not perceive the dangers which may
accrue from a union of church and state. When governments
display so much inconstancy, the danger is self-evident, but it
is no longer possible to avoid it; to be effectual, measures must
be taken to discover its approach.

In proportion as a nation assumes a democratic condition of
society, and as communities display democratic propensities, it
becomes more and more dangerous to connect religion with
political institutions; for the time is coming when authority
will be bandied from hand to hand, when political theories will
succeed each other, and when men, laws and constitutions, will
disappear or be modified from day to day, and this not for a
season only, but unceasingly. Agitation and mutability are
inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just as
stagnation and inertness are the law of absolute monarchies.

If the Americans, who change the head of the government once in
four years, who elect new legislators every two years, and renew
the provincial officers every twelvemonth; if the Americans, who
have abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators,
had not placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide
in the ebb and flow of human opinions? where would that respect
which belongs to it be paid, amid the struggles of faction? and
what would become of its immortality in the midst of perpetual
decay?  The American clergy were the first to perceive this
truth, and to act in conformity with it. They saw that they must
renounce their religious influence, if they were to strive for
political power; and they chose to give up the support of the
state, rather than to share in its vicissitudes.

In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at
certain periods in the history of certain peoples; but its
influence is more lasting. It restricts itself to its own
resources, but of those none can deprive it: its circle is
limited to certain principles, but those principles are entirely
its own, and under its undisputed control.

On every side in Europe we hear voices complaining of the absence
of religious faith, and inquiring the means of restoring to
religion some remnant of its pristine authority. It seems to me
that we must first attentively consider what ought to be _the
natural state_ of men with regard to religion, at the present
time; and when we know what we have to hope and to fear, we may
discern the end to which our efforts ought to be directed.

The two great dangers which threaten the existence of religions
are schism and indifference. In ages of fervent devotion, men
sometimes abandon their religion, but they only shake it off in
order to adopt another. Their faith changes the objects to which
it is directed, but it suffers no decline. The old religion,
then, excites enthusiastic attachment or bitter enmity in either
party; some leave it with anger, others cling to it with
increased devotedness, and although persuasions differ,
irreligion is unknown. Such, however, is not the case when a
religious belief is secretly undermined by doctrines which may be
termed negative, since they deny the truth of one religion
without affirming that of any other. Prodigious revolutions then
take place in the human mind, without the apparent co-operation
of the passions of man, and almost without his knowledge. Men
lose the object of their fondest hopes, as if through
forgetfulness. They are carried away by an imperceptible current
which they have not the courage to stem, but which they follow
with regret, since it bears them from a faith they love, to a
scepticism that plunges them into despair.

In ages which answer to this description, men desert their
religious opinions from lukewarmness rather than from dislike;
they do not reject them, but the sentiments by which they were
once fostered disappear. But if the unbeliever does not admit
religion to be true, he still considers it useful. Regarding
religious institutions in a human point of view, he acknowledges
their influence upon manners and legislation. He admits that
they may serve to make men live in peace with one another and to
prepare them gently for the hour of death. He regrets the faith
which he has lost; and as he is deprived of a treasure which he
has learned to estimate at its full value, he scruples to take it
from those who still possess it.

On the other hand, those who continue to believe, are not afraid
openly to avow their faith. They look upon those who do not
share their persuasion as more worthy of pity than of opposition;
and they are aware, that to acquire the esteem of the
unbelieving, they are not obliged to follow their example. They
are hostile to no one in the world; and as they do not consider
the society in which they live as an arena in which religion is
bound to face its thousand deadly foes, they love their
contemporaries, while they condemn their weaknesses, and lament
their errors.

As those who do not believe, conceal their incredulity; and as
those who believe, display their faith, public opinion pronounces
itself in favor of religion: love, support, and honor, are
bestowed upon it, and it is only by searching the human soul,
that we can detect the wounds which it has received. The mass of
mankind, who are never without the feeling of religion, do not
perceive anything at variance with the established faith. The
instinctive desire of a future life brings the crowd about the
altar, and opens the hearts of men to the precepts and
consolations of religion.

But this picture is not applicable to us; for there are men among
us who have ceased to believe in Christianity, without adopting
any other religion; others who are in the perplexities of doubt,
and who already affect not to believe; and others, again, who are
afraid to avow that Christian faith which they still cherish in
secret.

Amid these lukewarm partisans and ardent antagonists, a small
number of believers exist, who are ready to brave all obstacles,
and to scorn all dangers in defence of their faith. They have
done violence to human weakness, in order to rise superior to
public opinion. Excited by the effort they have made, they
scarcely know where to stop; and as they know that the first use
which the French made, of independence, was to attack religion,
they look upon their contemporaries with dread, and they recoil
in alarm from the liberty which their fellow-citizens are seeking
to obtain. As unbelief appears to them to be a novelty, they
comprise all that is new in one indiscriminate animosity. They
are at war with their age and country, and they look upon every
opinion which is put forth there as the necessary enemy of the
faith.

Such is not the natural state of men with regard to religion at
the present day; and some extraordinary or incidental cause must
be at work in France, to prevent the human mind from following
its original propensities, and to drive it beyond the limits at
which it ought naturally to stop.

I am intimately convinced that this extraordinary and incidental
cause is the close connexion of politics and religion. The
unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political
opponents, rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate
the Christian religion as the opinion of a party, much more than
as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because
they are the representatives of the Divinity, than because they
are the allies of authority.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers
of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it
were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has
been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut
the bonds which restrain it, and that which is alive will rise
once more. I know not what could restore the Christian church of
Europe to the energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to
God alone; but it may be the effect of human policy to leave the
faith in all the full exercise of the strength which it still
retains.

       *       *       *       *       *


  HOW THE INSTRUCTION, THE HABITS, AND THE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE
             OF THE AMERICANS PROMOTE THE SUCCESS OF
                 THEIR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS.

What is to be understood by the instruction of the American
  People.--The human Mind is more superficially instructed in the
  United States than in Europe.--No one completely
  uninstructed.--Reason of this Rapidity with which Opinions are
  diffused even in the uncultivated States of the
  West.--Practical Experience more serviceable to the Americans
  than Book-learning.


I have but little to add to what I have already said, concerning
the influence which the instruction and the habits of the
Americans exercise upon the maintenance of their political
institutions.

America has hitherto produced very few writers of distinction; it
possesses no great historians, and not a single eminent poet.
The inhabitants of that country look upon what are properly
styled literary pursuits with a kind of disapprobation; and there
are towns of very second rate importance in Europe, in which more
literary works are annually published, than in the twenty-four
states of the Union put together. The spirit of the Americans is
averse to general ideas; and it does not seek theoretical
discoveries. Neither politics nor manufactures direct them to
these occupations; and although new laws are perpetually enacted
in the United States, no great writers have hitherto inquired
into the principles of their legislation. The Americans have
lawyers and commentators, but no jurists; and they furnish
examples rather than lessons to the world. The same observation
applies to the mechanical arts. In America, the inventions of
Europe are adopted with sagacity; they are perfected, and adapted
with admirable skill to the wants of the country. Manufactures
exist, but the science of manufacture is not cultivated; and they
have good workmen, but very few inventors. Fulton was obliged to
proffer his services to foreign nations for a long time before he
was able to devote them to his own country.


[The remark that in America "there are very good workmen but very
few inventors," will excite surprise in this country. The
inventive character of Fulton he seems to admit, but would
apparently deprive us of the credit of his name, by the remark
that he was obliged to proffer his services to foreign nations
for a long time. He might have added, that those proffers were
disregarded and neglected, and that it was finally in his own
country that he found the aid necessary to put in execution his
great project. If there be patronage extended by the citizens of
the United States to any one thing in preference to another, it
is to the results of inventive genius. Surely Franklin,
Rittenhouse, and Perkins, have been heard of by our author; and
he must have heard something of that wonderful invention, the
cotton-gin of Whitney, and of the machines for making cards to
comb wool. The original machines of Fulton for the application
of steam have been constantly improving, so that there is
scarcely a vestige of them remaining. But to sum up the whole in
one word, can it be possible that our author did not visit the
patent office at Washington?  Whatever may be said of the
_utility_ of nine-tenths of the inventions of which the
descriptions and models are there deposited, no one who has ever
seen that depository, or who has read a description of its
contents, can doubt that they furnish the most incontestible
evidence of extraordinary inventive genius--a genius that has
excited the astonishment of other European
travellers.--_American Editor_.]


The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state
of instruction among the Anglo-Americans, must consider the same
object from two different points of view. If he only singles out
the learned, he will be astonished to find how rare they are; but
if he counts the ignorant, the American people will appear to be
the most enlightened community in the world. The whole
population, as I observed in another place, is situated between
these two extremes.

In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of
human knowledge; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the
evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the
leading features of its constitution. In the states of
Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man
imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly
ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.

When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American
states; the manuscript libraries of the former, and their rude
population, with the innumerable journals and the enlightened
people of the latter; when I remember all the attempts which are
made to judge the modern republics by the assistance of those of
antiquity, and to infer what will happen in our time from what
took place two thousand years ago, I am tempted to burn my books,
in order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a condition of
society.

What I have said of New England must not, however, be applied
indiscriminately to the whole Union: as we advance towards the
west or the south, the instruction of the people diminishes. In
the states which are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a certain
number of individuals may be found, as in our own countries, who
are devoid of the rudiments of instruction. But there is not a
single district in the United States sunk in complete ignorance;
and for a very simple reason; the peoples of Europe started from
the darkness of a barbarous condition to advance toward the light
of civilisation; their progress has been unequal; some of them
have improved apace, while others have loitered in their course,
and some have stopped, and are still sleeping upon the way.

Such has not been the case in the United States. The
Anglo-Americans settled in a state of civilisation, upon that
territory which their descendants occupy; they had not to begin
to learn, and it was sufficient not to forget. Now the children
of these same Americans are the persons who, year by year,
transport their dwellings into the wilds: and with their
dwellings their acquired information and their esteem for
knowledge. Education has taught them the utility of instruction,
and has enabled them to transmit that instruction to their
posterity. In the United States society has no infancy, but it
is born in man's estate.

The Americans never use the word "peasant," because they have no
idea of the peculiar class which that term denotes; the ignorance
of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the
rusticity of the villager, have not been preserved among them;
and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the
coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of
civilisation. At the extreme borders of the confederate states,
upon the confines of society and of the wilderness, a population
of bold adventurers have taken up their abode, who pierce the
solitudes of the American woods, and seek a country there, in
order to escape that poverty which awaited them in their native
provinces. As soon as the pioneer arrives upon the spot which is
to serve him for a retreat, he fells a few trees and builds a
log-house. Nothing can offer a more miserable aspect than these
isolated dwellings. The traveller who approaches one of them
toward night-fall, sees the flicker of the hearth-flame through
the chinks in the walls; and at night, if the wind rises, he
hears the roof of boughs shake to and fro in the midst of the
great forest trees. Who would not suppose that this poor hut is
the asylum of rudeness and ignorance?  Yet no sort of comparison
can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling which shelters
him. Everything about him is primitive and unformed, but he is
himself the result of the labor and the experience of eighteen
centuries. He wears the dress, and he speaks the language of
cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious of the future,
and ready for argument upon the present; he is, in short, a
highly civilized being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit the
back-woods, and who penetrates into the wilds of a New World with
the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers.

It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which
public opinion circulates in the midst of these
deserts.[Footnote:

I travelled along a portion of the frontier of the United States
in a sort of cart which was termed the mail. We passed, day and
night, with great rapidity along roads which were scarcely marked
out, through immense forests: when the gloom of the woods became
impenetrable, the coachman lighted branches of fir and we
journied along by the light they cast. From time to time we came
to a hut in the midst of the forest, which was a postoffice. The
mail dropped an enormous bundle of letters at the door of this
isolated dwelling, and we pursued our way at full gallop, leaving
the inhabitants of the neighboring log-houses to send for their
share of the treasure.

]  I do not think that so much intellectual intercourse takes
place in the most enlightened and populous districts of
France.[Footnote:

In 1832, each inhabitant of Michigan paid a sum equivalent to 1
franc, 22 centimes (French money) to the postoffice revenue; and
each inhabitant of the Floridas paid 1 fr. 5 cent (See National
Calendar, 1833, p. 244.) In the same year each inhabitant of the
department du Nord, paid 1 fr. 4 cent, to the revenue of the
French postoffice. (See the Compte rendu de l'Administration des
Finances, 1833, p. 623.) Now the state of Michigan only
contained at that time 7 inhabitants per square league; and
Florida only 5; the instruction and the commercial activity of
these districts are inferior to those of most of the states in
the Union; while the department du Nord, which contains 3,400
inhabitants per square league, is one of the most enlightened and
manufacturing parts of France.

]  It cannot be doubted that in the United States, the
instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support
of a democratic republic; and such must always be the case, I
believe, where instruction, which awakens the understanding, is
not separated from moral education which amends the heart. But I
by no means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still farther from
thinking, as so many people do think in Europe, that men can be
instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and write.
True information is mainly derived from experience, and if the
Americans had not been gradually accustomed to govern themselves,
their book-learning would not assist them much at the present
day.

I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States,
and I cannot express how much I admire their experience and their
good sense. An American should never be allowed to speak of
Europe; for he will then probably display a vast deal of
presumption and very foolish pride. He will take up with those
crude and vague notions which are so useful to the ignorant all
over the world. But if you question him respecting his own
country, the cloud which dimmed his intelligence will immediately
disperse; his language will become as clear and as precise as his
thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are, and by what
means he exercises them; he will be able to point out the customs
which obtain in the political world. You will find that he is
well acquainted with the rules of the administration, and that he
is familiar with the mechanism of the laws. The citizen of the
United States does not acquire his practical science and his
positive notions from books; the instruction he has acquired may
have prepared him for receiving those ideas, but it did not
furnish them. The American learns to know the laws by
participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in
the forms of government, from governing. The great work of
society is ever going on beneath his eyes, and, as it were, under
his hands.

In the United States politics are the end and aim of education;
in Europe its principal object is to fit men for private life.
The interference of the citizens in public affairs is too rare an
occurrence for it to be anticipated beforehand. Upon casting a
glance over society in the two hemispheres, these differences are
indicated even by its external aspect.

In Europe, we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits of
private life into public affairs; and as we pass at once from the
domestic circle to the government of the state, we may frequently
be heard to discuss the great interests of society in the same
manner in which we converse with our friends. The Americans, on
the other hand, transfuse the habits of public life into their
manners in private; and in their country the jury is introduced
into the games of school-boys, and parliamentary forms are
observed in the order of a feast.

       *       *       *       *       *


       THE LAWS CONTRIBUTE MORE TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE
   DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES THAN THE PHYSICAL
          CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE COUNTRY, AND THE MANNERS
                       MORE THAN THE LAWS.

All the Nations of America have a democratic State of
  Society.--Yet democratic Institutions subsist only among the
  Anglo-Americans.--The Spaniards of South America, equally
  favored by physical Causes as the Anglo-Americans, unable to
  maintain a democratic Republic.--Mexico, which has adopted the
  Constitution of the United States, in the same
  Predicament.--The Anglo-Americans of the West less able to
  maintain it than those of the East.--Reason of these different
  Results.


I have remarked that the maintenance of democratic institutions
in the United States is attributable to the circumstances, the
laws, and the manners of that country.[Footnote:

I remind the reader of the general signification which I give to
the word _manners_, namely, the moral and intellectual
characteristics of social man taken collectively.

]  Most Europeans are only acquainted with the first of these
three causes, and they are apt to give it a preponderating
importance which it does not really possess.

It is true that the Anglo-Americans settled in the New World in a
state of social equality; the low-born and the noble were not to
be found among them; and professional prejudices were always as
entirely unknown as the prejudices of birth. Thus, as the
condition of society was democratic, the empire of democracy was
established without difficulty. But this circumstance is by no
means peculiar to the United States; almost all the transatlantic
colonies were founded by men equal among themselves, or who
became so by inhabiting them. In no one part of the New World
have Europeans been able to create an aristocracy. Nevertheless
democratic institutions prosper nowhere but in the United States.

The American Union has no enemies to contend with; if stands in
the wilds like an island in the ocean. But the Spaniards of
South America were no less isolated by nature; yet their position
has not relieved them from the charge of standing armies. They
make war upon each other when they have no foreign enemies to
oppose; and the Anglo-American democracy is the only one which
has hitherto been able to maintain itself in peace.

The territory of the Union presents a boundless field to human
activity, and inexhaustible materials for industry and labor.
The passion of wealth takes the place of ambition, and the warmth
of faction is mitigated by a sense of prosperity. But in what
portion of the globe shall we meet with more fertile plains, with
mightier rivers, or with more unexplored and inexhaustible
riches, than in South America?

Nevertheless South America has been unable to maintain democratic
institutions. If the welfare of nations depended on their being
placed in a remote position, with an unbounded space of habitable
territory before them, the Spaniards of South America would have
no reason to complain of their fate. And although they might
enjoy less prosperity than the inhabitants of the United States,
their lot might still be such as to excite the envy of some
nations in Europe. There are, however, no nations upon the face
of the earth more miserable than those of South America.

Thus, not only are physical causes inadequate to produce results
analogous to those which occur in North America, but they are
unable to raise the population of South America above the level
of European states, where they act in a contrary direction.
Physical causes do not therefore affect the destiny of nations so
much as has been supposed.

I have met with men in New England who were on the point of
leaving a country, where they might have remained in easy
circumstances, to go to seek their fortunes in the wilds. Not
far from that district I found a French population in Canada,
which was closely crowded on a narrow territory, although the
same wilds were at hand; and while the emigrant from the United
States purchased an extensive estate with the earnings of a short
term of labor, the Canadian paid as much for land as he would
have done in France. Nature offers the solitudes of the New
World to Europeans; but they are not always acquainted with the
means of turning her gifts to account. Other peoples of America
have the same physical conditions of prosperity as the
Anglo-Americans, but without their laws and their manners; and
these peoples are wretched. The laws and manners of the
Anglo-Americans are therefore that cause of their greatness which
is the object of my inquiry.

I am far from supposing that the American laws are pre-eminently
good in themselves; I do not hold them to be applicable to all
democratic peoples; and several of them seem to me to be
dangerous, even in the United States. Nevertheless, it cannot be
denied that the American legislation, taken collectively, is
extremely well adapted to the genius of the people and the nature
of the country which it is intended to govern. The American laws
are therefore good, and to them must be attributed a large
portion of the success which attends the government of democracy
in America: but I do not believe them to be the principal cause
of that success; and if they seem to me to have more influence
upon the social happiness of the Americans than the nature of the
country, on the other hand there is reason to believe that their
effect is still inferior to that produced by the manners of the
people.

The federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important part
of the legislation of the United States. Mexico, which is not
less fortunately situated than the Anglo-American Union, has
adopted these same laws, but is unable to accustom itself to the
government of democracy. Some other cause is therefore at work
independently of those physical circumstances and peculiar laws
which enable the democracy to rule in the United States.

Another still more striking proof may be adduced. Almost all the
inhabitants of the territory of the Union are the descendants of
a common stock; they speak the same language, they worship God in
the same manner, they are affected by the same physical causes,
and they obey the same laws. Whence, then, do their
characteristic differences arise?  Why, in the eastern states of
the Union, does the republican government display vigor and
regularity, and proceed with mature deliberation?  Whence does it
derive the wisdom and durability which mark its acts, while in
the western states, on the contrary, society seems to be ruled by
the powers of chance?  There, public business is conducted with
an irregularity, and a passionate and feverish excitement, which
does not announce a long or sure duration.

I am no longer comparing the Anglo-American states to foreign
nations; but I am contrasting them with each other, and
endeavoring to discover why they are so unlike. The arguments
which are derived from the nature of the country and the
difference of legislation, are here all set aside. Recourse must
be had to some other cause; and what other cause can there be
except the manners of the people?

It is in the eastern states that the Anglo-Americans have been
longest accustomed to the government of democracy, and that they
have adopted the habits and conceived the notions most favorable
to its maintenance. Democracy has gradually penetrated into
their customs, their opinions, and the forms of social
intercourse; it is to be found in all the details of daily life
equally as in the laws. In the eastern states the instruction
and practical education of the people have been most perfected,
and religion has been most thoroughly amalgamated with liberty.
Now these habits, opinions, customs, and convictions, are
precisely the constituent elements of that which I have
denominated manners.

In the western states, on the contrary, a portion of the same
advantages is still wanting. Many of the Americans of the west
were born in the woods, and they mix the ideas and the customs of
savage life with the civilisation of their parents. Their
passions are more intense; their religious morality less
authoritative; and their convictions are less secure. The
inhabitants exercise no sort of control over their
fellow-citizens, for they are scarcely acquainted with each
other. The nations of the west display, to a certain extent, the
inexperience and the rude habits of a people in its infancy; for
although they are composed of old elements, their assemblage is
of recent date.

The manners of the Americans of the United States are, then, the
real cause which renders that people the only one of the American
nations that is able to support a democratic government; and it
is the influence of manners which produces the different degrees
of order and of prosperity, that may be distinguished in the
several Anglo-American democracies. Thus the effect which the
geographical position of a country may have upon the duration of
democratic institutions is exaggerated in Europe. Too much
importance is attributed to legislation, too little to manners.
These three great causes serve, no doubt, to regulate and direct
the American democracy; but if they were to be classed in their
proper order, I should say that the physical circumstances are
less efficient than the laws, and the laws very subordinate to
the manners of the people. I am convinced that the most
advantageous situation and the best possible laws cannot maintain
a constitution in spite of the manners of a country: while the
latter may turn the most unfavorable positions and the worst laws
to some advantage. The importance of manners is a common truth
to which study and experience incessantly direct our attention.
It may be regarded as a central point in the range of human
observation, and the common termination of all inquiry. So
seriously do I insist upon this head, that if I have hitherto
failed in making the reader feel the important influence which I
attribute to the practical experience, the habits, the opinions.
in short, to the manners of the Americans, upon the maintenance
of their institutions, I have failed in the principal object of
my work.

       *       *       *       *       *


       WHETHER LAWS AND MANNERS ARE SUFFICIENT TO MAINTAIN
   DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS IN OTHER COUNTRIES BESIDE AMERICA.

The Anglo-Americans, if transported into Europe, would be obliged
  to modify their Laws.--Distinction to be made between
  democratic Institutions and American Institutions.--Democratic
  Laws may be conceived better than, or at least different from,
  those which the American Democracy has adopted.--The Example of
  America only proves that it is possible to regulate Democracy
  by the assistance of Manners and Legislation.


I have asserted that the success of democratic institutions in
the United States is more intimately connected with the laws
themselves, and the manners of the people, than with the nature
of the country. But does it follow that the same causes would of
themselves produce the same results, if they were put into
operation elsewhere; and if the country is no adequate substitute
for laws and manners, can laws and manners in their turn prove a
substitute for a country?  It will readily be understood that the
necessary elements of a reply to this question are wanting: other
peoples are to be found in the New World beside the
Anglo-Americans, and as these peoples are affected by the same
physical circumstances as the latter, they may fairly be compared
together. But there are no nations out of America which have
adopted the same laws and manners, being destitute of the
physical advantages peculiar to the Anglo-Americans. No standard
of comparison therefore exists, and we can only hazard an opinion
upon this subject.

It appears to me in the first place, that a careful distinction
must be made between the institutions of the United States and
democratic institutions in general. When I reflect upon the
state of Europe, its mighty nations, its populous cities, its
formidable armies, and the complex nature of its politics, I
cannot suppose that even the Anglo-Americans, if they were
transported to our hemisphere, with their ideas, their religion,
and their manners, could exist without considerably altering
their laws. But a democratic nation may be imagined, organized
differently from the American people. It is not impossible to
conceive a government really established upon the will of the
majority; but in which the majority, repressing its natural
propensity to equality, should consent, with a view to the order
and the stability of the state, to invest a family or an
individual with all the prerogatives of the executive. A
democratic society might exist, in which the forces of the nation
would be more centralized than they are in the United States; the
people would exercise a less direct and less irresistible
influence upon public affairs, and yet every citizen, invested
with certain rights, would participate, within his sphere, in the
conduct of the government. The observations I made among the
Anglo-Americans induce me to believe that democratic institutions
of this kind, prudently introduced into society, so as gradually
to mix with the habits and to be infused with the opinions of the
people, might subsist in other countries beside America. If the
laws of the United States were the only imaginable democratic
laws, or the most perfect which it is possible to conceive, I
should admit that the success of those institutions affords no
proof of the success of democratic institutions in general, in a
country less favored by natural circumstances. But as the laws
of America appear to me to be defective in several respects, and
as I can readily imagine others of the same general nature, the
peculiar advantages of that country do not prove that democratic
institutions cannot succeed in a nation less favored by
circumstances, if ruled by better laws.

If human nature were different in America from what it is
elsewhere; or if the social condition of the Americans engendered
habits and opinions among them different from those which
originate in the same social condition in the Old World, the
American democracies would afford no means of predicting what may
occur in other democracies. If the Americans displayed the same
propensities as all other democratic nations, and if their
legislators had relied upon the nature of the country and the
favor of circumstances to restrain those propensities within due
limits, the prosperity of the United States would be exclusively
attributable to physical causes, and it would afford no
encouragement to a people inclined to imitate their example,
without sharing their natural advantages. But neither of these
suppositions is borne out by facts.

In America the same passions are to be met with as in Europe;
some originating in human nature, others in the democratic
condition of society. Thus in the United States I found that
restlessness of heart which is natural to men, when all ranks are
nearly equal and the chances of elevation are the same to all. I
found the democratic feeling of envy expressed under a thousand
different forms. I remarked that the people frequently
displayed, in the conduct of affairs, a consummate mixture of
ignorance and presumption, and I inferred that, in America, men
are liable to the same failings and the same absurdities as among
ourselves. But upon examining the state of society more
attentively, I speedily discovered that the Americans had made
great and successful efforts to counteract these imperfections of
human nature, and to correct the natural defects of democracy.
Their divers municipal laws appeared to me to be a means of
restraining the ambition of the citizens within a narrow sphere,
and of turning those same passions, which might have worked havoc
in the state, to the good of the township or the parish. The
American legislators have succeeded to a certain extent in
opposing the notion of rights, to the feelings of envy; the
permanence of the religious world, to the continual shifting of
politics; the experience of the people, to its theoretical
ignorance; and its practical knowledge of business, to the
impatience of its desires.

The Americans, then, have not relied upon the nature of their
country, to counterpoise those dangers which originate in their
constitution and in their political laws. To evils which are
common to all democratic peoples, they have applied remedies
which none but themselves had ever thought of before; and
although they were the first to make the experiment, they have
succeeded in it.

The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only ones which
may suit a democratic people; but the Americans have shown that
it would be wrong to despair of regulating democracy by the aid
of manners and of laws. If other nations should borrow this
general and pregnant idea from the Americans, without however
intending to imitate them in the peculiar application which they
have made of it; if they should attempt to fit themselves for
that social condition, which it seems to be the will of
Providence to impose upon the generations of this age, and so to
escape from the despotism of the anarchy which threatens them;
what reason is there to suppose that their efforts would not be
crowned with success?  The organization and the establishment of
democracy in Christendom, is the great political problem of the
time. The Americans, unquestionably, have not resolved this
problem, but they furnish useful data to those who undertake the
task.

       *       *       *       *       *


         IMPORTANCE OF WHAT PRECEDES WITH RESPECT TO THE
                        STATE OF EUROPE.


It may readily be discovered with what intention I undertook the
foregoing inquiries. The question here discussed is interesting
not only to the United States, but to the whole world; it
concerns, not a nation, but all mankind. If those nations whose
social condition is democratic could only remain free as long as
they are inhabitants of the wilds, we could not but despair of
the future destiny of the human race; for democracy is rapidly
acquiring a more extended sway, and the wilds are gradually
peopled with men. If it were true that laws and manners are
insufficient to maintain democratic institutions, what refuge
would remain open to the nations except the despotism of a single
individual?  I am aware that there are many worthy persons at the
present time who are not alarmed at this latter alternative, and
who are so tired of liberty as to be glad of repose, far from
those storms by which it is attended. But these individuals are
ill acquainted with the haven to which they are bound. They are
so deluded by their recollections, as to judge the tendency of
absolute power by what it was formerly, and not what it might
become at the present time.

If absolute power were re-established among the democratic
nations of Europe, I am persuaded that it would assume a new
form, and appear under features unknown to our forefathers.
There was a time in Europe, when the laws and the consent of the
people had invested princes with almost unlimited authority; but
they scarcely ever availed themselves of it. I do not speak of
the prerogatives of the nobility, of the authority of supreme
courts of justice, of corporations and their chartered rights, or
of provincial privileges, which served to break the blows of the
sovereign authority, and to maintain a spirit of resistance in
the nation. Independently of these political
institutions--which, however opposed they might be to personal
liberty, served to keep alive the love of freedom in the mind of
the public, and which may be esteemed to have been useful in this
respect--the manners and opinions of the nation confined the
royal authority within barriers which were not less powerful,
although they were less conspicuous. Religion, the affections of
the people, the benevolence of the prince, the sense of honor,
family pride, provincial prejudices, custom, and public opinion,
limited the power of kings, and restrained their authority within
an invisible circle. The constitution of nations was despotic at
that time but their manners were free. Princes had the right,
but they had neither the means nor the desire, of doing whatever
they pleased.

But what now remains of those barriers which formerly arrested
the aggressions of tyranny?  Since religion has lost its empire
over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary which divided
good from evil is overthrown: the very elements of the moral
world are indeterminate; the princes and the peoples of the earth
are guided by chance, and none can define the natural limits of
despotism and the bounds of license. Long revolutions have for
ever destroyed the respect which surrounded the rulers of the
state; and since they have been relieved from the burden of
public esteem, princes may henceforward surrender themselves
without fear to the seductions of arbitrary power.

When kings find that the hearts of their subjects are turned
toward them, they are clement, because they are conscious of
their strength; and they are chary of the affection of their
people, because the affection of their people is the bulwark of
the throne. A mutual interchange of good will then takes place
between the prince and the people, which resembles the gracious
intercourse of domestic society. The subjects may murmur at the
sovereign's decree, but they are grieved to displease him; and
the sovereign chastises his subjects with the light hand of
parental affection.

But when once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult of
revolution; when successive monarchs have occupied the throne,
and alternately displayed to the people the weakness of right,
and the harshness of power, the sovereign is no longer regarded
by any as the father of the state, and he is feared by all as its
master. If he be weak, he is despised; if he be strong, he is
detested. He is himself full of animosity and alarm; he finds
that he is a stranger in his own country, and he treats his
subjects like conquered enemies.

When the provinces and the towns formed so many different nations
in the midst of their common country, each of them had a will of
its own, which was opposed to the general spirit of subjection;
but now that all the parts of the same empire, after having lost
their immunities, their customs, their prejudices, their
traditions, and their names, are subjected and accustomed to the
same laws, it is not more difficult to oppress them collectively,
than it was formerly to oppress them singly.

While the nobles enjoyed their power, and indeed long after that
power was lost, the honor of aristocracy conferred an
extraordinary degree of force upon their personal opposition.
They afforded instances of men who, notwithstanding their
weakness, still entertained a high opinion of their personal
value, and dared to cope single-handed with the efforts of the
public authority. But at the present day, when all ranks are
more and more confounded, when the individual disappears in the
throng, and is easily lost in the midst of a common obscurity,
when the honor of monarchy has almost lost its empire without
being succeeded by public virtue, and when nothing can enable man
to rise above himself, who shall say at what point the exigencies
of power and servility of weakness will stop?

As long as family feeling was kept alive, the antagonist of
oppression was never alone; he looked about him, and found his
clients, his hereditary friends, and his kinsfolk. If this
support was wanting, he was sustained by his ancestors and
animated by his posterity. But when patrimonial estates are
divided, and when a few years suffice to confound the
distinctions of a race, where can family feeling be found?  What
force can there be in the customs of a country which has changed,
and is still perpetually changing its aspect; in which every act
of tyranny has a precedent, and every crime an example; in which
there is nothing so old that its antiquity can save it from
destruction, and nothing so unparalleled that its novelty can
prevent it from being done?  What resistance can be offered by
manners of so pliant a make, that they have already often
yielded?  What strength can even public opinion have retained,
when no twenty persons are connected by a common tie; when not a
man, nor a family, nor chartered corporation, nor class, nor free
institution, has the power of representing that opinion; and when
every citizen--being equally weak, equally poor, and equally
dependant--has only his personal impotence to oppose to the
organized force of the government?

The annals of France furnish nothing analogous to the condition
in which that country might then be thrown. But it may more
aptly be assimilated to the times of old, and to those hideous
eras of Roman oppression, when the manners of the people were
corrupted, their traditions obliterated, their habits destroyed,
their opinions shaken, and freedom, expelled from the laws, could
find no refuge in the land; when nothing protected the citizens,
and the citizens no longer protected themselves; when human
nature was the sport of man, and princes wearied out the clemency
of Heaven before they exhausted the patience of their subjects.
Those who hope to revive the monarchy of Henry IV. or of Louis
XIV., appear to me to be afflicted with mental blindness; and
when I consider the present condition of several European
nations--a condition to which all the others tend--I am led to
believe that they will soon be left with no other alternative
than democratic liberty, or the tyranny of the Cesars.

And, indeed, it is deserving of consideration, whether men are to
be entirely emancipated, or entirely enslaved; whether their
rights are to be made equal, or wholly taken away from them. If
the rulers of society were reduced either gradually to raise the
crowd to their own level, or to sink the citizens below that of
humanity, would not the doubts of many be resolved, the
consciences of many be healed, and the community be prepared to
make great sacrifices with little difficulty?  In that case, the
gradual growth of democratic manners and institutions should be
regarded, not as the best, but as the only means of preserving
freedom; and without liking the government of democracy, it might
be adopted as the most applicable and the fairest remedy for the
present ills of society.

It is difficult to associate a people in the work of government;
but it is still more difficult to supply it with experience, and
to inspire it with the feelings which it requires in order to
govern well. I grant that the caprices of democracy are
perpetual; its instruments are rude, its laws imperfect. But if
it were true that soon no just medium would exist between the
empire of democracy and the dominion of a single arm, should we
not rather incline toward the former, than submit voluntarily to
the latter?  And if complete equality be our fate, is it not
better to be levelled by free institutions than by despotic
power?

Those who, after having read this book, should imagine that my
intention in writing it has been to propose the laws and manners
of the Anglo-Americans for the imitation of all democratic
peoples, would commit a very great mistake; they must have paid
more attention to the form than to the substance of my ideas. My
aim has been to show, by the example of America, that laws, and
especially manners, may exist, which will allow a democratic
people to remain free. But I am very far from thinking that we
ought to follow the example of the American democracy, and copy
the means which it has employed to attain its ends; for I am well
aware of the influence which the nature of a country and its
political precedents exercise upon a constitution; and I should
regard it as a great misfortune for mankind, if liberty were to
exist, all over the world, under the same forms.

But I am of opinion that if we do not succeed in gradually
introducing democratic institutions into France, and if we
despair of imparting to the citizens those ideas and sentiments
which first prepare them for freedom, and afterward allow them to
enjoy it, there will be no independence at all, either for the
middling classes or the nobility, for the poor or for the rich,
but an equal tyranny over all; and I foresee that if the
peaceable empire of the majority be not founded among us in time,
we shall sooner or later arrive at the unlimited authority of a
single despot.

       *       *       *       *       *



                         CHAPTER XVIII.


        THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE
         THREE RACES WHICH INHABIT THE TERRITORY OF THE
                         UNITED STATES.


The principal part of the task which I had imposed upon myself is
now performed: I have shown, as far as I was able, the laws and
manners of the American democracy. Here I might stop; but the
reader would perhaps feel that I had not satisfied his
expectations.

The absolute supremacy of democracy is not all that we meet with
in America; the inhabitants of the New World may be considered
from more than one point of view. In the course of this work, my
subject has often led me to speak of the Indians and the negroes;
but I have never been able to stop in order to show what places
these two races occupy, in the midst of the democratic people
whom I was engaged in describing. I have mentioned in what
spirit, and according to what laws, the Anglo-American Union was
formed; but I could only glance at the dangers which menace that
confederation, while it was equally impossible for me to give a
detailed account of its chances of duration, independently of its
laws and manners. When speaking of the United republican States,
I hazarded no conjectures upon the permanence of republican forms
in the New World; and when making frequent allusion to the
commercial activity which reigns in the Union, I was unable to
inquire into the future condition of the Americans as a
commercial people.

These topics are collaterally connected with my subject, without
forming a part of it; they are American, without being
democratic; and to portray democracy has been my principal aim.
It was therefore necessary to postpone these questions, which I
now take up as the proper termination of my work.

The territory now occupied or claimed by the American Union,
spreads from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific
ocean. On the east and west its limits are those of the
continent itself. On the south it advances nearly to the tropic,
and it extends upward to the icy regions of the north.[Footnote:

See the map.

]

The human beings who are scattered over this space do not form,
as in Europe, so many branches of the same stock. Three races
naturally distinct, and I might almost say hostile to each other,
are discoverable among them at the first glance. Almost
insurmountable barriers had been raised between them by education
and by law, as well as by their origin and outward
characteristics; but fortune has brought them together on the
same soil, where, although they are mixed, they do not
amalgamate, and each race fulfils its destiny apart.

Among these widely differing families of men, the first which
attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and
in enjoyment, is the white or European, the MAN pre-eminent; and
in subordinate grades, the negro and the Indian. These two
unhappy races have nothing in common; neither birth, nor
features, nor language, nor habits. Their only resemblance lies
in their misfortunes. Both of them occupy an inferior rank in
the country they inhabit; both suffer from tyranny; and if their
wrongs are not the same, they originate at any rate with the same
authors.

If we reasoned from what passes in the world, we should almost
say that the European is to the other races of mankind, what man
is to the lower animals;--he makes them subservient to his use;
and when he cannot subdue, he destroys them. Oppression has at
one stroke deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all
the privileges of humanity. The negro of the United States has
lost all remembrance of his country; the language which his
forefathers spoke is never heard around him; he abjured their
religion and forgot their customs when he ceased to belong to
Africa, without acquiring any claim to European privileges. But
he remains half-way between the two communities; sold by the one,
repulsed by the other; finding not a spot in the universe to call
by the name of country, except the faint image of a home which
the shelter of his master's roof affords.

The negro has no family; woman is merely the temporary companion
of his pleasures, and his children are upon an equality with
himself from the moment of their birth. Am I to call it a proof
of God's mercy, or a visitation of his wrath, that man in certain
states appears to be insensible to his extreme wretchedness, and
almost affects with a depraved taste the cause of his
misfortunes?  The negro, who is plunged in this abyss of evils,
scarcely feels his own calamitous situation. Violence made him a
slave, and the habit of servitude gives him the thoughts and
desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants more than he hates
them, and finds his joy and his pride in the servile imitation of
those who oppress him: his understanding is degraded to the level
of his soul.

The negro enters upon slavery as soon as he is born; nay, he may
have been purchased in the womb, and have begun his slavery
before he began his existence. Equally devoid of wants and of
enjoyment, and useless to himself, he learns, with his first
notions of existence, that he is the property of another who has
an interest in preserving his life, and that the care of it does
not devolve upon himself; even the power of thought appears to
him a useless gift of Providence, and he quietly enjoys the
privileges of his debasement.

If he becomes free, independence is often felt by him to be a
heavier burden than slavery; for having learned, in the course of
his life, to submit to everything except reason, he is too much
unacquainted with her dictates to obey them. A thousand new
desires beset him, and he is destitute of the knowledge and
energy necessary to resist them: these are masters which it is
necessary to contend with, and he has learned only to submit and
obey. In short, he sinks to such a depth of wretchedness, that
while servitude brutalizes, liberty destroys him.

Oppression has been no less fatal to the Indian than to the negro
race, but its effects are different. Before the arrival of the
white men in the New World, the inhabitants of North America
lived quietly in their woods, enduring the vicissitudes, and
practising the virtues and vices common to savage nations. The
Europeans, having dispersed the Indian tribes and driven them
into the deserts, condemned them to a wandering life full of
inexpressible sufferings.

Savage nations are only controlled by opinion and by custom.
When the North American Indians had lost their sentiment of
attachment to their country; when their families were dispersed,
their traditions obscured, and the chain of their recollections
broken; when all their habits were changed, and their wants
increased beyond measure, European tyranny rendered them more
disorderly and less civilized than they were before. The moral
and physical condition of these tribes continually grew worse,
and they became more barbarous as they became more wretched.
Nevertheless the Europeans have not been able to metamorphose the
character of the Indians; and though they have had power to
destroy them, they have never been able to make them submit to
the rules of civilized society.

The lot of the negro is placed on the extreme limit of servitude,
while that of the Indian lies on the utmost verge of liberty; and
slavery does not produce more fatal effects upon the first, than
independence upon the second. The negro has lost all property in
his own person, and he cannot dispose of his existence without
committing a sort of fraud: but the savage is his own master as
soon as he is able to act; parental authority is scarcely known
to him; he has never bent his will to that of any of his kind, or
learned the difference between voluntary obedience and a shameful
subjection; and the very name of law is unknown to him. To be
free, with him, signifies to escape from all the shackles of
society. As he delights in this barbarous independence, and
would rather perish than sacrifice the least part of it,
civilisation has little power over him.

The negro makes a thousand fruitless efforts to insinuate himself
among men who repulse him; he conforms to the taste of his
oppressors, adopts their opinions, and hopes by imitating them to
form a part of their community. Having been told from infancy
that his race is naturally inferior to that of the whites, he
assents to the proposition, and is ashamed of his own nature. In
each of his features he discovers a trace of slavery, and, if it
were in his power, he would willingly rid himself of everything
that makes him what he is.

The Indian, on the contrary, has his imagination inflated with
the pretended nobility of his origin, and lives and dies in the
midst of these dreams of pride. Far from desiring to conform his
habits to ours, he loves his savage life as the distinguishing
mark of his race, and he repels every advance to civilisation,
less perhaps from the hatred which he entertains for it, than
from a dread of resembling the Europeans.[Footnote:

The native of North America retains his opinions and the most
insignificant of his habits with a degree of tenacity which has
no parallel in history. For more than two hundred years the
wandering tribes of North America have had daily intercourse with
the whites, and they have never derived from them either a custom
or an idea. Yet the European have exercised a powerful influence
over the savages: they have made them more licentious, but not
more European. In the summer of 1831, I happened to be beyond
Lake Michigan, at a place called Green Bay, which serves as the
extreme frontier between the United States and the Indians on the
northwestern side. Here I became acquainted with an American
officer, Major H., who, after talking to me at length on the
inflexibility of the Indian character, related the following
fact: "I formerly knew a young Indian," said he, "who had been
educated at a college in New England, where he had greatly
distinguished himself, and had acquired the external appearance
of a member of civilized society. When the war broke out between
ourselves and the English, in 1810, I saw this young man again;
he was serving in our army at the head of the warriors of his
tribe; for the Indians were admitted among the ranks of the
Americans, upon condition that they would abstain from their
horrible custom of scalping their victims. On the evening of the
battle of * * *, C. came and sat himself down by the fire of our
bivouac. I asked him what had been his fortune that day: he
related his exploits; and growing warm and animated by the
recollection of them, he concluded by suddenly opening the breast
of his coat, saying, 'You must not betray me--see here!' And I
actually beheld," said the major, "between his body and his
shirt, the skin and hair of an English head still dripping with
gore."

]  While he has nothing to oppose to our perfection in the arts
but the resources of the desert, to our tactics nothing but
undisciplined courage; while our well-digested plans are met by
the spontaneous instincts of savage life, who can wonder if he
fails in this unequal contest?

The negro who earnestly desires to mingle his race with that of
the European, cannot effect it; while the Indian, who might
succeed to a certain extent, disdains to make the attempt. The
servility of the one dooms him to slavery, the pride of the other
to death.

I remember that while I was travelling through the forests which
still cover the state of Alabama, I arrived one day at the log
house of a pioneer. I did not wish to penetrate into the
dwelling of the American, but retired to rest myself for a while
on the margin of a spring, which was not far off, in the woods.
While I was in this place (which was in the neighborhood of the
Creek territory), an Indian woman appeared, followed by a
negress, and holding by the hand a little white girl of five or
six years old, whom I took to be the daughter of the pioneer. A
sort of barbarous luxury set off the costume of the Indian; rings
of metal were hanging from her nostrils and ears; her hair, which
was adorned with glass beads, fell loosely upon her shoulders;
and I saw that she was not married, for she still wore the
necklace of shells which the bride always deposites on the
nuptial couch. The negress was clad in squalid European
garments.

They all three came and seated themselves upon the banks of the
fountain; and the young Indian, taking the child in her arms,
lavished upon her such fond caresses as mothers give; while the
negress endeavored by various little artifices to attract the
attention of the young Creole. The child displayed in her
slightest gestures a consciousness of superiority which formed a
strange contrast with her infantine weakness; as if she received
the attentions of her companions with a sort of condescension.

The negress was seated on the ground before her mistress,
watching her smallest desires, and apparently divided between
strong affection for the child and servile fear; while the savage
displayed, in the midst of her tenderness, an air of freedom and
of pride which was almost ferocious. I had approached the group,
and I contemplated them in silence; but my curiosity was probably
displeasing to the Indian woman, for she suddenly rose, pushed
the child roughly from her, and giving me an angry look, plunged
into the thicket.

I had often chanced to see individuals met together in the same
place, who belonged to the three races of men which people North
America. I had perceived from many different results the
preponderance of the whites. But in the picture which I have
just been describing there was something peculiarly touching; a
bond of affection here united the oppressors with the oppressed,
and the effort of Nature to bring them together rendered still
more striking the immense distance placed between them by
prejudice and by law.

       *       *       *       *       *


     THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE INDIAN
         TRIBES WHICH INHABIT THE TERRITORY POSSESSED BY
                           THE UNION.

Gradual disappearance of the native Tribes.--Manner in which it
  takes place.--Miseries accompanying the forced Migrations of
  the Indians.--The Savages of North America had only two ways of
  escaping Destruction; War or Civilisation.--They are no longer
  able to make War.--Reasons why they refused to become civilized
  when it was in their Power, and why they cannot become so now
  that they desire it.--Instance of the Creek and
  Cherokees.--Policy of the particular States toward these
  Indians.--Policy of the federal Government.


None of the Indian tribes which formerly inhabited the territory
of New England--the Narragansets, the Mohicans, the Pequots--have
any existence but in the recollection of man. The Lenapes, who
received William Penn a hundred and fifty years ago upon the
banks of the Delaware, have disappeared; and I myself met with
the last of the Iroquois, who were begging alms. The nations I
have mentioned formerly covered the country to the seacoast; but
a traveller at the present day must penetrate more than a hundred
leagues into the interior of the continent to find an Indian.
Not only have these wild tribes receded, but they are
destroyed;[Footnote:

In the thirteen original states, there are only 6,273 Indians
remaining. (See Legislative Documents, 20th congress, No. 117,
p. 90.)

] and as they give way or perish, an immense and increasing
people fills their place. There is no instance on record of so
prodigious a growth, or so rapid a destruction; the manner in
which the latter change takes place is not difficult to describe.

When the Indians were the sole inhabitants of the wilds whence
they have been expelled, their wants were few. Their arms were
of their own manufacture, their only drink was the water of the
brook, and their clothes consisted of the skin of animals, whose
flesh furnished them with food.

The Europeans introduced among the savages of North America
firearms, ardent spirits, and iron: they taught them to exchange
for manufactured stuffs the rough garments which had previously
satisfied their untutored simplicity. Having acquired new
tastes, without the arts by which they could be gratified, the
Indians were obliged to have recourse to the workmanship of the
whites; but in return for their productions, the savage had
nothing to offer except the rich furs which still abounded in his
woods. Hence the chase became necessary, not merely to provide
for his subsistence, but in order to procure the only objects of
barter which he could furnish to Europe.[Footnote:

Messrs. Clarke and Cass, in their report to congress, the 4th
February, 1829, p. 23, expressed themselves thus: "The time when
the Indians generally could supply themselves with food and
clothing, without any of the articles of civilized life, has long
since passed away. The more remote tribes, beyond the
Mississippi, who live where immense herds of buffalo are yet to
be found, and who follow those animals in their periodical
migrations, could more easily than any others recur to the habits
of their ancestors, and live without the white man or any of his
manufactures. But the buffalo is constantly receding. The
smaller animals--the bear, the deer, the beaver, the otter, the
muskrat, &c., principally minister to the comfort and support of
the Indians; and these cannot be taken without guns, ammunition,
and traps.

"Among the northwestern Indians particularly, the labor of
supplying a family with food is excessive. Day after day is
spent by the hunter without success, and during this interval his
family must subsist upon bark or roots, or perish. Want and
misery are around them and among them. Many die every winter
from actual starvation."

The Indians will not live as Europeans live; and yet they can
neither subsist without them, nor exactly after the fashion of
their fathers. This is demonstrated by a fact which I likewise
give upon official authority. Some Indians of a tribe on the
banks of Lake Superior had killed a European; the American
government interdicted all traffic with the tribe to which the
guilty parties belonged, until they were delivered up to justice.
This measure had the desired effect.

]  While the wants of the natives were thus increasing, their
resources continued to diminish. From the moment when a European
settlement is formed in the neighborhood of the territory
occupied by the Indians, the beasts of chase take the
alarm.[Footnote:

"Five years ago," says Volney in his Tableaux des Etats Unis,
p. 370, "in going from Vincennes to Kaskaskia, a territory which
now forms part of the State of Illinois, but which at the time I
mention was completely wild (1797), you could not cross a prairie
without seeing herds of from four to five hundred buffaloes.
There are now none remaining; they swam across the Mississippi to
escape from the hunters, and more particularly from the bells of
the American cows."

]  Thousands of savages, wandering in the forest and destitute of
any fixed dwelling, did not disturb them; but as soon as the
continuous sounds of European labor are heard in the
neighborhood, they begin to flee away, and retire to the west,
where their instinct teaches them that they will find deserts of
immeasurable extent. "The buffalo is constantly receding", say
Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their Report of the year 1829; "a few
years since they approached the base of the Alleghany; and a few
years hence they may even be rare upon the immense plains which
extend to the base of the Rocky mountains." I have been assured
that this effect of the approach of the whites is often felt at
two hundred leagues' distance from the frontier. Their influence
is thus exerted over tribes whose name is unknown to them, and
who suffer the evils of usurpation long before they are
acquainted with the authors of their distress.[Footnote:

The truth of what I here advance may be easily proved by
consulting the tabular statement of Indian tribes inhabiting the
United States, and their territories. (Legislative Documents,
20th congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.) It is there shown that the
tribes of America are rapidly decreasing, although the Europeans
are at a considerable distance from them.

]

Bold adventurers soon penetrate into the country the Indians have
deserted, and when they have advanced about fifteen or twenty
leagues from the extreme frontiers of the whites, they begin to
build habitations for civilized beings in the midst of the
wilderness. This is done without difficulty, as the territory of
a hunting nation is ill defined; it is the common property of the
tribe, and belongs to no one in particular, so that individual
interests are not concerned in the protection of any part of it.

A few European families, settled in different situations at a
considerable distance from each other, soon drive away the wild
animals which remain between their places of abode. The Indians,
who had previously lived in a sort of abundance, then find it
difficult to subsist, and still more difficult to procure the
articles of barter which they stand in need of.

To drive away their game is to deprive them of the means of
existence, as effectually as if the fields of our agriculturists
were stricken with barrenness; and they are reduced, like
famished wolves, to prowl through the forsaken woods in quest of
prey. Their instinctive love of their country attaches them to
the soil which gave them birth,[Footnote:

"The Indians," says Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their report to
congress, p. 15, "are attached to their country by the same
feelings which bind us to ours; and, besides, there are certain
superstitious notions connected with the alienation of what the
Great Spirit gave to their ancestors, which operate strongly upon
the tribes who have made few or no cessions, but which are
gradually weakened as our intercourse with them is extended. 'We
will not sell the spot which contains the bones of our fathers,'
is almost always the first answer to a proposition for a sale."

] even after it has ceased to yield anything but misery and
death. At length they are compelled to acquiesce, and to depart:
they follow the traces of the elk, the buffalo, and the beaver,
and are guided by those wild animals in the choice of their
future country. Properly speaking, therefore, it is not the
Europeans who drive away the native inhabitants of America; it is
famine which compels them to recede; a happy distinction, which
had escaped the casuists of former times, and for which we are
indebted to modern discovery.

It is impossible to conceive the extent of the sufferings which
attend these forced emigrations. They are undertaken by a people
already exhausted and reduced; and the countries to which the
new-comers betake themselves are inhabited by other tribes which
receive them with jealous hostility. Hunger is in the rear; war
awaits them, and misery besets them on all sides. In the hope of
escaping from such a host of enemies, they separate, and each
individual endeavors to procure the means of supporting his
existence in solitude and secresy, living in the immensity of the
desert like an outcast in civilized society. The social tie,
which distress had long since weakened, is then dissolved; they
have lost their country, and their people soon deserts them;
their very families are obliterated; the names they bore in
common are forgotten, their language perishes, and all the traces
of their origin disappear. Their nation has ceased to exist,
except in the recollection of the antiquaries of America and a
few of the learned of Europe.

I should be sorry to have my reader suppose that I am coloring
the picture too highly: I saw with my own eyes several of the
cases of misery which I have been describing; and I was the
witness of sufferings which I have not the power to portray.

At the end of the year 1831, while I was on the left bank of the
Mississippi, at a place named by Europeans Memphis, there arrived
a numerous band of Choctaws (or Chactas, as they are called by
the French in Louisiana). These savages had left their country,
and were endeavoring to gain the right bank of the Mississippi,
where they hoped to find an asylum which had been promised them
by the American government. It was then in the middle of winter,
and the cold was unusually severe; the snow had frozen hard upon
the ground, and the river was drifting huge masses of ice. The
Indians had their families with them; and they brought in their
train the wounded and the sick, with children newly born, and old
men upon the verge of death. They possessed neither tents nor
wagons, but only their arms and some provisions. I saw them
embark to pass the mighty river, and never will that solemn
spectacle fade from my remembrance. No cry, no sob was heard
among the assembled crowd: all were silent. Their calamities
were of ancient date, and they knew them to be irremediable. The
Indians had all stepped into the bark which was to carry them
across, but their dogs remained upon the bank. As soon as these
animals perceived that their masters were finally leaving the
shore, they set up a dismal howl, and plunging all together into
the icy waters of the Mississippi, they swam after the boat.

The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place at the
present day, in a regular, and, as it were, a legal manner. When
the European population begins to approach the limit of the
desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United
States usually despatches envoys to them, who assemble the
Indians in a large plain, and having first eaten and drunk with
them, accost them in the following manner: "What have you to do
in the land of your fathers?  Before long you must dig up their
bones in order to live. In what respect is the country you
inhabit better than another?  Are there no woods, marshes, or
prairies, except where you dwell?  And can you live nowhere but
under your own sun?  Beyond those mountains which you see at the
horizon, beyond the lake which bounds your territory on the west,
there lie vast countries where beasts of chase are found in great
abundance; sell your land to us, and go to live happily in those
solitudes." After holding this language, they spread before the
eyes of the Indians fire-arms, woollen garments, kegs of brandy,
glass necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, ear-rings, and
looking-glasses.[Footnote:

See in the legislative documents of congress (Doc. 117), the
narrative of what takes place on these occasions. This curious
passage is from the abovementioned report, made to congress by
Messrs. Clarke and Cass, in February, 1829. Mr. Cass is now
secretary of war.

"The Indians," says the report, "reach the treaty-ground poor,
and almost naked. Large quantities of goods are taken there by
the traders, and are seen and examined by the Indians. The women
and children become importunate to have their wants supplied, and
their influence is soon exerted to induce a sale. Their
improvidence is habitual and unconquerable. The gratification of
his immediate wants and desires is the ruling passion of an
Indian: the expectation of future advantages seldom produces much
effect. The experience of the past is lost, and the prospects of
the future disregarded. It would be utterly hopeless to demand a
cession of land unless the means were at hand of gratifying their
immediate wants; and when their condition and circumstances are
fairly considered, it ought not to surprise us that they are so
anxious to relieve themselves."

]  If, when they have beheld all these riches, they still
hesitate, it is insinuated that they have not the means of
refusing their required consent, and that the government itself
will not long have the power of protecting them in their rights.
What are they to do?  Half convinced and half compelled, they go
to inhabit new deserts, where the importunate whites will not let
them remain ten years in tranquillity. In this manner do the
Americans obtain at a very low price whole provinces, which the
richest sovereigns of Europe could not purchase.[Footnote:

On the 19th of May, 1830, Mr. Edward Everett affirmed before the
house of representatives, that the Americans had already acquired
by _treaty_, to the east and west of the Mississippi,
230,000,000 of acres. In 1808, the Osages gave up 48,000,000
acres for an annual payment of 1,000 dollars. In 1818, the
Quapaws yielded up 29,000,000 acres for 4,000 dollars. They
reserved for themselves a territory of 1,000,000 acres for a
hunting-ground. A solemn oath was taken that it should be
respected: but before long it was invaded like the rest.
Mr. Bell, in his "Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs,"
February 24th, 1830, has these words: "To pay an Indian tribe
what their ancient hunting-grounds are worth to them, after the
game is fled or destroyed, as a mode of appropriating wild lands
claimed by Indians, has been found more convenient, and certainly
it is more agreeable to the forms of justice, as well as more
merciful, than to assert the possession of them by the sword.
Thus the practice of buying Indian titles is but the substitute
which humanity and expediency have imposed, in place of the
sword, in arriving at the actual enjoyment of property claimed by
the right of discovery, and sanctioned by the natural superiority
allowed to the claims of civilized communities over those of
savage tribes. Up to the present time, so invariable has been
the operation of certain causes, first in diminishing the value
of forest lands to the Indians, and secondly in disposing them to
sell readily, that the plan of buying their right of occupancy
has never threatened to retard, in any perceptible degree, the
prosperity of any of the states." (Legislative documents, 21st
congress, No. 227, p. 6.)

]

These are great evils, and it must be added that they appear to
me to be irremediable. I believe that the Indian nations of
North America are doomed to perish: and that whenever the
Europeans shall be established on the shores of the Pacific
ocean, that race of men will be no more.[Footnote:

This seems, indeed, to be the opinion of almost all the American
statesmen. "Judging of the future by the past," says Mr. Cass,
"we cannot err in anticipating a progressive diminution of their
numbers, and their eventual extinction, unless our border should
become stationary, and they be removed beyond it, or unless some
radical change should take place in the principles of our
intercourse with them, which it is easier to hope for than to
expect."

]  The Indians had only the two alternatives of war or
civilization; in other words, they must either have destroyed the
Europeans or become their equals.

At the first settlement of the colonies they might have found it
possible, by uniting their forces, to deliver themselves from the
small bodies of strangers who landed on their
continent.[Footnote:

Among other warlike enterprises, there was one of the Wampanoags,
and other confederate tribes, under Metacom in 1675, against the
colonists of New England; the English were also engaged in war in
Virginia in 1622.

]  They several times attempted to do it, and were on the point
of succeeding; but the disproportion of their resources, at the
present day, when compared with those of the whites, is too great
to allow such an enterprise to be thought of. Nevertheless,
there do arise from time to time among the Indians men of
penetration, who foresee the final destiny which awaits the
native population, and who exert themselves to unite all the
tribes in common hostility to the Europeans; but their efforts
are unavailing. Those tribes which are in the neighborhood of
the whites are too much weakened to offer an effectual
resistance; while the others, giving way to that childish
carelessness of the morrow which characterizes savage life, wait
for the near approach of danger before they prepare to meet it:
some are unable, the others are unwilling to exert themselves.

It is easy to foresee that the Indians will never conform to
civilisation; or that it will be too late, whenever they may be
inclined to make the experiment.

Civilisation is the result of long social process which takes
place in the same spot, and is handed down from one generation to
another, each one profiting by the experience of the last. Of
all nations, those submit to civilisation with the most
difficulty, which habitually live by the chase. Pastoral tribes,
indeed, often change their place of abode; but they follow in
regular order in their migrations, and often return again to
their old stations, while the dwelling of the hunter varies with
that of the animals he pursues.

Several attempts have been made to diffuse knowledge among the
Indians, without controlling their wandering propensities; by the
Jesuits in Canada, and by the puritans in New England;[Footnote:

See the "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," by Charlevoix, and the
work entitled "Lettres Edifiantes."

] but none of these endeavors were crowned by any lasting
success. Civilisation began in the cabin, but it soon retired to
expire in the woods; the great error of these legislators of the
Indians was their not understanding, that in order to succeed in
civilizing a people, it is first necessary to fix it; which
cannot be done without inducing it to cultivate the soil: the
Indians ought in the first place to have been accustomed to
agriculture. But not only are they destitute of this
indispensable preliminary to civilisation, they would even have
great difficulty in acquiring it. Men who have once abandoned
themselves to the restless and adventurous life of the hunter,
feel an insurmountable disgust for the constant and regular labor
which tillage requires. We see this proved in the bosom of our
own society; but it is far more visible among peoples whose
partiality for the chase is a part of their natural character.

Independently of this general difficulty, there is another, which
applies peculiarly to the Indians; they consider labor not merely
as an evil, but as a disgrace; so that their pride prevents them
from becoming civilized, as much as their indolence.[Footnote:

"In all the tribes," says Volney, in his "Tableau des Etats
Unis," p. 423, "there still exists a generation of old warriors,
who cannot forbear, when they see their countrymen using the hoe,
from exclaiming against the degradation of ancient manners, and
asserting that the savages owe their decline to these
innovations: adding, that they have only to return to their
primitive habits, in order to recover their power and their
glory."

]

There is no Indian so wretched as not to retain, under his hut of
bark, a lofty idea of his personal worth; he considers the cares
of industry and labor as degrading occupations, he compares the
husbandman to the ox which traces the furrow; and even in our
most ingenious handicraft, he can see nothing but the labor of
slaves. Not that he is devoid of admiration for the power and
intellectual greatness of the whites; but although the result of
our efforts surprises him, he contemns the means by which we
obtain it; and while he acknowledges our ascendency, he still
believes in his superiority. War and hunting are the only
pursuits which appear to him worthy to be the occupations of a
man.[Footnote:

The following description occurs in an official document: "Until
a young man has been engaged with an enemy, and has performed
some acts of valor, he gains no consideration, but is regarded
nearly as a woman. In their great war-dances all the warriors in
succession strike the post, as it is called, and recount their
exploits. On these occasions their auditory consists of the
kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the narrator. The profound
impression which his discourse produces on them is manifested by
the silent attention it receives, and by the loud shouts which
hail its termination. The young man who finds himself at such a
meeting without anything to recount, is very unhappy; and
instances have sometimes occurred of young warriors whose
passions had been thus inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly,
and going off alone to seek for trophies which they might
exhibit, and adventures which they might be allowed to relate."

]  The Indian, in the dreary solitude of his woods, cherishes the
same ideas, the same opinions, as the noble of the middle ages in
his castle, and he only requires to become a conqueror to
complete the resemblance; thus, however strange it may seem, it
is in the forests of the New World, and not among the Europeans
who people its coasts, that the ancient prejudices of Europe are
still in existence.

More than once, in the course of this work, I have endeavored to
explain the prodigious influence which the social condition
appears to exercise upon the laws and the manners of men; and I
beg to add a few words on the same subject. When I perceive the
resemblance which exists between the political institutions of
our ancestors, the Germans, and of the wandering tribes of North
America: between the customs described by Tacitus, and those of
which I have sometimes been a witness, I cannot help thinking
that the same cause has brought about the same results in both
hemispheres; and that in the midst of the apparent diversity of
human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may be
discovered, from which all the others are derived. In what we
usually call the German institutions, then, I am inclined only to
perceive barbarian habits; and the opinions of savages, in what
we style feudal principles.

However strongly the vices and prejudices of the North American
Indians may be opposed to their becoming agricultural and
civilized, necessity sometimes obliges them to it. Several of
the southern nations, and among them the Cherokees and the
Creeks,[Footnote:

These nations are now swallowed up in the states of Georgia,
Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. There were formerly in the
south four great nations (remnants of which still exist), the
Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the Cherokees. The
remnants of these four nations amounted, in 1830, to about 75,000
individuals. It is computed that there are now remaining in the
territory occupied or claimed by the Anglo-American Union about
300,000 Indians. (See proceedings of the Indian board in the
city of New York.) The official documents supplied to congress
make the number amount to 313,130. The reader who is curious to
know the names and numerical strength of all the tribes which
inhabit the Anglo-American territory, should consult the
documents I refer to. (Legislative Documents, 28th congress,
No. 117, pp. 90-105.)

] were surrounded by Europeans, who had landed on the shores of
the Atlantic, and who, either descending the Ohio or proceeding
up the Mississippi, arrived simultaneously upon their borders.
These tribes have not been driven from place to place, like their
northern brethren; but they have been gradually enclosed within
narrow limits, like the game within the thicket before the
huntsmen plunge into the interior. The Indians, who were thus
placed between civilisation and death, found themselves obliged
to live by ignominious labor like the whites. They took to
agriculture, and without entirely forsaking their old habits or
manners, sacrificed only as much as was necessary to their
existence.

The Cherokees went further; they created a written language;
established a permanent form of government; and as everything
proceeds rapidly in the New World, before they had all of them
clothes, they set up a newspaper.[Footnote:

I brought back with me to France, one or two copies of this
singular publication.

]

The growth of European habits has been remarkably accelerated
among these Indians by the mixed race which has sprung
up.[Footnote:

See in the report of the committee on Indian affairs, 21st
congress, No. 227, p. 23, the reasons for the multiplication of
Indians of mixed blood among the Cherokees. The principal cause
dates from the war of independence. Many Anglo-Americans of
Georgia, having taken the side of England, were obliged to
retreat among the Indians where they married.

]  Deriving intelligence from the father's side, without entirely
losing the savage customs of the mother, the half-blood forms the
natural link between civilisation and barbarism. Wherever this
race has multiplied, the savage state has become modified, and a
great change has taken place in the manners of the
people.[Footnote:

Unhappily the mixed race has been less numerous and less
influential in North America than in any other country. The
American continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe,
the French and the English. The former were not slow in
connecting themselves with the daughters of the natives; but
there was an unfortunate affinity between the Indian character
and their own: instead of giving the tastes and habits of
civilized life to the savages, the French too often grew
passionately fond of the state of wild freedom they found them
in. They became the most dangerous of the inhabitants of the
desert, and won the friendship of the Indian by exaggerating his
vices and his virtues. M. de Senonville, the governor of Canada,
wrote thus to Louis XIV., in 1685: "It has long been believed
that in order to civilize the savages we ought to draw them
nearer to us, but there is every reason to suppose we have been
mistaken. Those which have been brought into contact with us
have not become French, and the French who have lived among them
are changed into savages, affecting to live and dress like them."
(History of New France, by Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345). The
Englishman, on the contrary, continuing obstinately attached to
the customs and the most insignificant habits of his forefathers,
has remained in the midst of the American solitudes just what he
was in the bosom of European cities; he would not allow of any
communication with savages whom he despised, and avoided with
care the union of his race with theirs. Thus, while the French
exercised no salutary influence over the Indians, the English
have always remained alien from them.

]

The success of the Cherokees proves that the Indians are capable
of civilisation, but it does not prove that they will succeed in
it. The difficulty which the Indians find in submitting to
civilisation proceeds from the influence of a general cause,
which it is almost impossible for them to escape. An attentive
survey of history demonstrates that, in general, barbarous
nations have raised themselves to civilisation by degrees, and by
their own efforts. Whenever they derived knowledge from a
foreign people, they stood toward it in the relation of
conquerors, not of a conquered nation. When the conquered nation
is enlightened, and the conquerors are half savage, as in the
case of the invasion of Rome by the northern nations, or that of
China by the Moguls, the power which victory bestows upon the
barbarian is sufficient to keep up his importance among civilized
men, and permit him to rank as their equal, until he becomes
their rival: the one has might on his side, the other has
intelligence; the former admires the knowledge and the arts of
the conquered, the latter envies the power of the conquerors.
The barbarians at length admit civilized man into their palaces,
and he in turn opens his schools to the barbarians. But when the
side on which the physical force lies, also possesses an
intellectual preponderance, the conquered party seldom becomes
civilized; it retreats, or is destroyed. It may therefore be
said, in a general way, that savages go forth in arms to seek
knowledge, but that they do not receive it when it comes to them.

If the Indian tribes which now inhabit the heart of the continent
could summon up energy enough to attempt to civilize themselves,
they might possibly succeed. Superior already to the barbarous
nations which surround them, they would gradually gain strength
and experience; and when the Europeans should appear upon their
borders, they would be in a state, if not to maintain their
independence, at least to assert their right to the soil, and to
incorporate themselves with the conquerors. But it is the
misfortune of Indians to be brought into contact with a civilized
people, which is also (it may be owned) the most avaricious
nation on the globe, while they are still semi-barbarian: to find
despots in their instructers, and to receive knowledge from the
hand of oppression. Living in the freedom of the woods, the
North American Indian was destitute, but he had no feeling of
inferiority toward any one; as soon, however, as he desires to
penetrate into the social scale of the whites, he takes the
lowest rank in society, for he enters ignorant and poor within
the pale of science and wealth. After having led a life of
agitation, beset with evils and dangers, but at the same time
filled with proud emotions,[Footnote:

There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a certain
irresistible charm which seizes the heart of man, and carries him
away in spite of reason and experience. This is plainly shown by
the memoirs of Tanner. Tanner is a European who was carried
away at the age of six by the Indians, and has remained thirty
years with them in the woods. Nothing can be conceived more
appalling than the miseries which he describes. He tells us of
tribes without a chief, families without a nation to call their
own, men in a state of isolation, wrecks of powerful tribes
wandering at random amid the ice and snow and desolate solitudes
of Canada. Hunger and cold pursue them; every day their life is
in jeopardy. Among these men manners have lost their empire,
traditions are without power. They become more and more savage.
Tanner shared in all these miseries; he was aware of his European
origin; he was not kept away from the whites by force; on the
contrary, he came every year to trade with them, entered their
dwellings, and saw their enjoyments; he knew that whenever he
chose to return to civilized life, he was perfectly able to do
so--and he remained thirty years in the deserts. When he came to
civilized society, he declared that the rude existence which he
described had a secret charm for him which he was unable to
define: he returned to it again and again: at length he abandoned
it with poignant regret; and when he was at length fixed among
the whites, several of his children refused to share his tranquil
and easy situation. I saw Tanner myself at the lower end of Lake
Superior; he seemed to be more like a savage than a civilized
being. His book is written without either taste or order; but he
gives, even unconsciously, a lively picture of the prejudices,
the passions, vices, and, above all, of the destitution in which
he lived.

] he is obliged to submit to a wearisome, obscure, and degraded
state, and to gain the bread which nourishes him by hard and
ignoble labor; such are in his eyes the only results of which
civilisation can boast: and even this much he is not sure to
obtain.

When the Indians undertake to imitate their European neighbors,
and to till the earth like the settlers, they are immediately
exposed to a very formidable competition. The white man is
skilled in the craft of agriculture; the Indian is a rough
beginner in an art with which he is unacquainted. The former
reaps abundant crops without difficulty, the latter meets with a
thousand obstacles in raising the fruits of the earth.

The European is placed among a population whose wants he knows
and partakes. The savage is isolated in the midst of a hostile
people, with whose manners, language and laws, he is imperfectly
acquainted, but without whose assistance he cannot live. He can
only procure the materials of comfort by bartering his
commodities against the goods of the European, for the assistance
of his countrymen is wholly insufficient to supply his wants.
When the Indian wishes to sell the produce of his labor, he
cannot always meet with a purchaser, while the European readily
finds a market; and the former can only produce at a considerable
cost, that which the latter vends at a very low rate. Thus the
Indian has no sooner escaped those evils to which barbarous
nations are exposed, than he is subjected to the still greater
miseries of civilized communities; and he finds it scarcely
less difficult to live in the midst of our abundance, than in the
depth of his own wilderness.

He has not yet lost the habits of his erratic life; the
traditions of his fathers and his passion for the chase are still
alive within him. The wild enjoyments which formerly animated
him in the woods painfully excite his troubled imagination; and
his former privations appear to be less keen, his former perils
less appalling. He contrasts the independence which he possessed
among his equals with the servile position which he occupies in
civilized society. On the other hand, the solitudes which were
so long his free home are still at hand; a few hours' march will
bring him back to them once more. The whites offer him a sum,
which seems to him to be considerable, for the ground which he
has begun to clear. This money of the Europeans may possibly
furnish him with the means of a happy and peaceful subsistence in
remote regions; and he quits the plough, resumes his native arms,
and returns to the wilderness for ever.[Footnote:

The destructive influence of highly civilized nations upon others
which are less so, has been exemplified by the Europeans
themselves. About a century ago the French founded the town of
Vincennes upon the Wabash, in the middle of the desert; and they
lived there in great plenty, until the arrival of the American
settlers, who first ruined the previous inhabitants by their
competition, and afterward purchased their lands at a very low
rate. At the time when M. de Volney, from whom I borrow these
details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French was
reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass
over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were
worthy people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted
many of the habits of the savages. The Americans, who were
perhaps their inferiors in a moral point of view, were
immeasurably superior to them in intelligence: they were
industrious, well-informed, rich, and accustomed to govern their
own community.

I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between
the two races is less striking, that the English are the masters
of commerce and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they
spread on all sides, and confine the French within limits which
scarcely suffice to contain them. In like manner, in Louisiana,
almost all activity in commerce and manufacture centres in the
hands of the Anglo-Americans.

But the case of Texas is still more striking: the state of Texas
is a part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that
country and the United States. In the course of the last few
years the Anglo-Americans have penetrated into this province,
which is still thinly peopled; they purchase land, they produce
the commodities of the country, and supplant the original
population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes no
steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very
shortly cease to belong to that government.

If the different degrees, comparatively so light, which exist in
European civilisation, produce results of such magnitude, the
consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most
perfect European civilisation with Indian savages may readily be
conceived.

]  The condition of the Creeks and Cherokees, to which I have
already alluded, sufficiently corroborates the truth of this
deplorable picture.

The Indians, in the little which they have done, have
unquestionably displayed as much natural genius as the peoples of
Europe in their most important designs; but nations as well as
men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence and
their zeal. While the savages were engaged in the work of
civilisation, the Europeans continued to surround them on every
side, and to confine them within narrower limits; the two races
gradually met, and they are now in immediate juxtaposition to
each other. The Indian is already superior to his barbarous
parent, but he is still very far below his white neighbor. With
their resources and acquired knowledge, the Europeans soon
appropriated to themselves most of the advantages which the
natives might have derived from the possession of the soil: they
have settled in the country, they have purchased land at a very
low rate or have occupied it by force, and the Indians have been
ruined by a competition which they had not the means of
resisting. They were isolated in their own country, and their
race only constituted a colony of troublesome aliens in the midst
of a numerous and domineering people.[Footnote:

See in the legislative documents (21st congress, No. 89),
instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon
the territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a
part of their lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of
congress, or carrying off their cattle, burning their houses,
cutting down their corn, and doing violence to their persons.

It appears, nevertheless, from all these documents, that the
claims of the natives are constantly protected by the government
from the abuse of force. The Union has a representative agent
continually employed to reside among the Indians; and the report
of the Cherokee agent, which is among the documents I have
referred to, is almost always favorable to the Indians. "The
intrusion of whites," he says, "upon the lands of the Cherokees
would cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive
inhabitants." And he farther remarks upon the attempt of the
state of Georgia to establish a division line for the purpose of
limiting the boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line drawn
having been made by the whites, and entirely upon _exparte_
evidence of their several rights, was of no validity whatever.

]

Washington said in one of his messages to congress, "We are more
enlightened and powerful than the Indian nations, we are
therefore bound in honor to treat them with kindness and even
with generosity." But this virtuous and high-minded policy has
not been followed. The rapacity of the settlers is usually
backed by the tyranny of the government. Although the Cherokees
and the Creeks are established upon the territory which they
inhabited before the settlement of the Europeans, and although
the Americans have frequently treated with them as with foreign
nations, the surrounding states have not consented to acknowledge
them as an independent people, and attempts have been made to
subject these children of the woods to Anglo-American
magistrates, laws, and customs.[Footnote:

In 1829 the state of Alabama divided the Creek territory into
counties, and subjected the Indian population to the power of
European magistrates.

In 1830 the state of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and
Chickasaws to the white population, and declared that any of them
that should take the title of chief would be punished by a fine
of 1,000 dollars and 3 year's imprisonment. When these laws were
enforced upon the Choctaws who inhabited that district, the
tribes assembled, their chief communicated to them the intentions
of the whites, and read to them some of the laws to which it was
intended that they should submit; and they unanimously declared
that it was better at once to retreat again into the wilds.

]  Destitution had driven these unfortunate Indians to
civilisation, and oppression now drives them back to their former
condition; many of them abandon the soil which they had begun to
clear, and return to their savage course of life.

If we consider the tyrannical measures which have been adopted by
the legislatures of the southern states, the conduct of their
governors, and the decrees of their courts of justice, we shall
be convinced that the entire expulsion of the Indians is the
final result to which the efforts of their policy are directed.
The Americans of that part of the Union look with jealousy upon
the aborigines,[Footnote:

The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity of the
Indians, inhabit a territory which does not at present contain
more than seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France there
are one hundred and sixty-two inhabitants to the same extent of
country.

] they are aware that these tribes have not yet lost the
traditions of savage life, and before civilisation has
permanently fixed them to the soil, it is intended to force them
to recede by reducing them to despair. The Creeks and Cherokees,
oppressed by the several states, have appealed to the central
government, which is by no means insensible to their misfortunes,
and is sincerely desirous of saving the remnant of the natives,
and of maintaining them in the free possession of that territory
which the Union is pledged to respect.[Footnote:

In 1818 congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas
territory accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws, and
Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly,
M'Coy, Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of
the commissioners, and their journal, in the documents of
congress, No. 87 house of representatives.

]  But the several states oppose so formidable a resistance to
the execution of this design, that the government is obliged to
consent to the extirpation of a few barbarous tribes in order not
to endanger the safety of the American Union.

But the federal government, which is not able to protect the
Indians, would fain mitigate the hardships of their lot; and,
with this intention, proposals have been made to transport them
into more remote regions at the public cost.

Between the 33d and 37th degrees of north latitude, a vast tract
of country lies, which has taken the name of Arkansas, from the
principal river that waters its extent. It is bounded on the one
side by the confines of Mexico, on the other by the Mississippi.
Numberless streams cross it in every direction; the climate is
mild, and the soil productive, but it is only inhabited by a few
wandering hordes of savages. The government of the Union wishes
to transport the broken remnants of the indigenous population of
the south, to the portion of this country which is nearest to
Mexico, and at a great distance from the American settlements.

We were assured, toward the end of the year 1831, that 10,000
Indians had already gone to the shores of the Arkansas; and fresh
detachments were constantly following them; but congress has been
unable to excite a unanimous determination in those whom it is
disposed to protect. Some, indeed, are willing to quit the seat
of oppression, but the most enlightened members of the community
refuse to abandon their recent dwellings and the springing crops;
they are of opinion that the work of civilisation, once
interrupted, will never be resumed; they fear that those domestic
habits which have been so recently contracted, may be
irrecoverably lost in the midst of a country which is still
barbarous, and where nothing is prepared for the subsistence of
an agricultural people; they know that their entrance into those
wilds will be opposed by inimical hordes, and that they have lost
the energy of barbarians, without acquiring the resources of
civilisation to resist their attacks. Moreover the Indians
readily discover that the settlement which is proposed to them is
merely a temporary expedient. Who can assure them that they will
at length be allowed to dwell in peace in their new retreat?  The
United States pledge themselves to the observance of the
obligation; but the territory which they at present occupy was
formerly secured to them by the most solemn oaths of
Anglo-American faith.[Footnote:

The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in August,
1790, is in the following words: "The United States solemnly
guaranty to the Creek nation all their land within the limits of
the United States."

The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the
Cherokees says: "The United States solemnly guaranty to the
Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded." The following
article declared that if any citizen of the United States or
other settler not of the Indian race, should establish himself
upon the territory of the Cherokees, the United States would
withdraw their protection from that individual, and give him up
to be punished as the Cherokee nation should think fit.

]  The American government does not indeed rob them of their
lands, but it allows perpetual incursions to be made on them. In
a few years the same white population which now flocks around
them, will track them to the solitudes of the Arkansas, they will
then be exposed to the same evils without the same remedies; and
as the limits of the earth will at last fail them, their only
refuge is the grave.

The Union treats the Indians with less cupidity and rigor than
the policy of the several states, but the two governments are
alike destitute of good faith. The states extend what they are
pleased to term the benefits of their laws to the Indians, with a
belief that the tribes will recede rather than submit; and the
central government, which promises a permanent refuge to these
unhappy beings, is well aware of its inability to secure it to
them.[Footnote:

This does not prevent them from promising in the most solemn
manner to do so. See the letter of the president addressed to
the Creek Indians, 23d March, 1829. ("Proceedings of the Indian
Board, in the City of New York," p. 5.) "Beyond the great river
Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father
has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he
advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not
trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can
live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass
grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. _It will be
yours for ever_."

The secretary of war, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April
18th, 1829 (see the same work, page 6), declares to them that
they cannot expect to retain possession of the land, at the time
occupied by them, but gives them the most positive assurance of
uninterrupted peace if they would remove beyond the Mississippi:
as if the power which could not grant them protection then, would
be able to afford it them hereafter!

]

Thus the tyranny of the states obliges the savages to retire, the
Union, by its promises and resources facilitates their retreat;
and these measures tend to precisely the same end.[Footnote:

To obtain a correct idea of the policy pursued by the several
states and the Union with respect to the Indians, it is necessary
to consult, 1st, "The laws of the colonial and state governments
relating to the Indian inhabitants." (See the legislative
documents, 21st congress, No. 319.) 2d, "The laws of the Union
on the same subject, and especially that of March 20th, 1802."
(See Story's Laws of the United States.) 3d, "The report of
Mr. Cass, secretary of war, relative to Indian affairs, November
29th, 1823."

]  "By the will of our Father in heaven, the governor of the
whole world," said the Cherokees in their petition to
congress,[Footnote:

December 18th, 1829.

] "the red man of America has become small, and the white man
great and renowned. When the ancestors of the people of these
United States first came to the shores of America, they found the
red man strong: though he was ignorant and savage, yet he
received them kindly, and gave them dry land to rest their weary
feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in token of friendship.
Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the Indian, the latter
willingly gave. At that time the Indian was the lord, and the
white man the suppliant. But now the scene has changed. The
strength of the red man has become weakness. As his neighbors
increased in numbers, his power became less and less, and now, of
the many and powerful tribes who once covered the United States,
only a few are to be seen--a few whom a sweeping pestilence had
left. The northern tribes, who were once so numerous and
powerful, are now nearly extinct. Thus it has happened to the
red man of America. Shall we, who are remnants, share the same
fate?

"The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance
from our fathers who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift
from our common Father in heaven. They bequeathed it to us as
their children, and we have sacredly kept it, as containing their
remains. This right of inheritance we have never ceded, nor ever
forfeited. Permit us to ask what better right can the people
have to a country than the right of inheritance and immemorial
peaceable possession?  We know it is said of late by the state of
Georgia and by the executive of the United States, that we have
forfeited this right; but we think it is said gratuitously. At
what time have we made the forfeit?  What great crime have we
committed, whereby we must for ever be divested of our country
and rights?  Was it when we were hostile to the United States,
and took part with the king of Great Britain, during the struggle
for independence?  If so, why was not this forfeiture declared in
the first treaty which followed that war?  Why was not such an
article as the following inserted in the treaty: 'The United
States give peace to the Cherokees, but for the part they took in
the last war, declare them to be but tenants at will, to be
removed when the convenience of the states, within whose
chartered limits they live, shall require it?' That was the
proper time to assume such a possession. But it was not thought
of, nor would our forefathers have agreed to any treaty, whose
tendency was to deprive them of their rights and their country."

Such is the language of the Indians: their assertions are true,
their forebodings inevitable. From whichever side we consider
the destinies of the aborigines of North America, their
calamities appear to be irremediable: if they continue barbarous,
they are forced to retire: if they attempt to civilize their
manners, the contact of a more civilized community subjects them
to oppression and destitution. They perish if they continue to
wander from waste to waste, and if they attempt to settle, they
still must perish; the assistance of Europeans is necessary to
instruct them, but the approach of Europeans corrupts and repels
them into savage life; they refuse to change their habits as long
as their solitudes are their own, and it is too late to change
them when they are constrained to submit.

The Spaniards pursued the Indians with blood-hounds, like wild
beasts; and they sacked the New World with no more temper or
compassion than a city taken by storm: but destruction must
cease, and phrensy be stayed; the remnant of the Indian
population, which had escaped the massacre, mixed with its
conquerors and adopted their religion and manners.[Footnote:

The honor of this result is, however, by no means due to the
Spaniards. If the Indian tribes had not been tillers of the
ground at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they would
unquestionably have been destroyed in South as well as in North
America.

]  The conduct of the Americans of the United States towards the
aborigines is characterized, on the other hand, by a singular
attachment to the formalities of law. Provided that the Indians
retain their barbarous condition, the Americans take no part in
their affairs: they treat them as independent nations, and do not
possess themselves of their hunting grounds without a treaty of
purchase; and if an Indian nation happens to be so encroached
upon as to be unable to subsist upon its territory, they afford
it brotherly assistance in transporting it to a grave
sufficiently remote from the land of its fathers.

The Spaniards were unable to exterminate the Indian race by those
unparalleled atrocities which brand them with indelible shame,
nor did they even succeed in wholly depriving it of its rights;
but the Americans of the United States have accomplished this
twofold purpose with singular felicity; tranquilly, legally,
philanthropically, without shedding blood, and without violating
a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the
world.[Footnote:

See among other documents, the report made by Mr. Bell in the
name of the committee on Indian affairs, Feb. 24th, 1830, in
which it is most logically established and most learnedly proved,
that "the fundamental principle, that the Indians had no right by
virtue of their ancient possession either of will or sovereignty,
has never been abandoned either expressly or by implication."

In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up by an able
hand, one is astonished at the facility with which the author
gets rid of all arguments founded upon reason and natural right,
which he designates as abstract and theoretical principles. The
more I contemplate the difference between civilized and
uncivilized man with regard to the principles of justice, the
more I observe that the former contests the justice of those
rights, which the latter simply violates.

]  It is impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws
of humanity.

       *       *       *       *       *


     SITUATION OF THE BLACK POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES,
        AND DANGERS WITH WHICH ITS PRESENCE THREATENS THE
                             WHITES.

Why it is more difficult to abolish Slavery, and to efface all
  Vestiges of it among the Moderns, than it was among the
  Ancients.--In the United States the prejudices of the Whites
  against the Blacks seem to increase in Proportion as Slavery is
  abolished.--Situation of the Negroes in the Northern and
  Southern States.--Why the Americans abolish
  Slavery.--Servitude, which debases the Slave, impoverishes the
  Master.--Contrast between the left and the right Bank of the
  Ohio.--To what attributable.--The black Race, as well as
  Slavery, recedes toward the South.--Explanation of this
  fact.--Difficulties attendant upon the Abolition of Slavery in
  the South.--Dangers to come.--General Anxiety.--Foundation of a
  black Colony in Africa.--Why the Americans of the South
  increase the Hardships of Slavery, while they are distressed at
  its Continuance.


The Indians will perish in the same isolated condition in which
they have lived; but the destiny of the negroes is in some
measure interwoven with that of the Europeans. These two races
are attached to each other without intermingling; and they are
alike unable entirely to separate or to combine. The most
formidable of all the ills which threaten the future existence of
the United States, arises from the presence of a black population
upon its territory; and in contemplating the causes of the
present embarrassments or of the future dangers of the United
States, the observer is invariably led to consider this as a
primary fact.

The permanent evils to which mankind is subjected are usually
produced by the vehement or the increasing efforts of men; but
there is one calamity which penetrated furtively into the world,
and which was at first scarcely distinguishable amid the ordinary
abuses of power: it originated with an individual whose name
history has not preserved; it was wafted like some accursed germ
upon a portion of the soil, but it afterward nurtured itself,
grew without effort, and spreads naturally with the society to
which it belongs. I need scarcely add that this calamity is
slavery. Christianity suppressed slavery, but the Christians of
the sixteenth century re-established it--as an exception, indeed,
to their social system, and restricted to one of the races of
mankind; but the wound thus inflicted upon humanity, though less
extensive, was at the same time rendered far more difficult of
cure.

It is important to make an accurate distinction between slavery
itself and its consequences. The immediate evils which are
produced by slavery were very nearly the same in antiquity as
they are among the moderns; but the consequences of these evils
were different. The slave, among the ancients, belonged to the
same race as his master, and he was often the superior of the two
in education[Footnote:

It is well known that several of the most distinguished authors
of antiquity, and among them sop and Terence, were or had
been slaves. Slaves were not always taken from barbarous
nations, and the chances of war reduced highly civilized men to
servitude.

] and instruction. Freedom was the only distinction between
them; and when freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded
together. The ancients, then, had a very simple means of
avoiding slavery and its evil consequences, which was that of
enfranchisement; and they succeeded as soon as they adopted this
measure generally. Not but, in ancient states, the vestiges of
servitude subsisted for some time after servitude was abollished.
There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise
whomsoever has been their inferior, long after he has become
their equal; and the real inequality which is produced by fortune
or by law, is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality which
is implanted in the manners of the people. Nevertheless, this
secondary consequence of slavery was limited to a certain term
among the ancients; for the freedman bore so entire a resemblance
to those born free, that it soon became impossible to distinguish
him from among them.

The greatest difficulty in antiquity was that of altering the
law; among the moderns it is of altering the manners; and, as far
as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where those of the
ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that, among
the moderns, the abstract and transient fact of slavery is
fatally united to the physical and permanent fact of color. The
tradition of slavery dishonors the race, and the peculiarity of
the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has
ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World; whence
it must be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found
in that hemisphere are either slaves or freedmen. Thus the negro
transmits the eternal mark of his ignominy to all his
descendants; and although the law may abolish slavery, God alone
can obliterate the traces of its existence.

The modern slave differs from his master not only in his
condition, but in his origin. You may set the negro free, but
you cannot make him otherwise than an alien to the European. Nor
is this all; we scarcely acknowledge the common features of
mankind in this child of debasement whom slavery has brought
among us. His physiognomy is to our eyes hideous, his
understanding weak, his tastes low; and we are almost inclined to
look upon him as a being intermediate between man and the
brutes.[Footnote:

To induce the whites to abandon the opinion they have conceived
of the moral and intellectual inferiority of their former slaves,
the negroes must change; but as long as this opinion subsists, to
change is impossible.

]  The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, have
three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to
attack, and far less easy to conquer, than the mere fact of
servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the
race, and the prejudice of color.

It is difficult for us, who have had the good fortune to be born
among men like ourselves by nature, and equal to ourselves by
law, to conceive the irreconcilable differences which separate
the negro from the European in America. But we may derive some
faint notion of them from analogy. France was formerly a country
in which numerous distinctions of rank existed, that had been
created by the legislation. Nothing can be more fictitious than
a purely legal inferiority; nothing more contrary to the instinct
of mankind than these permanent divisions which had been
established between beings evidently similar. Nevertheless these
divisions subsisted for ages; they still subsist in many places;
and on all sides they have left imaginary vestiges, which time
alone can efface. If it be so difficult to root out an
inequality which solely originates in the law, how are those
distinctions to be destroyed which seem to be founded upon the
immutable laws of nature herself?  When I remember the extreme
difficulty with which aristocratic bodies, of whatever nature
they may be, are commingled with the mass of the people; and the
exceeding care which they take to preserve the ideal boundaries
of their caste inviolate, I despair of seeing an aristocracy
disappear which is founded upon visible and indelible signs.
Those who hope that the Europeans will ever mix with the negroes,
appear to me to delude themselves; and I am not led to any such
conclusion by my own reason, or by the evidence of facts.

Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the most powerful, they
have maintained the blacks in a subordinate or a servile
position; wherever the negroes have been strongest, they have
destroyed the whites; such has been the only course of events
which has ever taken place between the two races.

I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United
States at the present day, the legal barrier which separated the
two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in
the manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to
which it has given birth remains stationary. Whosoever has
inhabited the United States, must have perceived, that in those
parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves,
they have in nowise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary,
the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the states
which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still
exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where
servitude has never been known.

It is true, that in the north of the Union, marriages may be
legally contracted between negroes and whites, but public opinion
would stigmatize a man who should connect himself with a negress
as infamous, and it would be difficult to meet with a single
instance of such a union. The electoral franchise has been
conferred upon the negroes in almost all the States in which
slavery has been abolished; but if they come forward to vote,
their lives are in danger. If oppressed, they may bring an
action at law, but they will find none but whites among their
judges; and although they may legally serve as jurors, prejudice
repulses them from that office. The same schools do not receive
the child of the black and of the European. In the theatres,
gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their
former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although
they are allowed to invoke the same Divinity as the whites, it
must be at a different altar, and in their own churches, with
their own clergy. The gates of heaven are not closed against
these unhappy beings; but their inferiority is continued to the
very confines of the other world. When the negro is defunct, his
bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condition prevails
even in the equality of death. The negro is free, but he can
share neither the rights, nor the pleasure, nor the labor, nor
the afflictions, nor the tomb of him whose equal he has been
declared to be; and he cannot meet him upon fair terms in life or
in death.

In the south, where slavery still exists, the negroes are less
carefully kept apart; they sometimes share the labor and the
recreations of the whites; the whites consent to intermix with
them to a certain extent, and although the legislation treats
them more harshly, the habits of the people are more tolerant and
compassionate. In the south the master is not afraid to raise
his slave to his own standing, because he knows that he can in a
moment reduce him to the dust at pleasure. In the north, the
white no longer distinctly perceives the barrier which separates
him from the degraded race, and he shuns the negro with the more
pertinacity, because he fears lest they should be some day
confounded together.

Among the Americans of the south, nature sometimes reasserts her
rights, and restores a transient equality between the blacks and
the whites; but in the north, pride restrains the most imperious
of human passions. The American of the northern states would
perhaps allow the negress to share his licentious pleasures, if
the laws of his country did not declare that she may aspire to be
the legitimate partner of his bed; but he recoils with horror
from her who might become his wife.

Thus it is, in the United States, that the prejudice which repels
the negroes seems to increase in proportion as they are
emancipated, and inequality is sanctioned by the manners while it
is effaced from the laws of the country. But if the relative
position of the two races which inhabit the United States, is
such as I have described, it may be asked why the Americans have
abolished slavery in the north of the Union, why they maintain it
in the south, and why they aggravate its hardships there?  The
answer is easily given. It is not for the good of the negroes,
but for that of the whites, that measures are taken to abolish
slavery in the United States.

The first negroes were imported into Virginia about the year
1621.[Footnote:

See Beverley's History of Virginia. See also in Jefferson's
Memoirs some curious details concerning the introduction of
negroes into Virginia, and the first act which prohibited the
importation of them in 1778.

]  In America, therefore, as well as in the rest of the globe,
slavery originated in the south. Thence it spread from one
settlement to another; but the number of slaves diminished toward
the northern states, and the negro population was always very
limited in New England.[Footnote:

The number of slaves was less considerable in the north, but the
advantages resulting from slavery were not more contested there
than in the south. In 1740, the legislature of the state of New
York declared that the direct importation of slaves ought to be
encouraged as much as possible, and smuggling severely punished,
in order not to discourage the fair trader. (Kent's
Commentaries, vol. ii., p. 206.) Curious researches, by Belknap,
upon slavery in New England, are to be found in the Historical
Collections of Massachusetts, vol. iv., p. 193. It appears that
negroes were introduced there in 1630, but that the legislation
and manners of the people were opposed to slavery from the first;
see also, in the same work, the manner in which public opinion,
and afterward the laws, finally put an end to slavery.

]

A century had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the
colonies, when the attention of the planters was struck by the
extraordinary fact, that the provinces which were comparatively
destitute of slaves, increased in population, in wealth, and in
prosperity, more rapidly than those which contained the greatest
number of negroes. In the former, however, the inhabitants were
obliged to cultivate the soil themselves, or by hired laborers;
in the latter, they were furnished with hands for which they paid
no wages; yet, although labor and expense were on the one side,
and ease with economy on the other, the former were in possession
of the most advantageous system. This consequence seemed to be
the more difficult to explain, since the settlers, who all
belonged to the same European race, had the same habits, the same
civilisation, the same laws, and their shades of difference were
extremely slight.

Time, however, continued to advance; and the Anglo Americans,
spreading beyond the coasts of the Atlantic ocean, penetrated
farther and farther into the solitudes of the west; they met with
a new soil and an unwonted climate; the obstacles which opposed
them were of the most various character; their races
intermingled, the inhabitants of the south went up toward the
north, those of the north descended to the south; but in the
midst of all these causes, the same result recurred at every
step; and in general, the colonies in which there were no slaves
became more populous and more rich than those in which slavery
flourished. The more progress was made, the more was it shown
that slavery, which is so cruel to the slave, is prejudicial to
the master.

But this truth was most satisfactorily demonstrated when
civilisation reached the banks of the Ohio. The stream which the
Indians had distinguished by the name of Ohio, or Beautiful
river, waters one of the most magnificent valleys which have ever
been made the abode of man. Undulating lands extend upon both
shores of the Ohio, whose soil affords inexhaustible treasures to
the laborer; on either bank the air is wholesome and the climate
mild; and each of them forms the extreme frontier of a vast
state: that which follows the numerous windings of the Ohio upon
the left is called Kentucky; that upon the right bears the name
of the river. These two states only differ in a single respect;
Kentucky has admitted slavery, but the state of Ohio has
prohibited the existence of slaves within its borders.[Footnote:

Not only is slavery prohibited in Ohio, but no free negroes are
allowed to enter the territory of that state, or to hold property
in it. See the statutes of Ohio.

]

Thus the traveller who floats down the current of the Ohio, to
the spot where that river falls into the Mississippi, may be said
to sail between liberty and servitude; and a transient inspection
of the surrounding objects will convince him which of the two is
most favorable to mankind.

Upon the left bank of the stream the population is rare; from
time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the
half-desert fields; the primeval forest recurs at every turn;
society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone
offers a scene of activity and of life.

From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused hum is heard,
which proclaims the presence of industry; the fields are covered
with abundant harvests; the elegance of the dwellings announces
the taste and activity of the laborer; and man appears to be in
the enjoyment of that wealth and contentment which are the reward
of labor.[Footnote:

The activity of Ohio is not confined to individuals, but the
undertakings of the state are surprisingly great: a canal has
been established between Lake Erie and the Ohio, by means of
which the valley of the Mississippi communicates with the river
of the north, and the European commodities with arrive at New
York, may be forwarded by water to New Orleans across five
hundred leagues of continent.

]

The state of Kentucky was founded in 1775, the state of Ohio only
twelve years later; but twelve years are more in America than
half a century in Europe, and, at the present day, the population
of Ohio exceeds that of Kentucky by 250,000 souls.[Footnote:

The exact numbers given by the census of 1830 were: Kentucky,
588,844; Ohio, 937,679.

[In 1840 the census gave, Kentucky 779,828; Ohio 1,519,467.]

]  These opposite consequences of slavery and freedom may readily
be understood; and they suffice to explain many of the
differences which we remark between the civilisation of antiquity
and that of our own time.

Upon the left bank of the Ohio labor is confounded with the idea
of slavery, upon the right bank it is identified with that of
prosperity and improvement; on the one side it is degraded, on
the other it is honored; on the former territory no white
laborers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating
themselves to the negroes; on the latter no one is idle, for the
white population extends its activity and its intelligence to
every kind of employment. Thus the men whose task it is to
cultivate the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and lukewarm;
while those who are active and enlightened either do nothing, or
pass over into the state of Ohio, where they may work without
dishonor.

It is true that in Kentucky the planters are not obliged to pay
wages to the slaves whom they employ; but they derive small
profits from their labor, while the wages paid to free workmen
would be returned with interest in the value of their services.
The free workman is paid, but he does his work quicker than the
slave; and rapidity of execution is one of the great elements of
economy. The white sells his services, but they are only
purchased at the times at which they may be useful; the black can
claim no remuneration for his toil, but the expense of his
maintenance is perpetual; he must be supported in his old age as
well as in the prime of manhood, in his profitless infancy as
well as in the productive years of youth. Payment must equally
be made in order to obtain the services of either class of men;
the free workman receives his wages in money; the slave in
education, in food, in care, and in clothing. The money which a
master spends in the maintenance of his slaves, goes gradually
and in detail, so that it is scarcely perceived; the salary of
the free workman is paid in a round sum, which appears only to
enrich the individual who receives it; but in the end the slave
has cost more than the free servant, and his labor is less
productive.[Footnote:

Independently of these causes which, wherever free workmen
abound, render their labor more productive and more economical
than that of slaves, another cause may be pointed out which is
peculiar to the United States: the sugar-cane has hitherto been
cultivated with success only upon the banks of the Mississippi,
near the mouth of that river in the gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana
the cultivation of the sugar-cane is exceedingly lucrative;
nowhere does a laborer earn so much by his work: and, as there is
always a certain relation between the cost of production and the
value of the produce, the price of slaves is very high in
Louisiana. But Louisiana is one of the confederate states, and
slaves may be carried thither from all parts of the Union; the
price given for slaves in New Orleans consequently raises the
value of slaves in all the other markets. The consequence of
this is, that in the countries where the land is less productive,
the cost of slave labor is still very considerable, which gives
an additional advantage to the competition of free labor.

]

The influence of slavery extends still farther; it affects the
character of the master, and imparts a peculiar tendency to his
ideas and his tastes. Upon both banks of the Ohio, the character
of the inhabitants is enterprising and energetic; but this vigor
is very differently exercised in the two states. The white
inhabitant of Ohio, who is obliged to subsist by his own
exertions, regards temporal prosperity as the principal aim of
his existence; and as the country which he occupies presents
inexhaustible resources to his industry, and ever-varying lures
to his activity, his acquisitive ardor surpasses the ordinary
limits of human cupidity: he is tormented by the desire of
wealth, and he boldly enters upon every path which fortune opens
to him; he becomes a sailor, pioneer, an artisan, or a laborer,
with the same indifference, and he supports, with equal
constancy, the fatigues and the dangers incidental to these
various professions; the resources of his intelligence are
astonishing, and his avidity in the pursuit of gain amounts to a
species of heroism.

But the Kentuckian scorns not only labor, but all the
undertakings which labor promotes; as he lives in an idle
independence, his tastes are those of an idle man; money loses a
portion of its value in his eyes; he covets wealth much less than
pleasure and excitement; and the energy which his neighbor
devotes to gain, turns with him to a passionate love of field
sports and military exercises; he delights in violent bodily
exertion, he is familiar with the use of arms, and is accustomed
from a very early age to expose his life in single combat. Thus
slavery not only prevents the whites from becoming opulent, but
even from desiring to become so.

As the same causes have been continually producing opposite
effects for the last two centuries in the British colonies of
North America, they have established a very striking difference
between the commercial capacity of the inhabitants of the south
and that of the north. At the present day, it is only the
northern states which are in possession of shipping,
manufactures, railroads, and canals. This difference is
perceptible not only in comparing the north with the south, but
in comparing the several southern states. Almost all the
individuals who carry on commercial operations, or who endeavor
to turn slave-labor to account in the most southern districts of
the Union, have emigrated from the north. The natives of the
northern states are constantly spreading over that portion of the
American territory, where they have less to fear from
competition; they discover resources there, which escaped the
notice of the inhabitants; and, as they comply with a system
which they do not approve, they succeed in turning it to better
advantage than those who first founded, and who still maintain
it.

Were I inclined to continue this parallel, I could easily prove
that almost all the differences, which may be remarked between
the characters of the Americans in the southern and in the
northern states, have originated in slavery; but this would
divert me from my subject, and my present intention is not to
point out all the consequences of servitude, but those effects
which it has produced upon the prosperity of the countries which
have admitted it.

The influence of slavery upon the production of wealth must have
been very imperfectly known in antiquity, as slavery then
obtained throughout the civilized world, and the nations which
were unacquainted with it were barbarous. And indeed
Christianity only abolished slavery by advocating the claims of
the slave; at the present time it may be attacked in the name of
the master; and, upon this point, interest is reconciled with
morality.

As these truths became apparent in the United States, slavery
receded before the progress of experience. Servitude had begun
in the south, and had thence spread toward the north; but it now
retires again. Freedom, which started from the north, now
descends uninterruptedly toward the south. Among the great
states, Pennsylvania now constitutes the extreme limit of slavery
to the north; but even within those limits the slave-system is
shaken; Maryland, which is immediately below Pennsylvania, is
preparing for its abolition; and Virginia, which comes next to
Maryland, is already discussing its utility and its
dangers.[Footnote:

A peculiar reason contributes to detach the two last-mentioned
states from the cause of slavery. The former wealth of this part
of the Union was principally derived from the cultivation of
tobacco. This cultivation is specially carried on by slaves; but
within the last few years the market-price of tobacco has
diminished, while the value of the slaves remains the same. Thus
the ratio between the cost of production and the value of the
produce is changed. The natives of Maryland and Virginia are
therefore more disposed than they were thirty years ago, to give
up slave labor in the cultivation of tobacco, or to give up
slavery and tobacco at the same time.

]

No great change takes place in human institutions, without
involving among its causes the law of inheritance. When the law
of primogeniture obtained in the south, each family was
represented by a wealthy individual, who was neither compelled
nor induced to labor; and he was surrounded, as by parasitic
plants, by the other members of his family, who were then
excluded by law from sharing the common inheritance, and who led
the same kind of life as himself. The very same thing then
occurred in all the families of the south that still happens in
the wealthy families of some countries in Europe, namely, that
the younger sons remain in the same state of idleness as their
elder brother, without being as rich as he is. This identical
result seems to be produced in Europe and in America by wholly
analogous causes. In the south of the United States, the whole
race of whites formed an aristocratic body, which was headed by a
certain number of privileged individuals, whose wealth was
permanent, and whose leisure was hereditary. These leaders of
the American nobility kept alive the traditional prejudices of
the white race in the body of which they were the
representatives, and maintained the honor of inactive life. This
aristocracy contained many who were poor, but none who would
work; its members preferred want to labor; consequently no
competition was set on foot against negro laborers and slaves,
and whatever opinion might be entertained as to the utility of
their efforts, it was indispensable to employ them, since there
was no one else to work.

No sooner was the law of primogeniture abolished than fortunes
began to diminish, and all the families of the country were
simultaneously reduced to a state in which labor became necessary
to procure the means of subsistence: several of them have since
entirely disappeared; and all of them learned to look forward to
the time at which it would be necessary for every one to provide
for his own wants. Wealthy individuals are still to be met with,
but they no longer constitute a compact and hereditary body, nor
have they been able to adopt a line of conduct in which they
could persevere, and which they could infuse into all ranks of
society. The prejudice which stigmatized labor was in the first
place abandoned by common consent; the number of needy men was
increased, and the needy were allowed to gain a laborious
subsistence without blushing for their exertions. Thus one of
the most immediate consequences of the partible quality of
estates has been to create a class of free laborers. As soon as
a competition was set on foot between the free laborer and the
slave, the inferiority of the latter became manifest, and slavery
was attacked in its fundamental principles, which is, the
interest of the master.

As slavery recedes, the black population follows its retrograde
course, and returns with it to those tropical regions from which
it originally came. However singular this fact may at first
appear to be, it may readily be explained. Although the
Americans abolish the principle of slavery, they do not set their
slaves free. To illustrate this remark I will quote the example
of the state of New York. In 1788, the state of New York
prohibited the sale of slaves within its limits; which was an
indirect method of prohibiting the importation of blacks.
Thenceforward the number of negroes could only increase according
to the ratio of the natural increase of population. But eight
years later a more decisive measure was taken, and it was enacted
that all children born of slave parents after the 4th of July,
1799, should be free. No increase could then take place, and
although slaves still existed, slavery might be said to be
abolished.

From the time at which a northern state prohibited the
importation of slaves, no slaves were brought from the south to
be sold in its markets. On the other hand, as the sale of slaves
was forbidden in that state, an owner was no longer able to get
rid of his slaves (who thus became a burdensome possession)
otherwise than by transporting him to the south. But when a
northern state declared that the son of the slave should be born
free, the slave lost a large portion of his market value, since
his posterity was no longer included in the bargain, and the
owner had then a strong interest in transporting him to the
south. Thus the same law prevents the slaves of the south from
coming to the northern states, and drives those of the north to
the south.

The want of free hands is felt in a state in proportion as the
number of slaves decreases. But in proportion as labor is
performed by free hands, slave-labor becomes less productive; and
the slave is then a useless or an onerous possession, whom it is
important to export to those southern states where the same
competition is not to be feared. Thus the abolition of slavery
does not set the slave free, but it merely transfers him from one
master to another, and from the north to the south.

The emancipated negroes, and those born after the abolition of
slavery, do not, indeed, migrate from the north to the south; but
their situation with regard to the Europeans is not unlike that
of the aborigines of America; they remain half civilized, and
deprived of their rights in the midst of a population which is
far superior to them in wealth and in knowledge; where they are
exposed to the tyranny of the laws,[Footnote:

The states in which slavery is abolished usually do what they can
to render their territory disagreeable to the negroes as a place
of residence; and as a kind of emulation exists between the
different states in this respect, the unhappy blacks can only
choose the least of the evils which beset them.

] and the intolerance of the people. On some accounts they are
still more to be pitied than the Indians, since they are haunted
by the reminiscence of slavery, and they cannot claim possession
of a single portion of the soil: many of them perish
miserably,[Footnote:

There is a very great difference between the mortality of the
blacks and of the whites in the states in which slavery is
abolished; from 1820 to 1831 only one out of forty-two
individuals of the white population died in Philadelphia; but one
negro out of twenty-one individuals of the black population died
in the same space of time. The mortality is by no means so great
among the negroes who are still slaves. (See Emmerson's Medical
Statistics, p. 28.)

] and the rest congregate in the great towns, where they perform
the meanest offices, and lead a wretched and precarious
existence.

But even if the number of negroes continued to increase as
rapidly as when they were still in a state of slavery, as the
number of whites augments with twofold rapidity since the
abolition of slavery, the blacks would soon be, as it were, lost
in the midst of a strange population.

A district which is cultivated by slaves is in general more
scantily peopled than a district cultivated by free labor:
moreover, America is still a new country, and a state is
therefore not half peopled at the time when it abolished slavery.
No sooner is an end put to slavery, than the want of free labor
is felt, and a crowd of enterprising adventurers immediately
arrive from all parts of the country, who hasten to profit by the
fresh resources which are then opened to industry. The soil is
soon divided among them, and a family of white settlers takes
possession of each tract of country. Besides which, European
emigration is exclusively directed to the free states; for what
would be the fate of a poor emigrant who crosses the Atlantic in
search of ease and happiness, if he were to land in a country
where labor is stigmatized as degrading?

Thus the white population grows by its natural increase, and at
the same time by the immense influx of emigrants; while the black
population receives no emigrants, and is upon its decline. The
proportion which existed between the two races is soon inverted.
The negroes constitute a scanty remnant, a poor tribe of
vagrants, which is lost in the midst of an immense people in full
possession of the land; and the presence of the blacks is only
marked by the injustice and the hardships of which they are the
unhappy victims.

In several of the western states the negro race never made its
appearance; and in all the northern states it is rapidly
declining. Thus the great question of its future condition is
confined within a narrow circle, where it becomes less
formidable, though not more easy of solution.

The more we descend toward the south, the more difficult does it
become to abolish slavery with advantage: and this arises from
several physical causes, which it is important to point out.

The first of these causes is the climate: it is well known that
in proportion as Europeans approach the tropics, they suffer more
from labor. Many of the Americans even assert, that within a
certain latitude the exertions which a negro can make without
danger are fatal to them;[Footnote:

This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated;
rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are
particularly dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the
beams of a tropical sun. Europeans would not find it easy to
cultivate the soil in that part of the New World if it must
necessarily be made to produce rice: but may they not subsist
without rice-grounds?

] but I do not think that this opinion, which is so favorable to
the indolence of the inhabitants of southern regions, is
confirmed by experience. The southern parts of the Union are not
hotter than the south of Italy and of Spain;[Footnote:

These states are nearer to the equator than Italy and Spain, but
the temperature of the continent of America is very much lower
than that of Europe.

] and it may be asked why the European cannot work as well there
as in the two latter countries. If slavery has been abolished in
Italy and in Spain without causing the destruction of the
masters, why should not the same thing take place in the Union?
I cannot believe that Nature has prohibited the Europeans in
Georgia and the Floridas, under pain of death, from raising the
means of subsistence from the soil; but their labor would
unquestionably be more irksome and less productive[Footnote:

The Spanish government formerly caused a certain number of
peasants from the Azores to be transported into a district of
Louisiana called Attakapas, by way of experiment. These settlers
still cultivate the soil without the assistance of slaves, but
their industry is so languid as scarcely to supply their most
necessary wants.

] to them than the inhabitants of New England. As the free
workman thus loses a portion of his superiority over the slave in
the southern states, there are fewer inducements to abolish
slavery.

All the plants of Europe grow in the northern parts of the Union;
the south has special productions of its own. It has been
observed that slave labor is a very expensive method of
cultivating corn. The farmer of corn-land in a country where
slavery is unknown, habitually retains a small number of laborers
in his service, and at seed-time and harvest he hires several
additional hands, who only live at his cost for a short period.
But the agriculturist in a slave state is obliged to keep a large
number of slaves the whole year round, in order to sow his fields
and to gather in his crops, although their services are only
required for a few weeks; but slaves are unable to wait till they
are hired, and to subsist by their own labor in the meantime like
free laborers; in order to have their services, they must be
bought. Slavery, independently of its general disadvantages, is
therefore still more inapplicable to countries in which corn is
cultivated than to those which produce crops of a different kind.

The cultivation of tobacco, of cotton, and especially of the
sugar-cane, demands, on the other hand, unremitting attention:
and women and children are employed in it, whose services are of
but little use in the cultivation of wheat. Thus slavery is
naturally more fitted to the countries from which these
productions are derived.

Tobacco, cotton, and the sugar-cane, are exclusively grown in the
south, and they form one of the principal sources of the wealth
of those states. If slavery were abolished, the inhabitants of
the south would be constrained to adopt one of two alternatives:
they must either change their system of cultivation, and then
they would come into competition with the more active and more
experienced inhabitants of the north; or, if they continued to
cultivate the same produce without slave labor, they would have
to support the competition of the other states of the south,
which might still retain their slaves. Thus, peculiar reasons
for maintaining slavery exist in the south which do not operate
in the north.

But there is yet another motive which is more cogent than all the
others; the south might indeed, rigorously speaking, abolish
slavery, but how should it rid its territory of the black
population?  Slaves and slavery are driven from the north by the
same law, but this twofold result cannot be hoped for in the
south.

The arguments which I have adduced to show that slavery is more
natural and more advantageous in the south than in the north,
sufficiently prove that the number of slaves must be far greater
in the former districts. It was to the southern settlements that
the first Africans were brought, and it is there that the
greatest number of them have always been imported. As we advance
toward the south, the prejudice which sanctions idleness
increases in power. In the states nearest to the tropics there
is not a single white laborer; the negroes are consequently much
more numerous in the south than in the north. And, as I have
already observed, this disproportion increases daily, since the
negroes are transferred to one part of the Union as soon as
slavery is abolished in the other. Thus the black population
augments in the south, not only by its natural fecundity, but by
the compulsory emigration of the negroes from the north; and the
African race has causes of increase in the south very analogous
to those which so powerfully accelerate the growth of the
European race in the north.

In the state of Maine there is one negro in three hundred
inhabitants; in Massachusetts, one in one hundred; in New York,
two in one hundred; in Pennsylvania, three in the same number; in
Maryland, thirty-four; in Virginia, forty-two; and lastly, in
South Carolina, fifty-five per cent.[Footnote:

We find it asserted in an American work, entitled, "Letters on
the Colonization Society," by Mr. Carey, 1833, that "for the last
forty years the black race has increased more rapidly than the
white race in the state of South Carolina; and that if we take
the average population of the five states of the south into which
slaves were first introduced, viz., Maryland, Virginia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, we shall find that from
1790 to 1830, the whites have augmented in the proportion of 80
to 100, and the blacks in that of 112 to 100."

In the United States, 1830, the population of the two races stood
as follows:--

States where slavery is abolished, 6,565,434 whites; 120,520
blacks Slave states, 3,960,814 whites; 2,208,112 blacks.

[By the census of 1840, the population of the two races was as
follows: States where slavery is abolished, 9,556,065 whites;
171,854 blacks Slave states, 4,633,153 whites; 2,581,688 blacks.]

]  Such was the proportion of the black population to the whites
in the year 1830. But this proportion is perpetually changing,
as it constantly decreases in the north and augments in the
south.

It is evident that the most southern states of the Union cannot
abolish slavery without incurring very great dangers, which the
north had no reason to apprehend when it emancipated its black
population. We have already shown the system by which the
northern states secure the transition from slavery to freedom, by
keeping the present generation in chains, and setting their
descendants free; by this means the negroes are gradually
introduced into society; and while the men who might abuse their
freedom are kept in a state of servitude, those who are
emancipated may learn the art of being free before they become
their own masters. But it would be difficult to apply this
method in the south. To declare that all the negroes born after
a certain period shall be free, is to introduce the principle and
the notion of liberty into the heart of slavery; the blacks, whom
the law thus maintains in a state of slavery from which their
children are delivered, are astonished at so unequal a fate, and
their astonishment is only the prelude to their impatience and
irritation. Thenceforward slavery loses in their eyes that kind
of moral power which it derived from time and habit; it is
reduced to a mere palpable abuse of force. The northern states
had nothing to fear from the contrast, because in them the blacks
were few in number, and the white population was very
considerable. But if this faint dawn of freedom were to show two
millions of men their true position, the oppressors would have
reason to tremble. After having enfranchised the children of
their slaves, the Europeans of the southern states would very
shortly be obliged to extend the same benefit to the whole black
population.

In the north, as I have already remarked, a two-fold migration
ensues upon the abolition of slavery, or even precedes that event
when circumstances have rendered it probable; the slaves quit the
country to be transported southward; and the whites of the
northern states as well as the emigrants from Europe hasten to
fill up their place. But these two causes cannot operate in the
same manner in the southern states. On the one hand, the mass of
slaves is too great for any expectation of their ever being
removed from the country to be entertained; and on the other
hand, the Europeans and the Anglo-Americans of the north are
afraid to come to inhabit a country, in which labor has not yet
been reinstated in its rightful honors. Besides, they very
justly look upon the states in which the proportion of the
negroes equals or exceeds that of the whites, as exposed to very
great dangers; and they refrain from turning their activity in
that direction.

Thus the inhabitants if the south would not be able, like their
northern countrymen, to initiate the slaves gradually into a
state of freedom, by abolishing slavery; they have no means of
perceptibly diminishing the black population, and they would
remain unsupported to repress its excesses. So that in the
course of a few years, a great people of free negroes would exist
in the heart of a white nation of equal size.

The same abuses of power which still maintain slavery, would then
become the source of the most alarming perils, which the white
population of the south might have to apprehend. At the present
time the descendants of the Europeans are the sole owners of the
land; the absolute masters of all labor; and the only persons who
are possessed of wealth, knowledge, and arms. The black is
destitute of all these advantages, but he subsists without them
because he is a slave. If he were free, and obliged to provide
for his own subsistence, would it be possible for him to remain
without these things and to support life?  Or would not the very
instruments of the present superiority of the white, while
slavery exists, expose him to a thousand dangers if it were
abolished?

As long as the negro remains a slave, he may be kept in a
condition not very far removed from that of the brutes; but, with
his liberty, he cannot but acquire a degree of instruction which
will enable him to appreciate his misfortunes, and to discern a
remedy for them. Moreover, there exists a singular principle of
relative justice which is very firmly implanted in the human
heart. Men are much more forcibly struck by those inequalities
which exist within the circles of the same class, than with those
which may be remarked between different classes. It is more easy
for them to admit slavery, than to allow several millions of
citizens to exist under a load of eternal infamy and hereditary
wretchedness. In the north, the population of freed negroes
feels these hardships and resents these indignities; but its
members and its powers are small, while in the south it would be
numerous and strong.

As soon as it is admitted that the whites and the emancipated
blacks are placed upon the same territory in the situation of two
alien communities, it will readily be understood that there are
but two alternatives for the future; the negroes and the whites
must either wholly part or wholly mingle. I have already
expressed the conviction which I entertain as to the latter
event.[Footnote:

This opinion is sanctioned by authorities infinitely weightier
than anything that I can say; thus, for instance, it is stated in
the Memoirs of Jefferson (as collected by M. Conseil), "Nothing
is more clearly written in the book of destiny than the
emancipation of the blacks; and it is equally certain that the
two races will never live in a state of equal freedom under the
same government, so insurmountable are the barriers which nature,
habit, and opinions, have established between them."

] I do not imagine that the white and the black races will ever
live in any country upon an equal footing. But I believe the
difficulty to be still greater in the United States than
elsewhere. An isolated individual may surmount the prejudices of
religion, of his country, or of his race, and if this individual
is a king he may effect surprising changes in society; but a
whole people cannot rise, as it were, above itself. A despot who
should subject the Americans and their former slaves to the same
yoke, might perhaps succeed in commingling their races; but as
long as the American democracy remains at the head of affairs, no
one will undertake so difficult a task; and it may be foreseen
that the freer the white population of the United States becomes,
the more isolated will it remain.[Footnote:

If the British West India planters had governed themselves, they
would assuredly not have passed the slave emancipation bill which
the mother country has recently imposed upon them.

]

I have previously observed that the mixed race is the true bond
of union between the Europeans and the Indians; just so the
mulattoes are the true means of transition between the white and
the negro; so that wherever mulattoes abound, the intermixture of
the two races is not impossible. In some parts of America the
European and the negro races are so crossed by one another, that
it is rare to meet with a man who is entirely black or entirely
white: when they are arrived at this point, the two races may
really be said to be combined; or rather to have been absorbed in
a third race, which is connected with both, without being
identical with either.

Of all the Europeans the English are those who have mixed least
with the negroes. More mulattoes are to be seen in the south of
the Union than in the north, but still they are infinitely more
scarce than in any other European colony: Mulattoes are by no
means numerous in the United States; they have no force peculiar
to themselves, and when quarrels originating in differences of
color take place, they generally side with the whites, just as
the lacqueys of the great in Europe assume the contemptuous airs
of nobility to the lower orders.

The pride of origin, which is natural to the English, is
singularly augmented by the personal pride which democratic
liberty fosters among the Americans: the white citizen of the
United States is proud of his race, and proud of himself. But if
the whites and the negroes do not intermingle in the north of the
Union, how should they mix in the south?  Can it be supposed for
an instant, that an American of the southern states, placed, as
he must for ever be, between the white man with all his physical
and moral superiority, and the negro, will ever think of
preferring the latter?  The Americans of the southern states have
two powerful passions, which will always keep them aloof; the
first is the fear of being assimilated to the negroes, their
former slaves; and the second, the dread of sinking below the
whites, their neighbors.

If I were called upon to predict what will probably occur at some
future time, I should say, that the abolition of slavery in the
south, will, in the common course of things, increase the
repugnance of the white population for the men of color. I found
this opinion upon the analogous observation which I already had
occasion to make in the north. I there remarked, that the white
inhabitants of the north avoid the negroes with increasing care,
in proportion as the legal barriers of separation are removed by
the legislature; and why should not the same result take place in
the south?  In the north, the whites are deterred from
intermingling with the blacks by the fear of an imaginary danger;
in the south, where the danger would be real, I cannot imagine
that the fear would be less general.

If, on the one hand, it be admitted (and the fact is
unquestionable), that the colored population perpetually
accumulates in the extreme south, and that it increases more
rapidly than that of the whites; and if, on the other hand, it be
allowed that it is impossible to foresee a time at which the
whites and the blacks will be so intermingled as to derive the
same benefits from society; must it not be inferred, that the
blacks and the whites will, sooner or later, come to open strife
in the southern states of the Union?  But if it be asked what the
issue of the struggle is likely to be, it will readily be
understood, that we are here left to form a very vague surmise of
the truth. The human mind may succeed in tracing a wide circle,
as it were, which includes the course of future events; but
within that circle a thousand various chances and circumstances
may direct it in as many different ways; and in every picture of
the future there is a dim spot, which the eye of the
understanding cannot penetrate. It appears, however, to be
extremely probable, that, in the West India islands the white
race is destined to be subdued, and the black population to share
the same fate upon the continent.

In the West India islands the white planters are surrounded by an
immense black population; on the continent, the blacks are placed
between the ocean and an innumerable people, which already
extends over them in a dense mass from the icy confines of Canada
to the frontiers of Virginia, and from the banks of the Missouri
to the shores of the Atlantic. If the white citizens of North
America remain united, it cannot be supposed that the negroes
will escape the destruction with which they are menaced; they
must be subdued by want or by the sword. But the black
population which is accumulating along the coast of the gulf of
Mexico, has a chance of success, if the American Union is
dissolved when the struggle between the two races begins. If the
federal tie were broken, the citizens of the south would be wrong
to rely upon any lasting succor from their northern countrymen.
The latter are well aware that the danger can never reach them;
and unless they are constrained to march to the assistance of the
south by a positive obligation, it may be foreseen that the
sympathy of color will be insufficient to stimulate their
exertions.

Yet, at whatever period the strife may break out, the whites of
the south, even if they are abandoned to their own resources,
will enter the lists with an immense superiority of knowledge and
of the means of warfare: but the blacks will have numerical
strength and the energy of despair upon their side; and these are
powerful resources to men who have taken up arms. The fate of
the white population of the southern states will, perhaps, be
similar to that of the Moors in Spain. After having occupied the
land for centuries, it will perhaps be forced to retire to the
country whence its ancestors came, and to abandon to the negroes
the possession of a territory, which Providence seems to have
more peculiarly destined for them, since they can subsist and
labor in it more easily than the whites.

The danger of a conflict between the white and the black
inhabitants of the southern states of the Union--a danger which,
however remote it may be, is inevitable--perpetually haunts the
imagination of the Americans. The inhabitants of the north make
it a common topic of conversation, although they have no direct
injury to fear from the struggle; but they vainly endeavor to
devise some means of obviating the misfortunes which they
foresee. In the southern states the subject is not discussed:
the planter does not allude to the future in conversing with
strangers; the citizen does not communicate his apprehensions to
his friends: he seeks to conceal them from himself: but there is
something more alarming in the tacit forebodings of the south,
than in the clamorous fears of the northern states.

This all-pervading disquietude has given birth to an undertaking
which is but little known, but which may have the effect of
changing the fate of a portion of the human race. From
apprehension of the dangers which I have just been describing, a
certain number of American citizens have formed a society for the
purpose of exporting to the coast of Guinea, at their own
expense, such free negroes as may be willing to escape from the
oppression to which they are subject.[Footnote:

This society assumed the name "The Society for the Colonization
of the Blacks." See its annual reports; and more particularly
the fifteenth. See also the pamphlet, to which allusion has
already been made, entitled "Letters on the Colonization Society,
and on its probable results," by Mr. Carey, Philadelphia, April,
1833.

]

In 1820, the society to which I allude formed a settlement in
Africa, upon the 7th degree of north latitude, which bears the
name of Liberia. The most recent intelligence informs us that
two thousand five hundred negroes are collected there; they have
introduced the democratic institutions of America into the
country of their forefathers; and Liberia has a representative
system of government, negro-jurymen, negro-magistrates, and
negro-priests; churches have been built, newspapers established,
and, by a singular change in the vicissitudes of the world, white
men are prohibited from sojourning within the
settlement.[Footnote:

This last regulation was laid down by the founders of the
settlement; they apprehended that a state of things might arise
in Africa, similar to that which exists on the frontiers of the
United States, and that if the negroes, like the Indians, were
brought into collision with a people more enlightened than
themselves, they would be destroyed before they could be
civilized.

]

This is indeed a strange caprice of fortune. Two hundred years
have now elapsed since the inhabitants of Europe undertook to
tear the negro from his family and his home, in order to
transport him to the shores of North America; at the present day,
the European settlers are engaged in sending back the descendants
of those very negroes to the continent from which they were
originally taken; and the barbarous Africans have been brought
into contact with civilisation in the midst of bondage, and have
become acquainted with free political institutions in slavery.
Up to the present time Africa has been closed against the arts
and sciences of the whites; but the inventions of Europe will
perhaps penetrate into those regions, now that they are
introduced by Africans themselves. The settlement of Liberia is
founded upon a lofty and a most fruitful idea; but whatever may
be its results with regard to the continent of Africa, it can
afford no remedy to the New World.

In twelve years the Colonization society has transported two
thousand five hundred negroes to Africa; in the same space of
time about seven hundred thousand blacks were born in the United
States. If the colony of Liberia were so situated as to be able
to receive thousands of new inhabitants every year, and if the
negroes were in a state to be sent thither with advantage; if the
Union were to supply the society with annual subsidies,[Footnote:

Nor would these be the only difficulties attendant upon the
undertaking; if the Union undertook to buy up the negroes now in
America, in order to transport them to Africa, the price of
slaves, increasing with their scarcity, would soon become
enormous; and the states of the north would never consent to
expend such great sums, for a purpose which would procure such
small advantages to themselves. If the Union took possession of
the slaves in the southern states by force, or at a rate
determined by law, an insurmountable resistance would arise in
that part of the country. Both alternatives are equally
impossible.

] and to transport the negroes to Africa in vessels of the state,
it would be still unable to counterpose the natural increase of
population among the black; and as it would not remove as many
men in a year as are born upon its territory within the same
space of time, it would fail in suspending the growth of the evil
which is daily increasing in the states.[Footnote:

In 1830 there were in the United States 2,010,327 slaves and
319,439 blacks, in all 2,329,766 negroes, which formed about
one-fifth of the total population of the United States at that
time.

[In 1840 there were in the United States 2,486,348 slaves, and
386,232 free blacks; in all, 2,872,580 negroes, which formed
about one-sixth of the total population.]

]  The negro race will never leave those shores of the American
continent, to which it was brought by the passions and the vices
of Europeans; and it will not disappear from the New World as
long as it continues to exist. The inhabitants of the United
States may retard the calamities which they apprehend, but they
cannot now destroy their efficient cause.

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of
slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races
in the United States. The negroes may long remain slaves without
complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen,
they will soon revolt at being deprived of all their civil
rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they
will speedily declare themselves as enemies. In the north
everything contributed to facilitate the emancipation of the
slaves; and slavery was abolished, without placing the free
negroes in a position which could become formidable, since their
number was too small for them ever to claim the exercise of their
rights. But such is not the case in the south. The question of
slavery was a question of commerce and manufacture for the
slave-owners in the north; for those of the south, it is a
question of life and death. God forbid that I should seek to
justify the principle of negro slavery, as has been done by some
American writers!  But I only observe that all the countries
which formerly adopted that execrable principle are not equally
able to abandon it at the present time.

When I contemplate the condition of the south, I can only
discover two alternatives which may be adopted by the white
inhabitants of those states: viz., either to emancipate the
negroes, and to intermingle with them; or, remaining isolated
from them, to keep them in a state of slavery as long as
possible. All intermediate measures seem to me likely to
terminate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars,
and perhaps in the extirpation of one or other of the two races.
Such is the view which the Americans of the south take of the
question, and they act consistently with it. As they are
determined not to mingle with the negroes, they refuse to
emancipate them.

Not that the inhabitants of the south regard slavery as necessary
to the wealth of the planter; for on this point many of them
agree with their northern countrymen in freely admitting that
slavery is prejudicial to their interests; but they are convinced
that, however prejudicial it may be, they hold their lives upon
no other tenure. The instruction which is now diffused in the
south has convinced the inhabitants that slavery is injurious to
the slave-owner, but it has also shown them, more clearly than
before, that no means exist of getting rid of its bad
consequences. Hence arises a singular contrast; the more the
utility of slavery is contested, the more firmly is it
established in the laws; and while the principle of servitude is
gradually abolished in the north, that self-same principle gives
rise to more and more rigorous consequences in the south.

The legislation of the southern states, with regard to slaves,
presents at the present day such unparalleled atrocities, as
suffice to show how radically the laws of humanity have been
perverted, and to betray the desperate position of the community
in which that legislation has been promulgated. The Americans of
this portion of the Union have not, indeed, augmented the
hardships of slavery; they have, on the contrary, bettered the
physical condition of the slaves. The only means by which the
ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death; the Americans
of the south of the Union have discovered more intellectual
securities for the duration of their power. They have employed
their despotism and their violence against the human mind. In
antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent the slave from
breaking his chains; at the present day measures are adopted to
deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The ancients kept the
bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint
upon the mind and no check upon education; and they acted
consistently with their established principle, since a natural
termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the
slave might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But
the Americans of the south, who do not admit that the negroes can
ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them to be
taught to read or to write, under severe penalties; and as they
will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly
as possible to that of the brutes.

The hope of liberty had always been allowed to the slave to cheer
the hardships of his condition. But the Americans of the south
are well aware that emancipation cannot but be dangerous, when
the freed man can never be assimilated to his former master. To
give a man his freedom, and to leave him in wretchedness and
ignominy, is nothing less than to prepare a future chief for a
revolt of the slaves. Moreover, it has long been remarked, that
the presence of a free negro vaguely agitates the minds of his
less fortunate brethren, and conveys to them a dim notion of
their rights. The Americans of the south have consequently taken
measures to prevent slave-owners from emancipating their slaves
in most cases; not indeed by a positive prohibition, but by
subjecting that step to various forms which it is difficult to
comply with.

I happened to meet with an old man, in the south of the Union,
who had lived in illicit intercourse with one of his negresses,
and had had several children by her, who were born the slaves of
their father. He had indeed frequently thought of bequeathing to
them at least their liberty; but years had elapsed without his
being able to surmount the legal obstacles to their emancipation,
and in the meanwhile his old age was come, and he was about to
die. He pictured to himself his sons dragged from market to
market, and passing from the authority of a parent to the rod of
the stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his
expiring imagination into phrensy. When I saw him he was a prey
to all the anguish of despair, and he made me feel how awful is
the retribution of Nature upon those who have broken her laws.

These evils are unquestionably great; but they are the necessary
and foreseen consequences of the very principle of modern
slavery. When the Europeans chose their slaves from a race
differing from their own, which many of them considered as
inferior to the other races of mankind, and which they all
repelled with horror from any notion of intimate connexion, they
must have believed that slavery would last for ever; since there
is no intermediate state which can be durable, between the
excessive inequality produced by servitude, and the complete
equality which originates in independence. The Europeans did
imperfectly feel this truth, but without acknowledging it even to
themselves. Whenever they have had to do with negroes, their
conduct has either been dictated by their interest and their
pride, or by their compassion. They first violated every right
of humanity by their treatment of the negro; and they afterward
informed him that those rights were precious and inviolable.
They affected to open their ranks to the slave, but the negroes
who attempted to penetrate into the community were driven back
with scorn; and they have incautiously and involuntarily been led
to admit of freedom instead of slavery, without having the
courage to be wholly iniquitous, or wholly just.[Footnote:

In the original, "Voulant la servitude, il se sont laiss
entrainer, malgr eux ou  leur insu, vers la libert."

"Desiring servitude, they have suffered themselves, involuntarily
or ignorantly, to be drawn toward liberty."--_Reviser._

]

If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Americans
of the south will mingle their blood with that of the negroes,
can they allow their slaves to become free without compromising
their own security?  And if they are obliged to keep that race in
bondage, in order to save their own families, may they not be
excused for availing themselves of the means best adapted to that
end?  The events which are taking place in the southern states of
the Union, appear to be at once the most horrible and the most
natural results of slavery. When I see the order of nature
overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain
struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the
men of our own time who were the instruments of these outrages;
but I reserve my execration for those who, after a thousand years
of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.

Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the south to
maintain slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, which
is now confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, which
is attacked by Christianity as unjust, and by political economy
as prejudicial, and which is now contrasted with democratic
liberties and the information of our age, cannot survive. By the
choice of the master or the will of the slave, it will cease; and
in either case great calamities may be expected to ensue. If
liberty be refused to the negroes of the south, they will in the
end seize it for themselves by force; if it be given, they will
abuse it ere long.

       *       *       *       *       *


        WHAT ARE THE CHANCES IN FAVOR OF THE DURATION OF
        THE AMERICAN UNION, AND WHAT DANGERS THREATEN IT.

Reasons why the preponderating Force lies in the States rather
  than in the Union--The Union will only last as long as all the
  States choose to belong to it.--Causes which tend to keep them
  united.--Utility of the Union to resist foreign Enemies, and to
  prevent the Existence of Foreigners in America.--No natural
  Barriers between the several States.--No conflicting Interests
  to divide them.--Reciprocal Interests of the Northern,
  Southern, and Western States.--Intellectual ties of
  Union.--Uniformity of Opinions.--Dangers of the Union resulting
  from the different Characters and the Passions of its
  Citizens.--Character of the Citizens in the South and in the
  North.--The rapid growth of the Union one of its greatest
  Dangers.--Progress of the Population to the Northwest.--Power
  gravitates in the same Direction.--Passions originating from
  sudden turns of Fortune.--Whether the existing Government of
  the Union tends to gain strength, or to lose it.--Various signs
  of its Decrease.--Internal Improvement.--Waste
  Lands.--Indians.--The Bank.--The Tariff.--General Jackson.


The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several
states depends in some measure upon the maintenance of the Union
itself. It is therefore important in the first instance to
inquire into the probable fate of the Union. One point may
indeed be assumed at once; if the present confederation were
dissolved, it appears to me to be incontestable that the states
of which it is now composed would not return to their original
isolated condition; but that several Unions would then be formed
in the place of one. It is not my intention to inquire into the
principles upon which these new Unions would probably be
established, but merely to show what the causes are which may
effect the dismemberment of the existing confederation.

With this object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the steps
which I have already taken, and to revert to topics which I have
before discussed. I am aware that the reader may accuse me of
repetition, but the importance of the matter which still remains
to be treated is my excuse; I had rather say too much, than say
too little to be thoroughly understood, and I prefer injuring the
author to slighting the subject.

The legislators who formed the constitution of 1789 endeavored to
confer a distinct and preponderating authority upon the federal
power. But they were confined by the conditions of the task
which they had undertaken to perform. They were not appointed to
constitute the government of a single people, but to regulate the
association of several states; and, whatever their inclinations
might be, they could not but divide the exercise of sovereignty
in the end.

In order to understand the consequences of this division, it is
necessary to make a short distinction between the affairs of
government. There are some objects which are national by their
very nature, that is to say, which affect the nation as a body,
and can only be intrusted to the man or the assembly of men who
most completely represent the entire nation. Among these may be
reckoned war and diplomacy. There are other objects which are
provincial by their very nature, that is to say, which only
affect certain localities, and which can only be properly treated
in that locality. Such, for instance, is the budget of
municipality. Lastly, there are certain objects of a mixed
nature, which are national inasmuch as they affect all the
citizens who compose the nation, and which are provincial
inasmuch as it is not necessary that the nation itself should
provide for them all. Such are the rights which regulate the
civil and political condition of the citizens. No society can
exist without civil and political rights. These rights therefore
interest all the citizens alike; but it is not always necessary
to the existence and the prosperity of the nation that these
rights should be uniform, nor consequently, that they should be
regulated by the central authority.

There are, then, two distinct categories of objects which are
submitted to the direction of the sovereign power; and these
categories occur in all well-constituted communities, whatever
the basis of the political constitution may otherwise be.
Between these two extremes, the objects which I have termed mixed
may be considered to lie. As these objects are neither
exclusively national nor entirely provincial, they may be
attained by a national or a provincial government, according to
the agreement of the contracting parties, without in any way
impairing the contract of association.

The sovereign power is usually formed by the union of separate
individuals, who compose a people; and individual powers or
collective forces, each representing a very small portion of the
sovereign authority, are the sole elements which are subjected to
the general government of their choice. In this case the general
government is more naturally called upon to regulate, not only
those affairs which are of essential national importance, but
those which are of a more local interest; and the local
governments are reduced to that small snare of sovereign
authority which is indispensable to their prosperity.

But sometimes the sovereign authority is composed of preorganized
political bodies, by virtue of circumstances anterior to their
union; and in this case the provincial governments assume the
control, not only of those affairs which more peculiarly belong
to their province, but of all, or of a part of the mixed affairs
to which allusion has been made. For the confederate nations
which were independent sovereign states before their Union, and
which still represent a very considerable share of the sovereign
power, have only consented to cede to the general government the
exercise of those rights which are indispensable to the Union.

When the national government, independently of the prerogative
inherent in its nature, is invested with the right of regulating
the affairs which relate partly to the general and partly to the
local interest, it possesses a preponderating influence. Not
only are its own rights extensive, but all the rights which it
does not possess exist by its sufferance, and it may be
apprehended that the provincial governments may be deprived of
their natural and necessary prerogatives by its influence.

When, on the other hand, the provincial governments are invested
with the power of regulating those same affairs of mixed
interest, an opposite tendency prevails in society. The
preponderating force resides in the province, not in the nation;
and it may be apprehended that the national government may in the
end be stripped of the privileges which are necessary to its
existence.

Independent nations have therefore a natural tendency to
centralization, and confederations to dismemberment.

It now only remains for us to apply these general principles to
the American Union. The several states were necessarily
possessed of the right of regulating all exclusively provincial
affairs. Moreover these same states retained the right of
determining the civil and political competency of the citizens,
of regulating the reciprocal relations of the members of the
community, and of dispensing justice; rights which are of a
general nature, but which do not necessarily appertain to the
national government. We have shown that the government of the
Union is invested with the power of acting in the name of the
whole nation, in those cases in which the nation has to appear as
a single and undivided power; as, for instance, in foreign
relations, and in offering a common resistance to a common enemy;
in short, in conducting those affairs which I have styled
exclusively national.

In this division of the rights of sovereignty, the share of the
Union seems at first sight to be more considerable than that of
the states; but a more attentive investigation shows it to be
less so. The undertakings of the government of the Union are
more vast, but their influence is more rarely felt. Those of the
provincial government are comparatively small, but they are
incessant, and they serve to keep alive the authority which they
represent. The government of the Union watches the general
interests of the country; but the general interests of a people
have a very questionable influence upon individual happiness;
while provincial interests produce a most immediate effect upon
the welfare of the inhabitants. The Union secures the
independence and the greatness of the nation, which do not
immediately affect private citizens; but the several states
maintain the liberty, regulate the rights, protect the fortune,
and secure the life and the whole future prosperity of every
citizen.

The federal government is very far removed from its subjects,
while the provincial governments are within the reach of them
all, and are ready to attend to the smallest appeal. The central
government has upon its side the passions of a few superior men
who aspire to conduct it; but upon the side of the provincial
governments are the interests of all those second-rate
individuals who can only hope to obtain power within their own
state, and who nevertheless exercise the largest share of
authority over the people because they are placed nearest to its
level.

The Americans have therefore much more to hope and to fear from
the states than from the Union; and, in conformity with the
natural tendency of the human mind, they are more likely to
attach themselves to the former than to the latter. In this
respect their habits and feelings harmonize with their interests.

When a compact nation divides its sovereignty, and adopts a
confederate form of government, the traditions, the customs, and
the manners of the people are for a long time at variance with
their legislation; and the former tend to give a degree of
influence to the central government which the latter forbids.
When a number of confederate states unite to form a single
nation, the same causes operate in an opposite direction. I have
no doubt that if France were to become a confederate republic
like that of the United States, the government would at first
display more energy than that of the Union; and if the Union were
to alter its constitution to a monarchy like that of France, I
think that the American government would be a long time in
acquiring the force which now rules the latter nation. When the
national existence of the Anglo-Americans began, their provincial
existence was already of long standing; necessary relations were
established between the townships and the individual citizens of
the same states; and they were accustomed to consider some
objects as common to them all, and to conduct other affairs as
exclusively relating to their own special interests.

The Union is a vast body, which presents no definite object to
patriotic feeling. The forms and limits of the state are
distinct and circumscribed; since it represents a certain number
of objects which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all.
It is identified with the very soil, with the right of property
and the domestic affections, with the recollections of the past,
the labors of the present, and the hopes of the future.
Patriotism, then, which is frequently a mere extension of
individual egotism, is still directed to the state, and is not
excited by the Union. Thus the tendency of the interests, the
habits, and the feelings of the people, is to centre political
activity in the states, in preference to the Union.

It is easy to estimate the different forces of the two
governments, by remarking the manner in which they fulfil their
respective functions. Whenever the government of a state has
occasion to address an individual, or an assembly of individuals,
its language is clear and imperative; and such is also the tone
of the federal government in its intercourse with individuals,
but no sooner has it anything to do with a state, than it begins
to parley, to explain its motives, and to justify its conduct, to
argue, to advise, and in short, anything but to command. If
doubts are raised as to the limits of the constitutional powers
of each government, the provincial government prefers its claims
with boldness, and takes prompt and energetic steps to support
it. In the meanwhile the government of the Union reasons, it
appeals to the interests, to the good sense, to the glory of the
nation; it temporizes, it negotiates, and does not consent to act
until it is reduced to the last extremity. At first sight it
might readily be imagined that it is the provincial government
which is armed with the authority of the nation, and that
congress represents a single state.

The federal government is, therefore, notwithstanding the
precautions of those who founded it, naturally so weak, that it
more peculiarly requires the free consent of the governed to
enable it to subsist. It is easy to perceive that its object is
to enable the states to realize with facility their determination
of remaining united; and, as long as this preliminary
consideration exists, its authority is great, temperate, and
effective. The constitution fits the government to control
individuals, and easily to surmount such obstacles as they may be
inclined to offer, but it was by no means established with a view
to the possible separation of one or more of the states from the
Union.

If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with
that of the states at the present day, its defeat may be
confidently predicted; and it is not probable that such a
struggle would be seriously undertaken. As often as steady
resistance is offered to the federal government, it will be found
to yield. Experience has hitherto shown that whenever a state
has demanded anything with perseverance and resolution, it has
invariably succeeded; and that if a separate government has
distinctly refused to act, it was left to do as it thought
fit.[Footnote:

See the conduct of the northern states in the war of 1812.
"During that war," said Jefferson, in a letter to General
Lafayette, "four of the eastern states were only attached to the
Union, like so many inanimate bodies to living men."

]

But even if the government of the Union had any strength inherent
in itself, the physical situation of the country would render the
exercise of that strength very difficult.[Footnote:

The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for a standing
army; and without a standing army a government is not prepared to
profit by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take
the sovereign power by surprise.

] The United States cover an immense territory; they are
separated from each other by great distances; and the population
is disseminated over the surface of a country which is still half
a wilderness. If the Union were to undertake to enforce the
allegiance of the confederate states by military means, it would
be in a position very analogous to that of England at the time of
the war of independence.

However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from
the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the
foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the
voluntary agreement of the states; and, in uniting together, they
have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced
to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the
states chose to withdraw its name from the compact, it would be
difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the federal
government would have no means of maintaining its claims
directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the
federal government easily to conquer the resistance which may be
offered to it by any one of its subjects, it would be necessary
that one or more of them should be especially interested in the
existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the
history of confederations.

If it be supposed that among the states which are united by the
federal tie, there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal
advantages of union, or whose prosperity depends on the duration
of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be
ready to support the central government in enforcing the
obedience of the others. But the government would then be
exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle
contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to
derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just
alluded to, the federal government would derive its power from
the unequal distribution of those benefits among the states.

If one of the confederated states have acquired a preponderance
sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession of
the central authority, it will consider the other states as
subject provinces, and will cause its own supremacy to be
respected under the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the
Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the federal
government, but in reality that government will have ceased to
exist.[Footnote:

Thus the province of Holland in the republic of the Low
Countries, and the emperor in the Germanic Confederation, have
sometimes put themselves in the place of the Union, and have
employed the federal authority to their own advantage.

]  In both these cases, the power which acts in the name of the
confederation becomes stronger, the more it abandons the natural
state and the acknowledged principles of confederations.

In America the existing Union is advantageous to all the states,
but it is not indispensable to any one of them. Several of them
might break the federal tie without compromising the welfare of
the others, although their own prosperity would be lessened. As
the existence and the happiness of none of the states are wholly
dependent on the present constitution, they would none of them be
disposed to make great personal sacrifices to maintain it. On
the other hand, there is no state which seems, hitherto, to have
its ambition much interested in the maintenance of the existing
Union. They certainly do not all exercise the same influence in
the federal councils, but no one of them can hope to domineer
over the rest, or to treat them as its inferiors or as its
subjects.

It appears to me unquestionable, that if any portion of the Union
seriously desired to separate itself from the other states, they
would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt, to prevent it;
and that the present Union will only last as long as the states
which compose it choose to continue members of the confederation.
If this point be admitted, the question becomes less difficult;
and our object is not to inquire whether the states of the
existing Union are capable of separating, but whether they will
choose to remain united.


[The remarks respecting the inability of the federal government
to retain within the Union any state that may choose "to withdraw
its name from the contract," ought not to pass through an
American edition of this work, without the expression of a
dissent by the editor from the opinion of the author. The laws
of the United States must remain in force in a revolted state,
until repealed by congress; the customs and postages must be
collected; the courts of the United States must sit, and must
decide the causes submitted to them; as has been very happily
explained by the author, the courts act upon individuals. If
their judgments are resisted, the executive arm must interpose,
and if the state authorities aid in the resistance, the military
power of the whole Union must be invoked to overcome it. So long
as the laws affecting the citizens of such a state remain, and so
long as there remain any officers of a general government to
enforce them, these results must follow not only theoretically
but actually. The author probably formed the opinions which are
the subject of these remarks, at the commencement of the
controversy with South Carolina respecting the tariff. And when
they were written and published, he had not learned the result of
that controversy, in which the supremacy of the Union and its
laws was triumphant. There was doubtless great reluctance in
adopting the necessary measures to collect the customs, and to
bring every legal question that could possibly arise out of the
controversy, before the judiciary of the United States, but they
were finally adopted, and were not the less successful for being
the result of deliberation and of necessity. Out of that
controversy have arisen some advantages of a permanent character,
produced by the legislation which it required. There were
defects in the laws regulating the manner of bringing from the
state courts into those of the United States, a cause involving
the constitutionality of acts of congress or of the states,
through which the federal authority might be evaded. Those
defects were remedied by the legislation referred to; and it is
now more emphatically and universally true, than when the author
wrote, that the acts of the general government operate through
the judiciary, upon individual citizens, and not upon the
states.--_American Editor._]


Among the various reasons which tend to render the existing Union
useful to the Americans, two principal causes are peculiarly
evident to the observer. Although the Americans are, as it were,
alone upon their continent, their commerce makes them the
neighbors of all the nations with which they trade.
Notwithstanding their apparent isolation, the Americans require a
certain degree of strength, which they cannot retain otherwise
than by remaining united to each other. If the states were to
split, they would not only diminish the strength which they are
now able to display toward foreign nations, but they would soon
create foreign powers upon their own territory. A system of
inland custom-houses would then be established; the valleys would
be divided by imaginary boundary lines; the courses of the rivers
would be confined by territorial distinctions and a multitude of
hindrances would prevent the Americans from exploring the whole
of that vast continent which Providence has allotted to them for
a dominion. At present they have no invasion to fear, and
consequently no standing armies to maintain, no taxes to levy.
If the Union were dissolved, all these burdensome measures might
ere long be required. The Americans are then very powerfully
interested in the maintenance of their Union. On the other hand,
it is almost impossible to discover any sort of material interest
which might at present tempt a portion of the Union to separate
from the other states.

When we cast our eyes upon the map of the United States, we
perceive the chain of the Allegany mountains, running from the
northeast to the southwest, and crossing nearly one thousand
miles of country; and we are led to imagine that the design of
Providence was to raise, between the valley of the Mississippi
and the coasts of the Atlantic ocean, one of those natural
barriers which break the mutual intercourse of men, and form the
necessary limits of different states. But the average height of
the Alleganies does not exceed 2,500 feet; their greatest
elevation is not above 4,000 feet; their rounded summits, and the
spacious valleys which they conceal within their passes, are of
easy access from several sides. Beside which, the principal
rivers that fall into the Atlantic ocean, the Hudson, the
Susquehannah, and the Potomac, take their rise beyond the
Alleganies, in an open district, which borders upon the valley of
the Mississippi. These streams quit this tract of
country,[Footnote:

See Darby's View of the United States, pp. 64, 79.

] make their way through the barrier which would seem to turn
them westward, and as they wind through the mountains, they open
an easy and natural passage to man.

No natural barrier exists in the regions which are now inhabited
by the Anglo-Americans; the Alleganies are so far from serving as
a boundary to separate nations, that they do not even serve as a
frontier to the states. New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia,
comprise them within their borders and extend as much to the west
as to the east of the line.

The territory now occupied by the twenty-four states of the
Union, and the three great districts which have not yet acquired
the rank of states, although they already contain inhabitants,
covers a surface of 1,002,600 square miles,[Footnote:

See Darby's View of the United States, p. 435. [In Carey & Lea's
Geography of America, the United States are said to form an area
of 2,076,400 square miles.--_Translator's Note._]

[The discrepance between Darby's estimate of the area of the
United States given by the author, and that stated by the
translator, is not easily accounted for. In Bradford's
comprehensive Atlas, a work generally of great accuracy, it is
said that "as claimed by this country, the territory of the
United States extends from 25 to 54 north latitude, and
from 65 49' to 125 west longitude, over an area of about
2,200,000 square miles."--_American Editor._]

] which is about equal to five times the extent of France.
Within these limits the qualities of the soil, the temperature,
and the produce of the country, are extremely various. The vast
extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American republics has
given rise to doubts as to the maintenance of the Union. Here a
distinction must be made; contrary interests sometimes arise in
the different provinces of a vast empire, which often terminate
in open dissensions; and the extent of the country is then most
prejudicial to the power of the state. But if the inhabitants of
these vast regions are not divided by contrary interests, the
extent of the territory may be favorable to their prosperity; for
the unity of the government promotes the interchange of the
different productions of the soil, and increases their value by
facilitating their consumption.

It is indeed easy to discover different interests in the
different parts of the Union, but I am unacquainted with any
which are hostile to each other. The southern states are almost
exclusively agricultural; the northern states are more peculiarly
commercial and manufacturing; the states of the west are at the
same time agricultural and manufacturing. In the south the crops
consist of tobacco, of rice, of cotton, and of sugar; in the
north and the west, of wheat and maize; these are different
sources of wealth; but union is the means by which these sources
are opened to all, and rendered equally advantageous to the
several districts.

The north, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans to all
parts of the world, and brings back the produce of the globe to
the Union, is evidently interested in maintaining the
confederation in its present condition, in order that the number
of American producers and consumers may remain as large as
possible. The north is the most natural agent of communication
between the south and the west of the Union on the one hand, and
the rest of the world upon the other; the north is therefore
interested in the union and prosperity of the south and the west,
in order that they may continue to furnish raw materials for its
manufactures, and cargoes for its shipping.

The south and the west, on their side, are still more directly
interested in the preservation of the Union, and the prosperity
of the north. The produce of the south is for the most part
exported beyond seas; the south and the west consequently stand
in need of the commercial resources of the north. They are
likewise interested in the maintenance of a powerful fleet by the
Union, to protect them efficaciously. The south and the west
have no vessels, but they cannot refuse a willing subsidy to
defray the expenses of the navy; for if the fleets of Europe were
to blockade the ports of the south and the delta of the
Mississippi, what would become of the rice of the Carolinas, the
tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton which grow in the
valley of the Mississippi?  Every portion of the federal budget
does therefore contribute to the maintenance of material
interests which are common to all the confederate states.

Independently of this commercial utility, the south and the west
of the Union derive great political advantages from their
connexion with the north. The south contains an enormous slave
population; a population which is already alarming, and still
more formidable for the future. The states of the west lie in
the remoter part of a single valley; and all the rivers which
intersect their territory rise in the Rocky mountains or in the
Alleganies, and fall into the Mississippi, which bears them
onward to the gulf of Mexico. The western states are
consequently entirely cut off, by their position, from the
traditions of Europe and the civilisation of the Old World. The
inhabitants of the south, then, are induced to support the Union
in order to avail themselves of its protection against the
blacks; and the inhabitants of the west, in order not to be
excluded from a free communication with the rest of the globe,
and shut up in the wilds of central America. The north cannot
but desire the maintenance of the Union, in order to remain, as
it now is, the connecting link between that vast body and the
other parts of the world.

The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union are,
then, intimately connected; and the same assertion holds true
respecting those opinions and sentiments which may be termed the
immaterial interests of men.

The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their
attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not rely
upon that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest,
and which a change in the interest at stake may obliterate. Nor
do I attach much importance to the language of the Americans,
when they manifest in their daily conversation, the intention of
maintaining the federal system adopted by their forefathers. A
government retains its sway over a great number of citizens, far
less by the voluntary and rational consent of the multitude, than
by that instinctive and, to a certain extent, involuntary
agreement, which results from similarity of feelings and
resemblances of opinion. I will never admit that men constitute
a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the
same laws. Society can only exist when a great number of men
consider a great number of things in the same point of view; when
they hold the same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same
occurrences suggest the same thoughts and impressions to their
minds.

The observer who examines the present condition of the United
States upon this principle, will readily discover, that although
the citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties,
they nevertheless constitute a single people; and he may perhaps
be led to think that the state of the Anglo-American Union is
more truly a state of society, than that of certain nations of
Europe which live under the same legislation and the same prince.

Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they
all regard religion in the same manner. They are not always
agreed upon the measures which are most conducive to good
government, and they vary upon some of the forms of government
which it is expedient to adopt; but they unanimous upon the
general principles which ought to rule human society. From Maine
to the Floridas, and from Missouri to the Atlantic ocean, the
people is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The
same notions are entertained respecting liberty and equality, the
liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the
responsibility of the agents of government.

If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the
moral and philosophical principles which regulate the daily
actions of life, and govern their conduct, we shall still find
the same uniformity. The Anglo-Americans[Footnote:

It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the expression
_Anglo-Americans,_ I only mean to designate the great
majority of the nation; for a certain number of isolated
individuals are of course to be met with holding very different
opinions.

] acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the reason of the
community, as they acknowledge the political authority of the
mass of citizens; and they hold that public opinion is the surest
arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden, true or false. The
majority of them believe that a man will be led to do what is
just and good by following his own interests, rightly understood.
They hold that every man is born in possession of the right of
self-government, and that no one has the right of constraining
his fellow-creatures to be happy. They have all a lively faith
in the perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that the
effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be
advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all
consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as
a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent;
and they admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be
superseded by something better to-morrow. I do not give all
these opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of the
Americans.

The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by those common
opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a
common feeling of pride. For the last fifty years, no pains have
been spared to convince the inhabitants of the United States that
they constitute the only religious, enlightened, and free people.
They perceive that, for the present, their own democratic
institutions succeed, while those of other countries fail; hence
they conceive an overweening opinion of their superiority, and
they are not very remote from believing themselves to belong to a
distinct race of mankind.

The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in
the diversity of interests or opinions; but in the various
characters and passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit
the vast territory of the United States are almost all the issue
of a common stock; but the effects of the climate, and more
especially of slavery, have gradually introduced very striking
differences between the British settler of the southern states,
and the British settler of the north. In Europe it is generally
believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one part of
the Union contrary to those of another part; but I by no means
remarked this to be the case; slavery has not created interests
in the south contrary to those of the north, but it has modified
the character and changed the habits of the natives of the south.

I have already explained the influence which slavery has exerted
upon the commercial ability of the Americans in the south; and
this same influence equally extends to their manners. The slave
is a servant who never remonstrates, and who submits to
everything without complaint. He may sometimes assassinate, but
he never withstands, his master. In the south there are no
families so poor as not to have slaves. The citizen of the
southern states of the Union is invested with a sort of domestic
dictatorship from his earliest years; the first notion he
acquires in life is, that he is born to command, and the first
habit he contracts is that of being obeyed without resistance.
His education tends, then, to give him the character of a
supercilious and a hasty man; irascible, violent, and ardent in
his desires, impatient of obstacles, but easily discouraged if he
cannot succeed upon his first attempt.

The American of the northern states is surrounded by no slaves in
his childhood; he is even unattended by free servants; and is
usually obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner does he
enter the world than the idea of necessity assails him on every
side; he soon learns to know exactly the natural limits of his
authority; he never expects to subdue those who withstand him, by
force; and he knows that the surest means of obtaining the
support of his fellow-creatures, is to win their favor. He
therefore becomes patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow to act, and
persevering in his designs.

In the southern states the more immediate wants of life are
always supplied; the inhabitants of those parts are not busied in
the material cares of life, which are always provided for by
others; and their imagination is diverted to more captivating and
less definite objects. The American of the south is fond of
grandeur, luxury, and renown, of gaiety, of pleasure, and above
all, of idleness; nothing obliges him to exert himself in order
to subsist; and as he has no necessary occupations, he gives way
to indolence, and does not even attempt what would be useful.

But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery in the
north, plunge the inhabitants in those same cares of daily life
which are disdained by the white population of the south. They
are taught from infancy to combat want, and to place comfort
above all the pleasures of the intellect or the heart. The
imagination is extinguished by the trivial details of life; and
the ideas become less numerous and less general, but far more
practical and more precise. As prosperity is the sole aim of
exertion, it is excellently well attained; nature and mankind are
turned to the best pecuniary advantage; and society is
dexterously made to contribute to the welfare of each of its
members, while individual egotism is the source of general
happiness.

The citizen of the north has not only experience, but knowledge:
nevertheless, he sets but little value upon the pleasures of
knowledge; he esteems it as the means of obtaining a certain end,
and he is only anxious to seize its more lucrative applications.
The citizen of the south is more given to act upon impulse; he is
more clever, more frank, more generous, more intellectual, and
more brilliant. The former, with a greater degree of activity,
of common sense, of information, and of general aptitude, has the
characteristic good and evil qualities of the middle classes.
The latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and
the magnanimity of all aristocracies.

If two men are united in society, who have the same interests,
and to a certain extent the same opinions, but different
characters, different acquirements, and a different style of
civilisation, it is probable that these men will not agree. The
same remark is applicable to a society of nations.

Slavery then does not attack the American Union directly in its
interests, but indirectly in its manners.

The states which gave their assent to the federal contract in
1790 were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of
twenty-four members. The population which amounted to nearly
four millions in 1790, had more than tripled in the space of
forty years; and in 1830 it amounted to nearly thirteen
millions.[Footnote:

  Census of 1790........ 3,929,328.
    do      1830........12,856,165.
   [do. 1840........17,068,666.]

]  Changes of such magnitude cannot take place without some
danger.

A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derive
its principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its members,
their individual weakness, and their limited number. The
Americans who quit the coasts of the Atlantic ocean to plunge
into the western wilderness, are adventurers impatient of
restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men expelled from the
states in which they were born. When they arrive in the deserts,
they are unknown to each other; and they have neither traditions,
family feeling, nor the force of example to check their excesses.
The empire of the laws is feeble among them; that of morality is
still more powerless. The settlers who are constantly peopling
the valley of the Mississippi are, then, in every respect
inferior to the Americans who inhabit the older parts of the
Union. Nevertheless, they already exercise a great influence in
its councils; and they arrive at the government of the
commonwealth before they have learned to govern
themselves.[Footnote:

This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt that in
time society will assume as much stability and regularity in the
west, as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic
ocean.

]

The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting
parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the
contract; for their safety is then dependant upon their union.
When, in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did
not contain 500,000 inhabitants,[Footnote:

Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790.

] each of them felt its own insignificance as an independent
people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the federal
authority more easy. But when one of the confederate states
reckons, like the State of New York, two millions of inhabitants,
and covers an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter
of France,[Footnote:

The area of the state of New York is about 46,000 square miles.
See Carey & Lea's American Geography, p. 142.

] it feels its own strength; and although it may continue to
support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer
regards that body as necessary to its existence; and, as it
continues to belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at
preponderance in the federal assemblies. The probable unanimity
of the states is diminished as their number increases. At
present the interests of the different parts of the Union are not
at variance; but who is able to foresee the multifarious changes
of the future, in a country in which towns are founded from day
to day, and states almost from year to year?

Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of
inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive
no causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of
the Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and
before that space of time has elapsed, I believe that the
territories and dependencies of the United States will be covered
by more than a hundred millions of inhabitants, and divided into
forty states.[Footnote:

If the population continues to double every twenty-two years, as
it has done for the last two hundred years, the number of
inhabitants in the United States in 1852, will be twenty
millions: in 1874, forty-eight millions; and in 1896, ninety-six
millions. This may still be the case even if the lands on the
western slope of the Rocky mountains should be found to be unfit
for cultivation. The territory which is already occupied can
easily contain this number of inhabitants. One hundred millions
of men disseminated over the surface of the twenty-four states,
and the three dependencies, which constitute the Union, would
give only 702 inhabitants to the square league: this would he far
below the mean population of France, which is 1,003 to the square
league; or of England, which is 1,457; and it would even be below
the population of Switzerland, for that country, notwithstanding
its lakes and mountains, contains 783 inhabitants to the square
league (See Maltebrun, vol. vi., p. 92.)

]  I admit that these hundred millions of men have no hostile
interests; I suppose, on the contrary, that they are all equally
interested in the maintenance of the Union; but I am still of
opinion, that where there are a hundred millions of men, and
forty distinct nations unequally strong, the continuance of the
federal government can only be a fortunate accident.

Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man until
human nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall
refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called
upon to hold together forty different peoples, disseminated over
a territory equal to one-half of Europe in extent; to avoid all
rivalry, ambition, and struggles, between them; and to direct
their independent activity to the accomplishment of the same
designs.

But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its
increase, arises from the continual changes which take place in
the position of its internal strength. The distance from Lake
Superior to the gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th
degree of latitude, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles,
as the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds along
the whole of this immense line; sometimes falling within its
limits, but more frequently extending far beyond it, into the
waste. It has been calculated that the whites advance a mean
distance of seventeen miles along the whole of this vast
boundary.[Footnote:

See Legislative Documents, 20th congress, No 117, p. 105.

]  Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake, or an
Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with.
The advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities
fall back upon themselves, and as soon as they are reunited they
proceed onward. This gradual and continuous progress of the
European race toward the Rocky mountains, has the solemnity of a
providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly,
and daily driven onward by the hand of God.

Within this first line of conquering settlers, towns are built,
and vast states founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand
pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at
the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were
to be found in the whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts
to nearly four millions.[Footnote:

3,672,317; census 1830.

]  The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very centre
of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken place,
that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the delegates
of the most remote western states are already obliged to perform
a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris.[Footnote:

The distance of Jefferson, the capital of the state of Missouri,
to Washington, is 1,018 miles. (American Almanac, 1831, p. 40.)

]

All the states are borne onward at the same time in the path of
fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in
the same proportion. In the north of the Union detached branches
of the Allegany chain, extending as far as the Atlantic ocean,
form spacious roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to
vessels of the greatest burden. But from the Potomac to the
mouth of the Mississippi, the coast is sandy and flat. In this
part of the Union the mouths of almost all the rivers are
obstructed; and the few harbors which exist among these lagunes,
afford much shallower water to vessels, and much fewer commercial
advantages than those of the north.

This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another
cause proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that
slavery, which is abolished in the north, still exists in the
south; and I have pointed out its fatal consequences upon the
prosperity of the planter himself.

The north is therefore superior to the south both in
commerce[Footnote:

The following statements will suffice to show the difference
which exists between the commerce of the south and that of the
north:--

In 1829, the tonnage of all the merchant-vessels belonging to
Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four great southern
states), amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the
tonnage of the vessels of the state of Massachusetts alone
amounted to 17,322 tons (See Legislative Documents, 21st
congress, 2d session, No. 140, p. 244.) Thus the state of
Massachusetts has three times as much shipping as the four
abovementioned states. Nevertheless the area of the state of
Massachusetts is only 7,335 square miles, and its population
amounts to 610,014 inhabitants; while the area of the four other
states I have quoted is 210,000 square miles, and their
population 3,047,767. Thus the area of the state of
Massachusetts forms only one thirtieth part of the area of the
four states; and its population is five times smaller than
theirs. (See Darby's View of the United States.) Slavery is
prejudicial to the commercial prosperity of the south in several
different ways; by diminishing the spirit of enterprise among the
whites, and by preventing them from meeting with as numerous a
class of sailors as they require. Sailors are generally taken
from the lowest ranks of the population. But in the southern
states these lowest ranks are composed of slaves, and it is very
difficult to employ them at sea. They are unable to serve as
well as a white crew, and apprehensions would always be
entertained of their mutinying in the middle of the ocean, or of
their escaping in the foreign countries at which they might
touch.

] and manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more
rapid increase of population and of wealth within its borders.
The states situated upon the shores of the Atlantic ocean are
already half-peopled. Most of the land is held by an owner; and
these districts cannot therefore receive so many emigrants as the
western states, where a boundless field is still open to their
exertions. The valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile
than the coast of the Atlantic ocean. This reason, added to all
the others, contributes to drive the Europeans westward--a fact
which may be rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found
that the sum total of the population of all the United States has
about tripled in the course of forty years. But in the recent
states adjacent to the Mississippi, the population has increased
thirty-one fold within the same space of time.[Footnote:

Darby's view of the United States, p. 444.

]

The relative position of the central federal power is continually
displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of the
Union was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the
environs of the spot upon which Washington now stands; but the
great body of the people is now advancing inland and to the
north, so that in twenty years the majority will unquestionably
be on the western side of the Alleganies. If the Union goes on
to subsist, the basin of the Mississippi is evidently marked out,
by its fertility and its extent, as the future centre of the
federal government. In thirty or forty years, that tract of
country will have assumed the rank which naturally belongs to it.
It is easy to calculate that its population, compared to that of
the coast of the Atlantic, will be, in round numbers, as 40 to
11. In a few years the states which founded the Union will lose
the direction of its policy, and the population of the valleys of
the Mississippi will preponderate in the federal assemblies.

This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence
toward the northwest, is shown every ten years, when a general
census of the population is made, and the number of delegates
which each state sends to congress is settled afresh.[Footnote:

It may be seen that in the course of the last ten years
(1820-'30) the population of one district, as for instance, the
state of Delaware, has increased in the proportion of 5 per
cent.; while that of another, as the territory of Michigan, has
increased 250 per cent. Thus the population of Virginia has
augmented 13 per cent., and that of the border state of Ohio 61
per cent., in the same space of time. The general table of these
changes, which is given in the National Calendar, displays a
striking picture of the unequal fortunes of the different states.

]  In 1790 Virginia had nineteen representatives in congress.
This number continued to increase until the year 1813, when it
reached to twenty-three: from that time it began to decrease, and
in 1833, Virginia elected only twenty-one representatives.
[Footnote:

It has just been said that in the course of the last term the
population of Virginia has increased 13 per cent.; and it is
necessary to explain how the number of representatives of a state
may decrease, when the population of that state, far from
diminishing, is actually upon the increase. I take the state of
Virginia, to which I have already alluded, as my term of
comparison. The number of representatives of Virginia in 1823
was proportionate to the total number of the representatives of
the Union, and to the relation which its population bore to that
of the whole Union; in 1833, the number of representatives of
Virginia was likewise proportionate to the total number of the
representatives of the Union, and to the relation which its
population, augmented in the course of ten years, bore to the
augmented population of the Union in the same space of time. The
new number of Virginian representatives will then be to the old
number, on the one hand, as the new number of all the
representatives is to the old number; and, on the other hand, as
the augmentation of the population of Virginia is to that of the
whole population of the country. Thus, if the increase of the
population of the lesser country be to that of the greater in an
exact inverse ratio of the proportion between the new and the old
numbers of all the representatives, the number of representatives
of Virginia will remain stationary; and if the increase of the
Virginian population be to that of the whole Union in a feebler
ratio than the new number of representatives of the Union to the
old number, the number of the representatives of Virginia must
decrease.

]  During the same period the state of New York advanced in the
contrary direction; in 1790, it had ten representatives in
congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and in
1833, forty. The state of Ohio had only one representative in
1803, and in 1833, it had already nineteen.

It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is
rich and strong, with one which is poor and weak, and if it were
proved that the strength and wealth of the one are not the causes
of the weakness and poverty of the other. But union is still
move difficult to maintain at a time at which one party is losing
strength, and the other is gaining it. This rapid and
disproportionate increase of certain states threatens the
independence of the others. New York might, perhaps, succeed
with its two millions of inhabitants and its forty
representatives, in dictating to the other states in congress.
But even if the more powerful states make no attempt to bear down
the lesser ones, the danger still exists; for there is almost as
much in the possibility of the act as in the act itself. The
weak generally mistrusts the justice and the reason of the
strong. The states which increase less rapidly than the others,
look upon those which are more favored by fortune, with envy and
suspicion. Hence arise the deep-seated uneasiness and
ill-defined agitation which are observable in the south, and
which form so striking a contrast to the confidence and
prosperity which are common to other parts of the Union. I am
inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the southern
provinces upon a recent occasion, are attributable to no other
cause. The inhabitants of the southern states are, of all the
Americans, those who are most interested in the maintenance of
the Union; they would assuredly suffer most from being left to
themselves; and yet they are the only citizens who threaten to
break the tie of confederation. But it is easy to perceive that
the south, which has given four presidents, Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, to the Union; which perceives
that it is losing its federal influence, and that the number of
its representatives in congress is diminishing from year to year
while those of the northern and western states are increasing;
the south, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is
becoming more and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens
reflect upon their present position and remember their past
influence, with the melancholy uneasiness of men who suspect
oppression: if they discover a law of the Union which is not
unequivocally favorable to their interests, they protest against
it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent remonstrances are
not listened to, they threaten to quit an association which loads
them with burdens while it deprives them of their due profits.
"The tariff," said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832, "enriches
the north, and ruins the south; for if this were not the case, to
what can we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth
of the north, with its inclement skies and arid soil; while the
south, which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly
declining."[Footnote:

See the report of its committees to the convention, which
proclaimed the nullification of the tariff in South Carolina.

]

If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that each
generation at least might have time to disappear with the order
of things under which it had lived, the danger would be less: but
the progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost
revolutionary. The same citizen may have lived to see his state
take the lead in the Union, and afterward become powerless in the
federal assemblies; and an Anglo-American republic has been known
to grow as rapidly as a man, passing from birth and infancy to
maturity in the course of thirty years. It must not be imagined,
however, that the states which lose their preponderance, also
lose their population or their riches; no stop is put to their
prosperity, and they even go on to increase more rapidly than any
kingdom in Europe.[Footnote:

The population of a country assuredly constitutes the first
element of its wealth. In the ten years (1820-'30) during which
Virginia lost two of its representatives in congress, its
population increased in the proportion of 13-7 per cent.; that of
Carolina in the proportion of 15 per cent.; and that of Georgia
51-5 per cent. (See the American Almanac, 1832, p. 162.) But
the population of Russia, which increases more rapidly than that
of any other European country, only augments in ten years at the
rate of 9-5 per cent.; of France at the rate of 7 per cent.; and
of Europe in general at the rate of 4-7 per cent. (See
Maltebrun, vol. vi., p. 95.)

]  But they believe themselves to be impoverished because their
wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors;
and they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly
come into collision with a power greater than their
own.[Footnote:

It must be admitted, however, that the depreciation which has
taken place in the value of tobacco, during the last fifty years,
has notably diminished the opulence of the southern planters; but
this circumstance is as independent of the will of their northern
brethren, as it is of their own.

]  Thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their passions,
than in their interests. But this is amply sufficient to
endanger the maintenance of the Union. If kings and peoples had
only had their true interests in view, ever since the beginning
of the world, the name of war would scarcely be known among
mankind.

Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the
most serious dangers that threaten them, since it tends to create
in some of the confederate states that over-excitement which
accompanies a rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in others
those feelings of envy, mistrust, and regret, which usually
attend upon the loss of it. The Americans contemplate this
extraordinary and hasty progress with exultation; but they would
be wiser to consider it with sorrow and alarm. The Americans of
the United States must inevitably become one of the greatest
nations in the world; their offset will cover almost the whole of
North America; the continent which they inhabit is their
dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them to take
possession of it so soon?  Riches, power, and renown, cannot fail
to be theirs at some future time; but they rush upon their
fortune as if but a moment remained for them to make it their
own.

I think I have demonstrated, that the existence of the present
confederation depends entirely on the continued assent of all the
confederates; and, starting from this principle, I have inquired
into the causes which may induce any of the states to separate
from the others. The Union may, however, perish in two different
ways: one of the confederate states may choose to retire from the
compact, and so forcibly sever the federal tie; and it is to this
supposition that most of the remarks which I have made apply: or
the authority of the federal government may be progressively
intrenched on by the simultaneous tendency of the united
republics to resume their independence. The central power,
successively stripped of all its prerogatives, and reduced to
impotence by tacit consent, would become incompetent to fulfil
its purpose; and the second Union would perish, like the first,
by a sort of senile inaptitude. The gradual weakening of the
federal tie, which may finally lead to the dissolution of the
Union, is a distinct circumstance, that may produce a variety of
minor consequences before it operates so violent a change. The
confederation might still subsist, although its government were
reduced to such a degree of inanition as to paralyze the nation,
to cause internal anarchy, and to check the general prosperity of
the country.

After having investigated the causes which may induce the
Anglo-Americans to disunite, it is important to inquire whether,
if the Union continues to subsist, their government will extend
or contract its sphere of action, and whether it will become more
energetic or more weak.

The Americans are evidently disposed to look upon their future
condition with alarm. They perceive that in most of the nations
of the world, the exercise of the rights of sovereignty tends to
fall under the control of a few individuals, and they are
dismayed by the idea that such will also be the case in their own
country. Even the statesmen feel, or affect to feel, these
fears; for, in America, centralization is by no means popular,
and there is no surer means of courting the majority, than by
inveighing against the encroachments of the central power. The
Americans do not perceive that the countries in which this
alarming tendency to centralization exists, are inhabited by a
single people; while the fact of the Union being composed of
different confederate communities, is sufficient to baffle all
the inferences which might be drawn from analogous circumstances.
I confess that I am inclined to consider the fears of a great
number of Americans as purely imaginary; and far from
participating in their dread of the consolidation of power in the
hands of the Union, I think that the federal government is
visibly losing strength.

To prove this assertion I shall not have recourse to any remote
occurrences, but to circumstances which I have myself observed,
and which belong to our own time.

An attentive examination of what is going on in the United
States, will easily convince us that two opposite tendencies
exist in that country, like two distinct currents flowing in
contrary directions in the same channel. The Union has now
existed for forty-five years, and in the course of that time a
vast number of provincial prejudices, which were at first hostile
to its power, have died away. The patriotic feeling which
attached each of the Americans to his own native state is become
less exclusive; and the different parts of the Union have become
more intimately connected the better they have become acquainted
with each other. The post,[Footnote:

In 1832, the district of Michigan, which only contains 31,639
inhabitants, and is still an almost unexplored wilderness,
possessed 940 miles of mail-roads. The territory of Arkansas,
which is still more uncultivated, was already intersected by
1,938 miles of mail-roads (See report of the general post-office,
30th November, 1833.) The postage of newspapers alone in the
whole Union amounted to $254,796.

] that great instrument of intellectual intercourse, now reaches
into the backwoods; and steamboats have established daily means
of communication between the different points of the coast. An
inland navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up
and down the rivers of the country.[Footnote:

In the course of ten years, from 1821 to 1831, 271 steamboats
have been launched upon the rivers which water the valley of the
Mississippi alone. In 1829, 259 steamboats existed in the United
States (See Legislative Documents, No. 140, p. 274.)

]  And to these facilities of nature and art may be added those
restless cravings, that busymindedness, and love of self, which
are constantly urging the American into active life, and bringing
him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses the
country in every direction; he visits all the various populations
of the land; and there is not a province in France, in which the
natives are so well known to each other as the thirteen millions
of men who cover the territory of the United States.

But while the Americans intermingle, they grow in resemblance of
each other; the differences resulting from their climate, their
origin, and their institutions diminish; and they all draw nearer
and nearer to the common type. Every year, thousands of men
leave the north to settle in different parts of the Union; they
bring with them their faith, their opinions, and their manners;
and as they are more enlightened than the men among whom they are
about to dwell, they soon rise to the head of affairs and they
adapt society to their own advantage. This continual emigration
of the north to the south is peculiarly favorable to the fusion
of all the different provincial characters into one national
character. The civilisation of the north appears to be the
common standard, to which the whole nation will one day be
assimilated.

The commercial ties which unite the confederate states are
strengthened by the increasing manufactures of the Americans; and
the union which began to exist in their opinions, gradually forms
a part of their habits: the course of time has swept away the
bugbear thoughts which haunted the imaginations of the citizens
in 1789. The federal power is not become oppressive; it has not
destroyed the independence of the states; it has not subjected
the confederates to monarchical institutions; and the Union has
not rendered the lesser states dependant upon the larger ones;
but the confederation has continued to increase in population, in
wealth, and in power. I am therefore convinced that the natural
obstacles to the continuance of the American Union are not so
powerful at the present time as they were in 1789; and that the
enemies of the Union are not so numerous.

Nevertheless, a careful examination of the history of the United
States for the last forty-five years, will readily convince us
that the federal power is declining; nor is it difficult to
explain the causes of this phenomenon. When the constitution of
1789 was promulgated, the nation was a prey to anarchy; the
Union, which succeeded this confusion, excited much dread and
much animosity; but it was warmly supported because it satisfied
an imperious want. Thus, although it was more attacked than it
is now, the federal power soon reached the maximum of its
authority, as is usually the case with a government which
triumphs after having braced its strength by the struggle. At
that time the interpretation of the constitution seemed to extend
rather than to repress, the federal sovereignty; and the Union
offered, in several respects, the appearance of a single and
undivided people, directed in its foreign and internal policy by
a single government. But to attain this point the people had
risen, to a certain extent, above itself.

The constitution had not destroyed the distinct sovereignty of
the states; and all communities, of whatever nature they may be,
are impelled by a secret propensity to assert their independence.
This propensity is still more decided in a country like America,
in which every village forms a sort of republic accustomed to
conduct its own affairs. It therefore cost the states an effort
to submit to the federal supremacy; and all efforts, however
successful they may be, necessarily subside with the causes in
which they originated.

As the federal government consolidated its authority, America
resumed its rank among the nations, peace returned to its
frontiers, and public credit was restored; confusion was
succeeded by a fixed state of things which was favorable to the
full and free exercise of industrious enterprise. It was this
very prosperity which made the Americans forget the cause to
which it was attributable; and when once the danger was passed,
the energy and the patriotism which had enabled them to brave it,
disappeared from among them. No sooner were they delivered from
the cares which oppressed them, than they easily returned to
their ordinary habits, and gave themselves up without resistance
to their natural inclinations. When a powerful government no
longer appeared to be necessary, they once more began to think it
irksome. The Union encouraged a general prosperity, and the
states were not inclined to abandon the Union; but they desired
to render the action of the power which represented that body as
light as possible. The general principle of union was adopted,
but in every minor detail there was an actual tendency to
independence. The principle of confederation was every day more
easily admitted and more rarely applied; so that the federal
government brought about its own decline, while it was creating
order and peace.

As soon as this tendency of public opinion began to be manifested
externally, the leaders of parties, who live by the passions of
the people, began to work it to their own advantage. The
position of the federal government then became exceedingly
critical. Its enemies were in possession of the popular favor;
and they obtained the right of conducting its policy by pledging
themselves to lessen its influence. From that time forward, the
government of the Union has invariably been obliged to recede, as
often as it has attempted to enter the lists with the government
of the states. And whenever an interpretation of the terms of
the federal constitution has been called for, that interpretation
has most frequently been opposed to the Union, and favorable to
the states.

The constitution invested the federal government with the right
of providing for the interests of the nation; and it has been
held that no other authority was so fit to superintend the
"internal improvements" which affected the prosperity of the
whole Union; such, for instance, as the cutting of canals. But
the states were alarmed at a power, distinct from their own,
which could thus dispose of a portion of their territory, and
they were afraid that the central government would, by this
means, acquire a formidable extent of patronage within their own
confines, and exercise a degree of influence which they intended
to reserve exclusively to their own agents. The democratic
party, which has constantly been opposed to the increase of the
federal authority, then accused the congress of usurpation, and
the chief magistrate of ambition. The central government was
intimidated by the opposition; and it soon acknowledged its
error, promising exactly to confine its influence, for the
future, within the circle which was prescribed to it.

The constitution confers upon the Union the right of treating
with foreign nations. The Indian tribes, which border upon the
frontiers of the United States, have usually been regarded in
this light. As long as these savages consented to retire before
the civilized settlers, the federal right was not contested; but
as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a
given spot, the adjacent states claimed possession of the lands
and the rights of sovereignty over the natives. The central
government soon recognized both these claims; and after it had
concluded treaties with the Indians as independent nations, it
gave them up as subjects to the legislative tyranny of the
states.[Footnote:

See in the legislative documents already quoted in speaking of
the Indians, the letter of the President of the United States to
the Cherokees, his correspondence on this subject with his
agents, and his messages to Congress.

]

Some of the states which had been founded upon the coast of the
Atlantic, extended indefinitely to the west, into wild regions,
where no European had ever penetrated. The states whose confines
were irrevocably fixed, looked with a jealous eye upon the
unbounded regions which the future would enable their neighbors
to explore. The latter then agreed, with a view to conciliate
the others, and to facilitate the act of union, to lay down their
own boundaries, and to abandon all the territory which lay beyond
those limits to the confederation at large.[Footnote:

The first act of cession was made by the state of New York in
1780; Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South and North
Carolina, followed this example at different times, and lastly,
the act of cession of Georgia was made as recently as 1802.

]  Thenceforward the federal government became the owner of all
the uncultivated lands which lie beyond the borders of the
thirteen states first confederated. It was invested with the
right of parcelling and selling them, and the sums derived from
this source were exclusively reserved to the public treasury of
the Union, in order to furnish supplies for purchasing tracts of
country from the Indians, for opening roads to the remote
settlements, and for accelerating the increase of civilisation as
much as possible. New states have, however, been formed in the
course of time, in the midst of those wilds which were formerly
ceded by the inhabitants of the shores of the Atlantic. Congress
has gone on to sell, for the profit of the nation at large, the
uncultivated lands which those new states contained. But the
latter at length asserted that, as they were now fully
constituted, they ought to enjoy the exclusive right of
converting the produce of these sales to their own use. As their
remonstrances became more and more threatening, congress thought
fit to deprive the Union of a portion of the privileges which it
had hitherto enjoyed; and at the end of 1832 it passed a law by
which the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of
lands was made over to the new western republics, although the
lands themselves were not ceded to them.[Footnote:

It is true that the president refused his assent to this law; but
he completely adopted it in principle. See message of 8th
December, 1833.

]


[The remark of the author, that "whenever an interpretation of
the terms of the federal constitution has been called for, that
interpretation has most frequently been opposed to the Union, and
favorable to the states" requires considerable qualification.
The instances which the author cites, are those of
_legislative_ interpretations, not those made by the
judiciary. It may be questioned whether any of those cited by
him are fair instances of _interpretation_. Although the
then president and many of his friends doubted or denied the
power of congress over many of the subjects mentioned by the
author, yet the omission to exercise the power thus questioned,
did not proceed wholly from doubts of the constitutional
authority. It must be remembered that all these questions
affected local interests of the states or districts represented
in congress, and the author has elsewhere shown the tendency of
the local feeling to overcome all regard for the abstract
interest of the Union. Hence many members have voted on these
questions without reference to the constitutional question, and
indeed without entertaining any doubt of their power. These
instances may afford proof that the federal power is declining,
as the author contends, but they do not prove any actual
interpretation of the constitution. And so numerous and various
are the circumstances to influence the decision of a legislative
body like the congress of the United States, that the people do
not regard them as sound and authoritative expositions of the
true sense of the constitution, except perhaps in those very few
cases, where there has been a constant and uninterrupted practice
from the organization of the government. The judiciary is looked
to as the only authentic expounder of the constitution, and until
a law of congress has passed that ordeal, its constitutionality
is open to question: of which our history furnishes many examples
... There are errors in some of the instances given by our
author, which would materially mislead, if not corrected. That
in relation to the Indians proceeds upon the assumption that the
United States claimed some rights over Indians or the territory
occupied by them, inconsistent with the claims of the states.
But this is a mistake. As to their lands, the United States
never pretended to any right in them, except such as was granted
by the cessions of the states. The principle universally
acknowledged in the courts of the United States and of the
several states, is, that by the treaty with Great Britain in
which the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, the
states became severally and individually independent, and as such
succeeded to the rights of the crown of England to and over the
lands within the boundaries of the respective states. The right
of the crown in these lands was the absolute ownership, subject
only to the rights of occupancy by the Indians so long as they
remained a tribe. This right devolved to each state by the
treaty which established their independence, and the United
States have never questioned it. See 6th Cranch, 87; 8th
Wheaton, 502, S84; 17th Johnson's Reports, 231. On the other
hand, the right of holding treaties with the Indians has
universally been conceded to the United States. The right of a
state to the lands occupied by the Indians, within the boundaries
of such state, does not in the least conflict with the right of
holding treaties on national subjects by the United States with
those Indians. With respect to Indians residing in any territory
_without_ the boundaries of any state, or on lands ceded to
the United States, the case is different; the United States are
in such cases the proprietors of the soil, subject to the Indian
right of occupancy, and when that right is extinguished the
proprietorship becomes absolute. It will be seen, then, that in
relation to the Indians and their lands, no question could arise
respecting the interpretation of the constitution. The
observation that "as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its
dwelling upon a given spot, the adjacent states claimed
possession of the lands, and the rights of sovereignty over the
natives"--is a strange compound of error and of truth. As above
remarked, the Indian right of occupancy has ever been recognized
by the states, with the exception of the case referred to by the
author, in which Georgia claimed the right to possess certain
lands occupied by the Cherokees. This was anomalous, and grew
out of treaties and cessions, the details of which are too
numerous and complicated for the limits of a note. But in no
other cases have the states ever claimed the possession of lands
occupied by Indians, without having previously extinguished their
right by purchase.

As to the rights of sovereignty over the natives, the principle
admitted in the United States is that all persons within the
territorial limits of a state are and of necessity must be,
subject to the jurisdiction of its laws. While the Indian tribes
were numerous, distinct, and separate from the whites, and
possessed a government of their own, the state authorities, from
considerations of policy, abstained from the exercise of criminal
jurisdiction for offences committed by the Indians among
themselves, although for offences against the whites they were
subjected to the operation of the state laws. But as these
tribes diminished in numbers, as those who remained among them
became enervated by bad habits, and ceased to exercise any
effectual government, humanity demanded that the power of the
states should be interposed to protect the miserable remnants
from the violence and outrage of each other. The first recorded
instance of interposition in such a case was in 1821, when an
Indian of the Seneca tribe in the state of New York was tried and
convicted of murder on a squaw of the tribe. The courts declared
their competency to take cognizance of such offences, and the
legislature confirmed the declaration by a law.--Another instance
of what the author calls interpretation of the constitution
against the general government, is given by him in the proposed
act of 1832, which passed both houses of congress, but was vetoed
by the president, by which, as he says, "the greatest part of the
revenue derived from the sale of lands, was made over to the new
western republics." But this act was not founded on any doubt of
the title of the United States to the lands in question, or of
its constitutional power over them, and cannot be cited as any
evidence of the interpretation of the constitution. An error of
fact in this statement ought to be corrected. The bill to which
the author refers, is doubtless that usually called Mr. Clay's
land bill. Instead of making over the greatest part of the
revenue to the new states, it appropriated twelve and a half per
cent. to them, in addition to five per cent. which had been
originally granted for the purpose of making roads. See Niles's
Register, vol. 42, p. 355.--_American Editor._]


The slightest observation in the United States enables one to
appreciate the advantages which the country derives from the
bank. These advantages are of several kinds, but one of them is
peculiarly striking to the stranger. The bank-notes of the
United States are taken upon the borders of the desert for the
same value as at Philadelphia, where the bank conducts its
operations.[Footnote:

The present bank of the United States was established in 1816,
with a capital of 35,000,000 dollars; its charter expires in
1836. Last year congress passed a law to renew it, but the
president put his veto upon the bill. The struggle is still
going on with great violence on either side, and the speedy fall
of the bank may easily be foreseen.

]

The bank of the United States is nevertheless an object of great
animosity. Its directors have proclaimed their hostility to the
president; and they are accused, not without some show of
probability, of having abused their influence to thwart his
election. The president therefore attacks the establishment
which they represent, with all the warmth of personal enmity; and
he is encouraged in the pursuit of his revenge by the conviction
that he is supported by the secret propensities of the majority.
The bank may be regarded as the great monetary tie of the Union,
just as congress is the great legislative tie; and the same
passions which tend to render the states independent of the
central power, contribute to the overthrow of the bank.

The bank of the United States always holds a great number of the
notes issued by the provincial banks, which it can at any time
oblige them to convert into cash. It has itself nothing to fear
from a similar demand, as the extent of its resources enables it
to meet all claims. But the existence of the provincial banks is
thus threatened, and their operations are restricted, since they
are only able to issue a quantity of notes duly proportioned to
their capital. They submit with impatience to this salutary
control. The newspapers which they have bought over, and the
president, whose interest renders him their instrument, attack
the bank with the greatest vehemence. They rouse the local
passions, and the blind democratic instinct of the country to aid
their cause; and they assert that the bank-directors form a
permanent aristocratic body, whose influence must ultimately be
felt in the government, and must affect those principles of
equality upon which society rests in America.

The contest between the bank and its opponents is only an
incident in the great struggle which is going on in America
between the provinces and the central power; between the spirit
of democratic independence, and the spirit of gradation and
subordination. I do not mean that the enemies of the bank are
identically the same individuals, who, on other points, attack
the federal government; but I assert that the attacks directed
against the bank of the United States originate in the
propensities which militate against the federal government; and
that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a
deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of the latter.

The Union has never displayed so much weakness as in the
celebrated question of the tariff.[Footnote:

See principally for the details of this affair, the legislative
documents, 22d congress, 2d session, No 3.

]  The wars of the French revolution and of 1812 had created
manufacturing establishments in the north of the Union, by
cutting off all free communication between America and Europe.
When peace was concluded, and the channel of intercourse reopened
by which the produce of Europe was transmitted to the New World,
the Americans thought fit to establish a system of import duties,
for the twofold purpose of protecting their incipient
manufactures, and of paying off the amount of the debt contracted
during the war. The southern states, which have no manufactures
to encourage, and which are exclusively agricultural, soon
complained of this measure. Such were the simple facts, and I do
not pretend to examine in this place whether their complaints
were well founded or unjust.

As early as the year 1820, South Carolina declared, in a petition
to Congress, that the tariff was "unconstitutional, oppressive,
and unjust." And the states of Georgia, Virginia, North
Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, subsequently remonstrated
against it with more or less vigor. But Congress, far from
lending an ear to these complaints, raised the scale of tariff
duties in the years 1824 and 1828, and recognized anew the
principle on which it was founded. A doctrine was then
proclaimed, or rather revived, in the south, which took the name
of nullification.

I have shown in the proper place that the object of the federal
constitution was not to form a league, but to create a national
government. The Americans of the United States form a sole and
undivided people, in all the cases which are specified by that
constitution; and upon these points the will of the nation is
expressed, as it is in all constitutional nations, by the voice
of the majority. When the majority has pronounced its decision,
it is the duty of the minority to submit. Such is the sound
legal doctrine, and the only one which agrees with the text of
the constitution, and the known intention of those who framed it.

The partisans of nullification in the south maintain, on the
contrary, that the intention of the Americans in uniting was not
to reduce themselves to the condition of one and the same people;
that they meant to constitute a league of independent states; and
that each state, consequently, retains its entire sovereignty, if
not _de facto_, at least _de jure_; and has the right
of putting its own construction upon the laws of congress, and of
suspending their execution within the limits of its own
territory, if they are held to be unconstitutional or unjust.

The entire doctrine of nullification is comprised in a sentence
uttered by Vice-President Calhoun, the head of that party in the
south, before the senate of the United States, in the year 1833:
"The constitution is a compact to which the states were parties
in their sovereign capacity; now, whenever a contract is entered
into by parties which acknowledge no tribunal above their
authority to decide in the last resort, each of them has a right
to judge for himself in relation to the nature, extent, and
obligations of the instrument." It is evident that a similar
doctrine destroys the very basis of the federal constitution, and
brings back all the evils of the old confederation, from which
the Americans were supposed to have had a safe deliverance.

When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to
its remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine of
nullification to the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in
its former system; and at length the storm broke out. In the
course of 1832 the citizens of South Carolina[Footnote:

That is to say, the majority of the people; for the opposite
party, called the Union party, always formed a very strong and
active minority. Carolina may contain about 47,000 electors;
30,000 were in favor of nullification, and 17,000 opposed to it.

] named a national [state] convention, to consult upon the
extraordinary measures which they were called upon to take; and
on the 24th November of the same year, this convention
promulgated a law, under the form of a decree, which annulled the
federal law of the tariff, forbade the levy of the imposts which
that law commands, and refused to recognize the appeal which
might be made to the federal courts of law.[Footnote:

This decree was preceded by a report of the committee by which it
was framed, containing the explanation of the motives and object
of the law. The following passage occurs in it, p. 34: "When the
rights reserved by the constitution to the different states are
deliberately violated, it is the duty and the right of those
states to interfere, in order to check the progress of the evil,
to resist usurpation, and to maintain, within their respective
limits, those powers and privileges which belong to them as
_independent sovereign states_. If they were destitute of
this right, they would not be sovereign. South Carolina declares
that she acknowledges no tribunal upon earth above her authority.
She has indeed entered into a solemn compact of union with the
other states: but she demands, and will exercise, the right of
putting her own construction upon it; and when this compact is
violated by her sister states, and by the government which they
have created, she is determined to avail herself of the
unquestionable right of judging what is the extent of the
infraction, and what are the measures best fitted to obtain
justice."

]  This decree was only to be put into execution in the ensuing
month of February, and it was intimated, that if Congress
modified the tariff before that period, South Carolina might be
induced to proceed no farther with her menaces; and a vague
desire was afterward expressed of submitting the question to an
extraordinary assembly of all the confederate states.

In the meantime South Carolina armed her militia, and prepared
for war. But congress, which had slighted its suppliant
subjects, listened to their complaints as soon as they were found
to have taken up arms.[Footnote:

Congress was finally decided to take this step by the conduct of
the powerful state of Virginia, whose legislature offered to
serve as a mediator between the Union and South Carolina.
Hitherto the latter state had appeared to be entirely abandoned
even by the states which had joined her in her remonstrances.

] A law was passed, by which the tariff duties were to be
progressively reduced for ten until they were brought so low as
not to exceed the amount of supplies necessary to the
government.[Footnote:

This law was passed on the 2d March, 1833.

]  Thus congress completely abandoned the principle of the
tariff; and substituted a mere fiscal impost for a system of
protective duties.[Footnote:

This bill was brought in by Mr. Clay, and it passed in four day
through both houses of Congress, by an immense majority.

]  The government of the Union, in order to conceal its defeat,
had recourse to an expedient which is very much in vogue with
feeble governments. It yielded the point _de facto_, but it
remained inflexible upon the principles in question; and while
congress was altering the tariff law, it passed another bill, by
which the president was invested with extraordinary powers,
enabling him to overcome by force a resistance which was then no
longer to be apprehended.

But South Carolina did not consent to leave the Union in the
enjoyment of these scanty trophies of success: the same national
[state] convention which annulled the tariff bill, met again, and
accepted the proffered concession: but at the same time it
declared its unabated perseverance in the doctrine of
nullification; and to prove what it said, it annulled the law
investing the president with extraordinary powers, although it
was very certain that the clauses of that law would never be
carried into effect.

Almost all the controversies of which I have been speaking have
taken place under the presidency of General Jackson; and it
cannot be denied that in the question of the tariff he has
supported the claims of the Union with vigor and with skill. I
am however of opinion that the conduct of the individual who now
represents the federal government, may be reckoned as one of the
dangers which threaten its continuance.

Some persons in Europe have formed an opinion of the possible
influence of General Jackson upon the affairs of his country,
which appears highly extravagant to those who have seen more of
the subject. We have been told that General Jackson has won
sundry battles, that he is an energetic man, prone by nature and
by habit to the use of force, covetous of power, and a despot by
taste. All this may perhaps be true; but the inferences which
have been drawn from these truths are exceedingly erroneous. It
has been imagined that General Jackson is bent on establishing a
dictatorship in America, on introducing a military spirit, and on
giving a degree of influence to the central authority which
cannot but be dangerous to provincial liberties. But in America,
the time for similar undertakings, and the age for men of this
kind, is not yet come; if General Jackson had entertained a hope
of exercising his authority in this manner, he would infallibly
have forfeited his political station, and compromised his life;
accordingly he has not been so imprudent as to make any such
attempt.

Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the president
belongs to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to
the bare and precise letter of the constitution, and which never
puts a construction upon that act, favorable to the government of
the Union; far from standing forth as the champion of
centralization, General Jackson is the agent of all the
jealousies of the states; and he was placed in the lofty station
he occupies, by the passions of the people which are most opposed
to the central government. It is by perpetually flattering these
passions, that he maintains his station and his popularity.
General Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its
wishes, its propensities, and its demands; say rather, that he
anticipates and forestalls them.

Whenever the governments of the states come into collision with
that of the Union, the president is generally the first to
question his own rights: he almost always outstrips the
legislature; and when the extent of the federal power is
controverted he takes part, as it were, against himself; he
conceals his official interests, and extinguishes his own natural
inclinations. Not indeed that he is naturally weak or hostile to
the Union; for when the majority decided against the claims of
the partisans of nullification, he put himself at its head,
asserted the doctrines which the nation held, distinctly and
energetically, and was the first to recommend forcible measures;
but General Jackson appears to me, if I may use the American
expressions, to be a federalist by taste, and a republican by
calculation.

General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority but when
he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all
obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the community
approves, or of those which it does not look upon with a jealous
eye. He is supported by a power with which his predecessors were
unacquainted; and he tramples on his personal enemies wherever
they cross his path, with a facility which no former president
ever enjoyed; he takes upon himself the responsibility of
measures which no one, before him, would have ventured to
attempt; he even treats the national representatives with disdain
approaching to insult; he puts his veto upon the laws of
congress, and frequently neglects to reply to that powerful body.
He is a favorite who sometimes treats his master roughly. The
power of General Jackson perpetually increases; but that of the
President declines: in his hands the federal government is
strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands of his
successor.

I am strangely mistaken if the federal government of the United
States be not constantly losing strength, retiring gradually from
public affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more and more.
It is naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions
to strength. On the other hand, I thought that I remarked a more
lively sense of independence, and a more decided attachment to
provincial government, in the states. The Union is to subsist,
but to subsist as a shadow; it is to be strong in certain cases,
and weak in all others; in time of warfare, it is to be able to
concentrate all the forces of the nation and all the resources of
the country in its hands; and in time of peace its existence is
to be scarcely perceptible: as if this alternate debility and
vigor were natural or possible.

I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able to
check this general impulse of public opinion: the causes in which
it originated do not cease to operate with the same effect. The
change will therefore go on, and it may be predicted that, unless
some extraordinary event occurs, the government of the Union will
grow weaker and weaker every day.

I think, however, that the period is still remote, at which the
federal power will be entirely extinguished by its inability to
protect itself and to maintain peace in the country. The Union
is sanctioned by the manners and desires of the people; its
results are palpable, its benefits visible. When it is perceived
that the weakness of the federal government compromises the
existence of the Union, I do not doubt that a reaction will take
place with a view to increase its strength.

The government of the United States is, of all the federal
governments which have hitherto been established, the one which
is most naturally destined to act. As long as it is only
indirectly assailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as
long as its substance is not seriously altered, a change of
opinion, an internal crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigor
which it requires. The point which I have been most anxious to
put in a clear light is simply this; many people, especially in
France, imagine that a change of opinion is going on in the
United States, which is favorable to a centralization of power in
the hands of the president and the congress. I hold that a
contrary tendency may be distinctly observed. So far is the
federal government from acquiring strength, and from threatening
the sovereignty of the states, as it grows older, that I maintain
it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that the sovereignty of
the Union alone is in danger. Such are the facts which the
present time discloses. The future conceals the final result of
this tendency, and the events which may check, retard, or
accelerate, the changes I have described; but I do not affect to
be able to remove the veil which hides them from our sight.

       *       *       *       *       *


    OF THE REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND
               WHAT THEIR CHANCES OF DURATION ARE.

The Union is Accidental.--The Republican Institutions have more
  prospect of Permanence.--A Republic for the Present the Natural
  State of the Anglo-Americans.--Reason of this.--In order to
  destroy it, all Laws must be changed at the same time, and a
  great alteration take place in Manners--Difficulties
  experienced by the Americans in creating an Aristocracy.


The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of war into
the heart of those states which are now confederate, with
standing armies, a dictatorship, and a heavy taxation, might
eventually compromise the fate of the republican institutions.
But we ought not to confound the future prospects of the republic
with those of the Union. The Union is an accident, which will
last only so long as circumstances are favorable to its
existence; but a republican form of government seems to me to be
the natural state of the Americans; which nothing but the
continued action of hostile causes, always acting in the same
direction, could change into a monarchy. The Union exists
principally in the law which formed it; one revolution, one
change in public opinion, might destroy it for ever; but the
republic has a much deeper foundation to rest upon.

What is understood by republican government in the United States,
is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself. It is a
regular state of things really founded upon the enlightened will
of the people. It is a conciliatory government under which
resolutions are allowed time to ripen, and in which they are
deliberately discussed, and executed with mature judgment. The
republicans in the United States set a high value upon morality,
respect religious belief, and acknowledge the existence of
rights. They profess to think that a people ought to be moral,
religious, and temperate, in proportion as it is free. What is
called the republic in the United States, is the tranquil rule of
the majority, which, after having had time to examine itself, and
to give proof of its existence, is the common source of all the
powers of the state. But the power of the majority is not of
itself unlimited. In the moral world humanity, justice, and
reason, enjoy an undisputed supremacy; in the political world
vested rights are treated with no less deference. The majority
recognizes these two barriers; and if it now and then overstep
them, it is because, like individuals, it has passions, and like
them, it is prone to do what is wrong, while it discerns what is
right.

But the demagogues of Europe have made strange discoveries. A
republic is not, according to them, the rule of the majority, as
has hitherto been taught, but the rule of those who are strenuous
partisans of the majority. It is not the people who
preponderates in this kind of government, but those who best know
what is for the good of the people. A happy distinction, which
allows men to act in the name of nations without consulting them,
and to claim their gratitude while their rights are spurned. A
republican government, moreover, is the only one which claims the
right of doing whatever it chooses, and despising what men have
hitherto respected, from the highest moral obligations to the
vulgar rules of common sense. It had been supposed, until our
time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form it appeared.
But it is a discovery of modern days that there are such things
as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are
exercised in the name of the people.

The ideas which the Americans have adopted respecting the
republican form of government, render it easy for them to live
under it, and ensure its duration. If, in their country, this
form be often practically bad, at least it is theoretically good;
and, in the end, the people always acts in conformity with it.

It was impossible, at the foundation of the states, and it would
still be difficult, to establish a central administration in
America. The inhabitants are dispersed over too great a space,
and separated by too many natural obstacles, for one man to
undertake to direct the details of their existence. America is
therefore pre-eminently the country of provincial and municipal
government. To this cause, which was plainly felt by all the
Europeans of the New World, the Anglo-Americans added several
others peculiar to themselves.

At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies,
municipal liberty had already penetrated into the laws as well as
the manners of the English, and the emigrants adopted it, not
only as a necessary thing, but as a benefit which they knew how
to appreciate. We have already seen the manner in which the
colonies were founded: every province, and almost every district,
was peopled separately by men who were strangers to each other,
or who associated with very different purposes. The English
settlers in the United States, therefore, early perceived that
they were divided into a great number of small and distinct
communities which belonged to no common centre; and that it was
needful for each of these little communities to take care of its
own affairs, since there did not appear to be any central
authority which was naturally bound and easily enabled to provide
for them. Thus, the nature of the country, the manner in which
the British colonies were founded, the habits of the first
emigrants, in short everything, united to promote, in an
extra-ordinary degree, municipal and provincial liberties.

In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of
the country is essentially republican; and in order permanently
to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, it
would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once. At the
present day, it would be even more difficult for a party to
succeed in founding a monarchy in the United States, than for a
set of men to proclaim that France should henceforward be a
republic. Royalty would not find a system of legislation
prepared for it beforehand; and a monarchy would then exist,
really surrounded by republican institutions. The monarchical
principle would likewise have great difficulty in penetrating
into the manners of the Americans.

In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an
isolated doctrine bearing no relation to the prevailing manners
and ideas of the people: it may, on the contrary, be regarded as
the last link of a chain of opinions which binds the whole
Anglo-American world. That Providence has given to every human
being the degree of reason necessary to direct himself in the
affairs which interest him exclusively; such is the grand maxim
upon which civil and political society rests in the United
States. The father of a family applies it to his children; the
master to his servants; the township to its officers; the
province to its townships; the state to the provinces; the Union
to the states; and when extended to the nation, it becomes the
doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.

Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the
republic is the same which governs the greater part of human
actions; republican notions insinuate themselves into all the
ideas, opinions, and habits of the Americans, while they are
formally recognized by the legislation: and before this
legislation can be altered, the whole community must undergo very
serious changes. In the United States, even the religion of most
of the citizens is republican, since it submits the truths of the
other world to private judgment: as in politics the care of its
temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense of the people.
Thus every man is allowed freely to take that road which he
thinks will lead him to heaven; just as the law permits every
citizen to have the right of choosing his government.

It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all
having the same tendency, can substitute for this combination of
laws, opinions, and manners, a mass of opposite opinions, manners
and laws.

If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only
yield after a laborious social process, often interrupted, and as
often resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will
not become totally extinct until an entirely new people shall
have succeeded to that which now exists. Now, it must be
admitted that there is no symptom or presage of the approach of
such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person
newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultuous
agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are
incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that
a people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within
a short space of time, a completely new form of government. Such
apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability which
affects political institutions is of two kinds, which ought not
to be confounded: the first, which modifies secondary laws, is
not incompatible with a very settled state of society; the other
shakes the very foundations of the constitution, and attacks the
fundamental principles of legislation; this species of
instability is always followed by troubles and revolutions, and
the nation which suffers under it, is in a state of violent
transition.

Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability
have no necessary connexion; for they have been found united or
separate, according to times and circumstances. The first is
common in the United States, but not the second: the Americans
often change their laws, but the foundation of the constitution
is respected.

In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the
monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The French
of that period were not only friends of the monarchy, but they
thought it impossible to put anything in its place; they received
it as we receive the rays of the sun and the return of the
seasons. Among them the royal power had neither advocates nor
opponents. In like manner does the republican government exist
in America, without contention or opposition; without proofs and
arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort of _consensus
universalis_. It is, however, my opinion, that, by changing
their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants
of the United States compromise the future stability of their
government.

It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their
designs by the mutability of legislation, will learn to look upon
republican institutions as an inconvenient form of society; the
evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments,
might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the fundamental
principles of the constitution, and indirectly bring about a
revolution; but this epoch is still very remote.


[It has been objected by an American review, that our author is
mistaken in charging our laws with instability, and in answer to
the charge, the permanence of our fundamental political
institutions has been contrasted with the revolutions in France.
But the objection proceeds upon a mistake of the author's
meaning, which at this page is very clearly expressed. He refers
to the instability which modifies _secondary laws_, and not
to that which shakes the foundations of the constitution. The
distinction is equally sound and philosophic, and those in the
least acquainted with the history of our legislation, must bear
witness to the truth of the author's remarks. The frequent
revisions of the statutes of the states rendered necessary by the
multitude, variety, and often the contradiction of the
enactments, furnish abundant evidence of this
instability.--_American Editor_.]


It may, however, be foreseen, even now, that when the Americans
lose their republican institutions, they will speedily arrive at
a despotic government, without a long interval of limited
monarchy. Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more absolute
than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a
republic, since the powers which had fearlessly been intrusted to
an elected magistrate are then transferred to an hereditary
sovereign. This is true in general, but it is more peculiarly
applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, the
magistrates are not elected by a particular class of citizens,
but by the majority of the nation; they are the immediate
representatives of the passions of the multitude; and as they are
wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they excite neither hatred
nor fear: hence, as I have already shown, very little care has
been taken to limit their influence, and they are left in
possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of
things has engendered habits which would outlive itself; the
American magistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to
be responsible for the exercise of it; and it is impossible to
say what bounds could then be set to tyranny.

Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy
arise in America, and they already predict the exact period at
which it will be able to assume the reins of government. I have
previously observed, and I repeat my assertion, that the present
tendency of American society appears to me to become more and
more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that the
Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of
political rights in their country, or confiscate those rights to
the advantage of a single individual; but I cannot imagine that
they will ever bestow the exclusive exercise of them upon a
privileged class of citizens, or, in other words, that they will
ever found an aristocracy.

An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens,
who, without being very far removed from the mass of the people,
are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a body which
it is easy to touch, and difficult to strike; with which the
people are in daily contact, but with which they can never
combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature and to
the secret propensities of the human heart, than a subjection of
this kind; and men, who are left to follow their own bent, will
always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to the regular
administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic institutions
cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a
fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation,
affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects
that of society; but these things are so repugnant to natural
equity that they can only be extorted from men by constraint.

I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society
began to exist, which has, by its own free will and by its own
exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the
aristocracies of the middle ages were founded by military
conquest: the conqueror was the noble, the vanquished became the
serf. Inequality was then imposed by force; and after it had
been introduced into the manners of the country, it maintained
its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legislation.
Communities have existed which were aristocratic from their
earliest origin, owing to circumstances anterior to that event,
and which became more democratic in each succeeding age. Such
was the destiny of the Romans, and of the Barbarians after them.
But a people, having taken its rise in civilisation and
democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of
conditions until it arrived at inviolable privileges and
exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing
intimates that America is likely to furnish so singular an
example.

       *       *       *       *       *


     REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY
                      OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Americans destined by Nature to be a great maritime
  People.--Extent of their Coasts.--Depth of their Ports.--Size
  of their Rivers.--The commercial Superiority of the
  Anglo-Saxons less attributable, however, to physical
  Circumstances than to moral and intellectual Causes.--Reason of
  this Opinion.--Future Destiny of the Anglo-Americans as a
  commercial Nation.--The Dissolution of the Union would not
  check the maritime Vigor of the States.--Reason of
  this.--Anglo-Americans will naturally supply the Wants of the
  inhabitants of South America.--They will become, like the
  English, the Factors of a great portion of the World.


The coast of the United States, from the bay of Fundy to the
Sabine river in the gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand
miles in extent. These shores form an unbroken line, and they
are all subject to the same government. No nation in the world
possesses vaster, deeper, or more secure ports for shipping than
the Americans.

The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized
people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated
country, at a distance of three thousand miles from the central
point of civilisation. America consequently stands in daily need
of European trade. The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately
succeed in producing or manufacturing at home most of the
articles which they require; but the two continents can never be
independent of each other, so numerous are the natural ties which
exist between their wants, their ideas, their habits, and their
manners.

The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now become
necessary to us, but which cannot be cultivated, or can only be
raised at an enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe. The
Americans only consume a small portion of this produce, and they
are willing to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore the market
of America, as America is the market of Europe; and maritime
commerce is no less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the
United States to transport their raw materials to the ports of
Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with our
manufactured produce. The United States were therefore
necessarily reduced to the alternative of increasing the business
of other maritime nations to a great extent, if they had
themselves declined to enter into commerce, as the Spaniards of
Mexico have hitherto done; or, in the second place, of becoming
one of the first trading powers of the globe.

The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided taste
for the sea. The declaration of independence broke the
commercial restrictions which united them to England, and gave a
fresh and powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. Ever since
that time, the shipping of the Union has increased in almost the
same rapid proportion as the number of its inhabitants. The
Americans themselves now transport to their own shores
nine-tenths of the European produce which they consume.[Footnote:

The total value of goods imported during the year which ended on
the 30th September, [1832], was 101,129,266 dollars. The value
of the cargoes of foreign vessels did not amount to 10,731,039
dollars, or about one-tenth of the entire sum.

]  And they also bring three-quarters of the exports of the New
World to the European consumer.[Footnote:

The value of goods exported during the same year amounted to
87,176,943 dollars; the value of goods exported by foreign
vessels amounted to 21,036,183 dollars, or about one quarter of
the whole sum. (Williams's Register, 1833, p. 398.)

]  The ships of the United States fill the docks of Havre and of
Liverpool; while the number of English and French vessels which
are to be seen at New York is comparatively small.[Footnote:

The tonnage of the vessels which entered all the ports of the
Union in the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, amounted to 3,307,719
tons, of which 544,571 tons were foreign vessels; they stood
therefore to the American vessels in a ratio of about 16 to 100.
(National Calendar, 1833, p. 304.) The tonnage of the English
vessels which entered the ports of London, Liverpool and Hull, in
the years 1820, 1826, and 1831, amounted to 443,800 tons. The
foreign vessels which entered the same ports during the same
years, amounted to 159,431 tons. The ratio between them was
therefore about 36 to 100. (Companion to the Almanac, 1834,
p. 169.) In the year 1832 the ratio between the foreign and
British ships which entered the ports of Great Britain was 29 to
100.

]

Thus, not only does the American merchant face competition in his
own country, but he even supports that of foreign nations in
their own ports with success. This is readily explained by the
fact that the vessels of the United States can cross the seas at
a cheaper rate than any other vessels in the world. As long as
the mercantile shipping of the United States preserves this
superiority, it will not only retain what it has acquired, but it
will constantly increase in prosperity.

It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can trade at
a lower rate than other nations; and one is at first led to
attribute this circumstance to the physical or natural advantages
which are within their reach; but this supposition is erroneous.
The American vessels cost almost as much to build as our
own;[Footnote:

Materials are, generally speaking, less expensive in America than
in Europe, but the price of labor is much higher.

] they are not better built, and they generally last for a
shorter time. The pay of the American sailor is more
considerable than the pay on board European ships; which is
proved by the great number of Europeans who are to be met with in
the merchant vessels of the United States. But I am of opinion
that the true cause of their superiority must not be sought for
in physical advantages, but that it is wholly attributable to
their moral and intellectual qualities.

The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. During the
campaigns of the revolution the French introduced a new system of
tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the oldest generals,
and very nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe.
They undertook (what had never been before attempted) to make
shift without a number of things which had always been held to be
indispensable in warfare; they required novel exertions on the
part of their troops, which no civilized nations had ever thought
of; they achieved great actions in an incredibly short space of
time: and they risked human life without hesitation, to obtain
the object in view. The French had less money and fewer men than
their enemies; their resources were infinitely inferior;
nevertheless they were constantly victorious, until their
adversaries chose to imitate their example.

The Americans have introduced a similar system into their
commercial speculations; and they do for cheapness what the
French did for conquest. The European sailor navigates with
prudence; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable; if an
unforeseen accident befalls him, he puts into port; at night he
furls a portion of his canvass; and when the whitening billows
intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way, and takes an
observation of the sun. But the American neglects these
precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the
midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads his
sheets to the wind; he repairs as he goes along such damage as
his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when he at last
approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore
as if he already descried a port. The Americans are often
shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly. And as
they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can
perform it at a cheaper rate.

The European touches several times at different ports in the
course of a long voyage; he loses a good deal of precious time in
making the harbor, or in waiting for a favorable wind to leave
it; and he pays daily dues to be allowed to remain there. The
American starts from Boston to go to purchase tea in China: he
arrives at Canton, stays there a few days and then returns. In
less than two years he has sailed as far as the entire
circumference of the globe, and he has seen land but once. It is
true that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk
brackish water, and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a
continual contest with the sea, with disease, and with the tedium
of monotony; but, upon his return, he can sell a pound of his tea
for a halfpenny less than the English merchant, and his purpose
is accomplished.

I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that the
Americans affect a sort of heroism in their manner of trading.
But the European merchant will always find it very difficult to
imitate his American competitor, who, in adopting the system
which I have just described, follows not only a calculation of
his gain, but an impulse of his nature.

The inhabitants of the United States are subject to all the wants
and all the desires which result from an advanced stage of
civilisation; but as they are not surrounded by a community
admirably adapted, like that of Europe, to satisfy their wants,
they are often obliged to procure for themselves the various
articles which education and habit have rendered necessaries. In
America it sometimes happens that the same individual tills his
field, builds his dwelling, contrives his tools, makes his shoes,
and weaves the coarse stuff of which his dress is composed. This
circumstance is prejudicial to the excellence of the work: but it
powerfully contributes to awaken the intelligence of the workman.
Nothing tends to materialise man, and to deprive his work of the
faintest trace of mind, more than extreme division of labor. In
a country like America, where men devoted to special occupations
are rare, a long apprenticeship cannot be required from any one
who embraces a profession. The Americans therefore change their
means of gaining a livelihood very readily; and they suit their
occupations to the exigencies of the moment, in the manner most
profitable to themselves. Men are to be met with who have
successively been barristers, farmers, merchants, ministers of
the gospel, and physicians. If the American be less perfect in
each craft than the European, at least there is scarcely any
trade with which he is utterly unacquainted. His capacity is
more general, and the circle of his intelligence is enlarged.

The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by the
axioms of their profession; they escape from all the prejudices
of their present station; they are not more attached to one line
of operation than to another; they are not more prone to employ
an old method than a new one; they have no rooted habits, and
they easily shake off the influence which the habits of other
nations might exercise upon their minds, from a conviction that
their country is unlike any other, and that its situation is
without a precedent in the world. America is a land of wonders,
in which everything is in constant motion, and every movement
seems an improvement. The idea of novelty is there indissolubly
connected with the idea of melioration. No natural boundary
seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done
is only what he has not yet attempted to do.

This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, these
frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen
fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to keep the
minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation,
which admirably invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a
state of excitement above the ordinary level of mankind. The
whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a
revolutionary crisis or a battle. As the same causes are
continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately
impart an irresistible impulse to the national character. The
American, taken as a chance specimen of his countrymen, must then
be a man of singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, fond of
adventure, and above all of innovation. The same bent is
manifest in all that he does; he introduces it into his political
laws, his religious doctrines, his theories of social economy,
and his domestic occupations; he bears it with him in the depth
of the backwoods, as well as in the business of the city. It is
the same passion, applied to maritime commerce, which makes him
the cheapest and the quickest trader in the world.

As long as the sailors of the United States retain these
inspiriting advantages, and the practical superiority which they
derive from them, they will not only continue to supply the wants
of the producers and consumers of their own country, but they
will tend more and more to become, like the English, the factors
of all other peoples.[Footnote:

It must not be supposed that English vessels are exclusively
employed in transporting foreign produce into England, or British
produce to foreign countries; at the present day the merchant
shipping of England may be regarded in the light of a vast system
of public conveyances ready to serve all the producers of the
world, and to open communications between all peoples. The
maritime genius of the Americans prompts them to enter into
competition with the English.

]  This prediction has already begun to be realized; we perceive
that the American traders are introducing themselves as
intermediate agents in the commerce of several European
nations;[Footnote:

Part of the commerce of the Mediterranean is already carried on
by American vessels.

] and America will offer a still wider field to their enterprise.

The great colonies which were founded in South America by the
Spaniards and the Portuguese have since become empires. Civil
war and oppression now lay waste those extensive regions.
Population does not increase, and the thinly-scattered
inhabitants are too much absorbed in the cares of self-defence
even to attempt any melioration of their condition. Such,
however, will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by
her own efforts in piercing the gloom of the middle ages; South
America has the same Christian laws and Christian manners as we
have; she contains all the germs of civilisation which have grown
amid the nations of Europe or their offsets, added to the
advantages to be derived from our example; why then should she
always remain uncivilized?  It is clear that the question is
simply one of time; at some future period, which may be more or
less remote, the inhabitants of South America will constitute
flourishing and enlightened nations.

But when the Spaniards and Portuguese of South America begin to
feel the wants common to all civilized nations, they will still
be unable to satisfy those wants for themselves; as the youngest
children of civilisation, they must perforce admit the
superiority of their elder brethren. They will be agriculturists
long before they succeed in manufactures or commerce, and they
will require the mediation of strangers to exchange their produce
beyond seas for those articles for which a demand will begin to
be felt.

It is unquestionable that the Americans of the north will one day
supply the wants of the Americans of the south. Nature has
placed them in contiguity; and has furnished the former with
every means of knowing and appreciating those demands, of
establishing a permanent connexion with those states, and of
gradually filling their markets. The merchant of the United
States could only forfeit these natural advantages if he were
very inferior to the merchant of Europe; to whom he is, on the
contrary, superior in several respects. The Americans of the
United States already exercise a very considerable moral
influence upon all the people of the New World. They are the
source of intelligence, and all the nations which inhabit the
same continent are already accustomed to consider them as the
most enlightened, the most powerful, and the most wealthy members
of the great American family. All eyes are therefore turned
toward the Union; and the states of which that body is composed
are the models which the other communities try to imitate to the
best of their power: it is from the United states that they
borrow their political principles and their laws.

The Americans of the United States stand in precisely the same
position with regard to the peoples of South America as their
fathers, the English, occupy with regard to the Italians, the
Spaniards, the Portuguese, and all those nations of Europe, which
receive their articles of daily consumption from England, because
they are less advanced in civilisation and trade. England is at
this time the natural emporium of almost all the nations which
are within its reach; the American Union will perform the same
part in the other hemisphere; and every community which is
founded, or which prospers in the New World, is founded and
prospers to the advantage of the Anglo-Americans.

If the Union were to be dissolved, the commerce of the states
which now compose it, would undoubtedly be checked for a time;
but this consequence would be less perceptible than is generally
supposed. It is evident that whatever may happen, the commercial
states will remain united. They are all contiguous to each
other; they have identically the same opinions, interests, and
manners, and they are alone competent to form a very great
maritime power. Even if the south of the Union were to become
independent of the north, it would still require the service of
those states. I have already observed that the south is not a
commercial country, and nothing intimates that it is likely to
become so. The Americans of the south of the United States will
therefore be obliged, for a long time to come, to have recourse
to strangers to export their produce, and to supply them with the
commodities which are requisite to satisfy their wants. But the
northern states are undoubtedly able to act as their intermediate
agents cheaper than any other merchants. They will therefore
retain that employment, for cheapness is the sovereign law of
commerce. National claims and national prejudices cannot resist
the influence of cheapness. Nothing can be more virulent than
the hatred which exists between the Americans of the United
States and the English. But, notwithstanding these inimical
feelings, the Americans derive the greater part of their
manufactured commodities from England, because England supplies
them at a cheaper rate than any other nation. Thus the
increasing prosperity of America turns, notwithstanding the
grudges of the Americans, to the advantage of British
manufactures.

Reason shows and experience proves that no commercial prosperity
can be durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, to naval
force. This truth is as well understood in the United States as
it can be anywhere else: the Americans are already able to make
their flag respected: in a few years they will be able to make it
feared. I am convinced that the dismemberment of the Union would
not have the effect of diminishing the naval power of the
Americans, but that it would powerfully contribute to increase
it. At the present time the commercial states are connected with
others which have not the same interests, and which frequently
yield an unwilling consent to the increase of a maritime power by
which they are only indirectly benefited. If, on the contrary,
the commercial states of the Union formed one independent nation,
commerce would become the foremost of their national interests;
they would consequently be willing to make very great sacrifices
to protect their shipping, and nothing would prevent them from
pursuing their designs upon this point.

Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent
features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I
contemplate the ardor with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute
commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and
the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from
believing that they will one day become the first maritime power
of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were
to conquer the world.

       *       *       *       *       *



CONCLUSION.


I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry. Hitherto, in
speaking of the future destiny of the United States, I have
endeavored to divide my subject into distinct portions, in order
to study each of them with more attention. My present object is
to embrace the whole from one single point; the remarks I shall
make will be less detailed, but they will be more sure. I shall
perceive each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the
principal facts with more certainty. A traveller, who has just
left the walls of an immense city, climbs the neighboring hill;
as he goes farther off, he loses sight of the men whom he has so
recently quitted; their dwellings are confused in a dense mass;
he can no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can
scarcely trace out the great thoroughfares; but his eye has less
difficulty in following the boundaries of the city, and for the
first time he sees the shape of the vast whole. Such is the
future destiny of the British race in North America to my eye;
the details of the stupendous picture are overhung with shade,
but I conceive a clear idea of the entire subject.

The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States of
America, forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable earth.
But extensive as these confines are, it must not be supposed that
the Anglo-American race will always remain within them; indeed,
it has already far overstepped them.

There was once a time at which we also might have created a great
French nation in the American wilds, to counterbalance the
influence of the English upon the destinies of the New World.
France formerly possessed a territory in North America, scarcely
less extensive than the whole of Europe. The three greatest
rivers of that continent then flowed within her dominions. The
Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of the St. Lawrence
and the delta of the Mississippi were unaccustomed to any tongue
but ours; and all the European settlements scattered over that
immense region recalled the traditions of our country.
Louisburg, Montmorency, Duquesne, Saint-Louis, Vincennes, New
Orleans (for such were the names they bore), are words dear to
France and familiar to our ears.

But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious to
enumerate,[Footnote:

The foremost of these circumstances is, that nations which are
accustomed to free institutions and municipal government are
better able than any others to found prosperous colonies. The
habit of thinking and governing for oneself is indispensable in a
new country, where success necessarily depends, in a great
measure, upon the individual exertions of the settlers.

] have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance. Wherever the
French settlers were numerically weak and partially established,
they have disappeared; those who remain are collected on a small
extent of country, and are now subject to other laws. The
400,000 French inhabitants of Lower Canada constitute, at the
present time, the remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a
new people. A foreign population is increasing around them
unceasingly, and on all sides, which already penetrates among the
ancient masters of the country, predominates in their cities, and
corrupts their language. This population is identical with that
of the United States; it is therefore with truth that I asserted
that the British race is not confined within the frontiers of the
Union, since it already extends to the northeast.

To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few
insignificant Russian settlements; but to the southwest, Mexico
presents a barrier to the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards
and the Anglo-Americans are, properly speaking, the only two
races which divide the possession of the New World. The limits
of separation between them have been settled by a treaty; but
although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly favorable
to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will shortly
infringe this arrangement. Vast provinces, extending beyond the
frontiers of the Union toward Mexico, are still destitute of
inhabitants. The natives of the United States will forestall the
rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They will take
possession of the soil, and establish social institutions, so
that when the legal owner arrives at length, he will find the
wilderness under cultivation, and strangers quietly settled in
the midst of his inheritance.

The lands of the New World belong to the first occupants and they
are the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the
countries which are already peopled will have some difficulty in
securing themselves from this invasion. I have already alluded
to what is taking place in the province of Texas. The
inhabitants of the United States are perpetually migrating to
Texas, where they purchase land, and although they conform to the
laws of the country, they are gradually founding the empire of
their own language and their own manners. The province of Texas
is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain
no Mexicans: the same thing has occurred whenever the
Anglo-Americans have come into contact with populations of a
different origin.


[The prophetic accuracy of the author, in relation to the present
actual condition of Texas, exhibits the sound and clear
perception with which he surveyed our institutions and
character.--_American Editor_.]


It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing
preponderance over all the other European races in the New World;
and that it is very superior to them in civilisation, in
industry, and in power. As long as it is only surrounded by
desert or thinly-peopled countries, as long as it encounters no
dense populations upon its route, through which it cannot work
its way, it will assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked
out by treaties will not stop it; but it will everywhere
transgress these imaginary barriers.

The geographical position of the British race in the New World is
peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its northern
frontiers the icy regions of the pole extend; and a few degrees
below its southern confines lies the burning climate of the
equator. The Anglo-Americans are therefore placed in the most
temperate and habitable zone of the continent.

It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of
population in the United States is posterior to their declaration
of independence. But this is an error: the population increased
as rapidly under the colonial system as it does at the present
day; that is to say, it doubled in about twenty-two years. But
this proportion, which is now applied to millions, was then
applied to thousands, of inhabitants; and the same fact which was
scarcely noticeable a century ago, is now evident to every
observer.

The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king,
augment and spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of
the United States, who live under a republican government.
During the war of independence, which lasted eight years, the
population continued to increase without intermission in the same
ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied with the English
existed, at that time, upon the western frontiers, the emigration
westward was never checked. While the enemy laid waste the
shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western parts of
Pennsylvania, and the states of Vermont and of Maine were filling
with inhabitants. Nor did the unsettled state of the
constitution, which succeeded the war, prevent the increase of
the population, or stop its progress across the wilds. Thus, the
difference of laws, the various conditions of peace and war, of
order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible influence
upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This may be
readily understood: for the fact is, that no causes are
sufficiently general to exercise a simultaneous influence over
the whole of so extensive a territory. One portion of the
country always offers a sure retreat from the calamities which
afflict another part; and however great may be the evil, the
remedy which is at hand is greater still.

It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British
race in the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment of the
Union, and the hostilities which might ensue, the abolition of
republican institutions, and the tyrannical government which
might succeed it, may retard this impulse, but they cannot
prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the destinies to which that
race is reserved. No power upon earth can close upon the
emigrants that fertile wilderness which offers resources to all
industry and a refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever
nature they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their
climate or of their inland seas, of their great rivers or of
their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and
anarchy, be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that
spirit of enterprise which seem to be the distinctive
characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge
which guides them on their way.

Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least is
sure. At a period which may be said to be near (for we are
speaking of the life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone
cover the immense space contained between the polar regions and
the tropics, extending from the coasts of the Atlantic to the
shores of the Pacific ocean. The territory which will probably
be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at some future time, may be
computed to equal three-quarters of Europe in extent.[Footnote:

The United States already extend over a territory equal to one
half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 square leagues,
and its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. (Maltebrun,
liv. 114, vol. vi., p. 4.)

] The climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to that
of Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it is
therefore evident that its population will at some future time be
proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is between so
many different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars
and the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding
attained a population of 410 inhabitants to the square
league.[Footnote:

See Maltebrun, liv. 116, vol. vi., p. 92.

]  What cause can prevent the United States from having as
numerous a population in time?

Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the British
race in America cease to present the same homogeneous
characteristics; and the time cannot be foreseen at which a
permanent inequality of conditions will be established in the New
World. Whatever differences may arise, from peace or from war,
from freedom or oppression, from prosperity or want, between the
destinies of the different descendants of the great
Anglo-American family, they will at least preserve an analogous
social condition, and they will hold in common the customs and
the opinions to which that social condition has given birth.

In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently powerful
to imbue all the different populations of Europe with the same
civilisation. The British of the New World have a thousand other
reciprocal ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to
equality is general among mankind. The Middle Ages were a period
when everything was broken up; when each people, each province,
each city, and each family, had a strong tendency to maintain its
distinct individuality. At the present time an opposite tendency
seems to prevail, and the nations seem to be advancing to unity.
Our means of intellectual intercourse unite the most remote parts
of the earth; and it is impossible for men to remain strangers to
each other, or to be ignorant of the events which are taking
place in any corner of the globe. The consequence is, that there
is less difference, at the present day, between the Europeans and
their descendants in the New World, than there was between
certain towns in the thirteenth century, which were only
separated by a river. If this tendency to assimilation brings
foreign nations closer to each other, it must _
fortiori_ prevent the descendants of the same people from
becoming aliens to each other.

The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions
of men will be living in North America,[Footnote:

This would be a population proportionate to that of Europe, taken
at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the square league.

] equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin
to the same cause, and preserving the same civilisation, the same
language, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners,
and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same
forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a
fact new to the world--a fact fraught with such portentous
consequences as to baffle the efforts even of the imagination.

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world,
which seem to tend toward the same end, although they started
from different points; I allude to the Russians and the
Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and while the
attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly
assumed a most prominent place among the nations; and the world
learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same
time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural
limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their
power; but these are still in the act of growth;[Footnote:

Russia is the country in the Old World in which population
increases most rapidly in proportion.

] all the others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme
difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity
along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The
American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose
him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats
the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilisation with all
its weapons and its arts; the conquests of the one are therefore
gained by the ploughshare; those of the other, by the sword. The
Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his
ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common
sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the authority of
society in a single arm: the principal instrument of the former
is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is
different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them
seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the
destinies of half the globe.

       *       *       *       *       *





                            APPENDIX


       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX A.


For information concerning all the countries of the West which
have not been visited by Europeans, consult the account of two
expeditions undertaken at the expense of congress by Major Long.
This traveller particularly mentions, on the subject of the great
American desert, that a line may be drawn nearly parallel to the
20th degree of longitude[Footnote:

The 20th degree of longitude according to the meridian of
Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th degree on the
meridian of Greenwich.

] (meridian of Washington), beginning from the Red river and
ending at the river Platte. From this imaginary line to the
Rocky mountains, which bound the valley of the Mississippi on the
west, lie immense plains, which are almost entirely covered with
sand, incapable of cultivation, or scattered over with masses of
granite. In summer, these plains are quite destitute of water,
and nothing is to be seen on them but herds of buffaloes and wild
horses. Some hordes of Indians are also found there, but in no
great number.

Major Long was told, that in travelling northward from the river
Platte, you find the same desert constantly on the left; but he
was unable to ascertain the truth of this report. (Long's
Expedition, vol. ii., p. 361.)

However worthy of confidence may be the narrative of Major Long,
it must be remembered that he only passed through the country of
which he speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he
had traced out for his journey.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX B.


South America, in the regions between the tropics, produces an
incredible profusion of climbing-plants, of which the Flora of
the Antilles alone presents us with forty different species.

Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower,
which, according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the
Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which
it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant
festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, and fragrant
with perfume. (Vol. i., p. 265).

The _mimosa scandens_ (acacia  grandes gousses) is a
creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to
tree, and sometimes covers more than half a league. (Vol. iii.,
p. 227.)

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX C.


The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America, from
the Pole to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the same
model, and subject to the same grammatical rules; whence it may
fairly be concluded that all the Indian nations sprang from the
same stock.

Each tribe of the American continent speaks a different dialect;
but the number of languages, properly so called, is very small, a
fact which tends to prove that the nations of the New World had
not a very remote origin.

Moreover, the languages of America have a great degree of
regularity; from which it seems probable that the tribes which
employ them had not undergone any great revolutions, or been
incorporated, voluntarily, or by constraint, with foreign
nations. For it is generally the union of several languages into
one which produces grammatical irregularities.

It is not long since the American languages, especially those of
the north, first attracted the serious attention of philologists,
when the discovery was made that this idiom of a barbarous people
was the product of a complicated system of ideas and very learned
combinations. These languages were found to be very rich, and
great pains had been taken at their formation to render them
agreeable to the ear.

The grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others
in several points, but especially in the following:--

Some nations in Europe, among others the Germans, have the power
of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus giving a
complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given a most
surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means
of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term. This
will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted by
Mr. Duponceau, in the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of
America.

"A Delaware woman, playing with a cat or a young dog," says this
writer, "is heard to pronounce the word _kuligatschis_;
which is thus composed; _k_ is the sign of the second
person, and signifies 'thou' or 'thy;' _uli_ is a part of
the word _wulit_, which signifies 'beautiful,' 'pretty;'
_gat_ is another fragment of the word _wichgat_, which
means 'paw;' and lastly, _schis_ is a diminutive giving the
idea of smallness. Thus in one word the Indian woman has
expressed, 'Thy pretty little paw.'"

Take another example of the felicity with which the savages of
America have composed their words. A young man of Delaware is
called _pilape_. This word is formed from _pilsit_,
chaste, innocent; and _lenape_, man; viz., man in his purity
and innocence.

This facility of combining words is most remarkable in the
strange formation of their verbs. The most complex action is
often expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the
shades of an idea by the modification of its construction.

Those who may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which
I have only glanced at superficially, should read:--

1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the
Rev. Mr. Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages; which is to
be found in the first volume of the Memoirs of the Philosophical
Society of America, published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham
Small, vol. i., pp. 356-464.

2. The grammar of the Delaware or Lenape language by Geiberger,
the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same
collection, vol. iii.

3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of
the 6th volume of the American Encyclopdia.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX D.


See in Charlevoix, vol. i., p. 235, the history of the first war
which the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610,
against the Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows,
offered a desperate resistance to the French and their allies.
Charlevoix is not a great painter, yet he exhibits clearly
enough, in this narrative, the contrast between the European
manners and those of savages, as well as the different way in
which the two races of men understood the sense of honor.

When the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which
covered the Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies,
were greatly offended at this proceeding; but without hesitation
they set to work in their usual manner, inflicting horrid
cruelties upon the prisoners, and devouring one of those who had
been killed, which made the Frenchmen shudder. The barbarians
prided themselves upon a scrupulousness which they were surprised
at not finding in our nation; and could not understand that there
was less to reprehend in the stripping of dead bodies, than in
the devouring of their flesh like wild beasts.

Charlevoix, in another place (vol. i., p. 230), thus describes
the first torture of which Champlain was an eyewitness, and the
return of the Hurons into their own village.

"Having proceeded about eight leagues," says he, "our allies
halted: and having singled out one of their captives, they
reproached him with all the cruelties which he had practised upon
the warriors of their nation who had fallen into his hands, and
told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner;
adding, that if he had any spirit, he would prove it by singing.
He immediately chanted forth his death-song, and then his
war-song, and all the songs he knew, 'but in a very mournful
strain,'" says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage
music has a melancholy character. The tortures which succeeded,
accompanied by all the horrors which we shall mention hereafter,
terrified the French, who made every effort to put a stop to
them, but in vain. The following night one of the Hurons having
dreamed that they were pursued, the retreat was changed to a real
flight, and the savages never stopped until they were out of the
reach of danger.

The moment they perceived the cabins of their own village, they
cut themselves long sticks, to which they fastened the scalps
which had fallen to their share, and carried them in triumph. At
this sight, the women swam to the canoes, where they received the
bloody scalps from the hands of their husbands, and tied them
round their necks.

The warriors offered one of these horrible trophies to Champlain;
they also presented him with some bows and arrows--the only
spoils of the Iroquois which they had ventured to
seize--entreating him to show them to the king of France.

Champlain lived a whole winter quite alone among these
barbarians, without being under any alarm for his person or
property.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX E.


Although the puritanical strictness which presided over the
establishment of the English colonies in America is now much
relaxed, remarkable traces of it are still found in their habits
and their laws. In 1792, at the very time when the
anti-Christian republic of France began its ephemeral existence,
the legislative body of Massachusetts promulgated the following
law, to compel the citizens to observe the sabbath. We give the
preamble, and the principal articles of this law, which is worthy
of the reader's attention.

"Whereas," says the legislator, "the observation of the Sunday is
an affair of public interest; inasmuch as it produces a necessary
suspension of labor, leads men to reflect upon the duties of life
and the errors to which human nature is liable, and provides for
the public and private worship of God the creator and governor of
the universe, and for the performance of such acts of charity as
are the ornament and comfort of Christian societies:--

"Whereas, irreligious or light-minded persons, forgetting the
duties which the sabbath imposes, and the benefits which these
duties confer on society, are known to profane its sanctity, by
following their pleasures or their affairs; this way of acting
being contrary to their own interest as Christians, and
calculated to annoy those who do not follow their example; being
also of great injury to society at large, by spreading a taste
for dissipation and dissolute manners;--

"Be it enacted and ordained by the governor, council, and
representatives convened in general court of assembly, that all
and every person and persons shall, on that day, carefully apply
themselves to the duties of religion and piety; that no tradesman
or laborer shall exercise his ordinary calling, and that no game
or recreation shall be used on the Lord's day, upon pain of
forfeiting ten shillings;--

"That no one shall travel on that day, or any part thereof, under
pain of forfeiting twenty shillings; that no vessel shall leave a
harbor of the colony; that no person shall keep outside the
meetinghouse during the time of public worship, or profane the
time by playing or talking, on penalty of five shillings.

"Public-houses shall not entertain any other than strangers or
lodgers, under a penalty of five shillings for every person found
drinking or abiding therein.

"Any person in health who, without sufficient reason, shall omit
to worship God in public during three months, shall be condemned
to a fine of ten shillings.

"Any person guilty of misbehavior in a place of public worship
shall be fined from five to forty shillings.

"These laws are to be enforced by the tithing-men of each
township, who have authority to visit public-houses on the
Sunday. The innkeeper who shall refuse them admittance shall be
fined forty shillings for such offence.

"The tithing-men are to stop travellers, and to require of them
their reason for being on the road on Sunday: any one refusing to
answer shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding five pounds
sterling. If the reason given by the traveller be not deemed by
the tithing-men sufficient, he may bring the traveller before the
justice of the peace of the district." (_Law of the 8th March,
1792: General Laws of Massachusetts_, vol. i., p. 410.)

On the 11th March, 1797, a new law increased the amount of fines.
half of which was to be given to the informer. (_Same
collection_, vol. ii., p. 525.)

On the 16th February, 1816, a new law confirmed these measures.
(_Same collection_, vol. ii., p. 405.)

Similar enactments exist in the laws of the state of New York,
revised in 1827 and 1828. (See _Revised Statutes_, part i.,
chapter 20, p. 675.) In these it is declared that no one is
allowed on the sabbath to sport, to fish, play at games, or to
frequent houses where liquor is sold. _No one_ can travel
except in case of necessity.

And this is not the only trace which the religious strictness and
austere manners of the first emigrants have left behind them in
the American laws.

In the revised statutes of the state of New York, vol. i.,
p. 662, is the following clause:--

"Whoever shall win or lose in the space of twenty-four hours, by
gaming or betting, the sum of twenty-five dollars, shall be found
guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be condemned
to pay a fine equal to at least five times the value of the sum
lost or won; which will be paid to the inspector of the poor of
the township. He that loses twenty-five dollars or more, may
bring an action to recover them; and if he neglects to do so, the
inspector of the poor may prosecute the winner, and oblige him to
pay into the poor box both the sum he has gained and three times
as much beside."

The laws we quote from are of recent date; but they are
unintelligible without going back to the very origin of the
colonies. I have no doubt that in our days the penal part of
these laws is very rarely applied. Laws preserve their
inflexibility long after the manners of a nation have yielded to
the influence of time. It is still true, however, that nothing
strikes a foreigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than
the regard to the sabbath.

There is one, in particular, of the large American cities, in
which all social movements begin to be suspended even on Saturday
evening. You traverse its streets at the hour at which you
expect men in the middle of life to be engaged in business, and
young people in pleasure; and you meet with solitude and silence.
Not only have all ceased to work, but they appear to have ceased
to exist. Neither the movements of industry are heard, nor the
accents of joy, nor even the confused murmur which arises from
the midst of a great city. Chains are hung across the streets in
the neighborhood of the churches; the half closed shutters of the
houses scarcely admit a ray of sun into the dwellings of the
citizens. Now and then you perceive a solitary individual, who
glides silently along the deserted streets and lanes.

Next day, at early dawn, the rolling of carriages, the noise of
hammers, the cries of the population, begin to make themselves
heard again. The city is awake. An eager crowd hastens toward
the resort of commerce and industry; everything around you
bespeaks motion, bustle, hurry. A feverish activity succeeds to
the lethargic stupor of yesterday: you might almost suppose that
they had but one day to acquire wealth and to enjoy it.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX F.


It is unnecessary for me to say, that in the chapter which has
just been read, I have not had the intention of giving a history
of America. My only object was to enable the reader to
appreciate the influence which the opinions and manners of the
first emigrants had exercised upon the fate of the different
colonies and of the Union in general. I have therefore confined
myself to the quotation of a few detached fragments.

I do not know whether I am deceived, but it appears to me that by
pursuing the path which I have merely pointed out, it would be
easy to present such pictures of the American republics as would
not be unworthy the attention of the public, and could not fail
to suggest to the statesman matter for reflection.

Not being able to devote myself to this labor, I am anxious to
render it easy to others; and for this purpose, I subjoin a short
catalogue and analysis of the works which seem to me the most
important to consult.

At the head of the general documents, which it would be
advantageous to examine, I place the work entitled An Historical
Collection of State Papers, and other authentic Documents,
intended as Materials for a History of the United States of
America, by Ebenezer Hasard. The first volume of this
compilation, which was printed at Philadelphia in 1792, contains
a literal copy of all the charters granted by the crown of
England to the emigrants, as well as the principal acts of the
colonial governments, during the commencement of their existence.
Among other authentic documents, we here find a great many
relating to the affairs of New England and Virginia during this
period. The second volume is almost entirely devoted to the acts
of the confederation of 1643. This federal compact, which was
entered into by the colonies of New England with the view of
resisting the Indians, was the first instance of union afforded
by the Anglo-Americans. There were besides many other
confederations of the same nature, before the famous one of 1776,
which brought about the independence of the colonies.

Each colony has, besides, its own historic monuments, some of
which are extremely curious; beginning with Virginia, the state
which was first peopled. The earliest historian of Virginia was
its founder, Capt. John Smith. Capt. Smith has left us an octavo
volume, entitled, The generall Historic of Virginia and New
England, by Captain John Smith, sometymes Governour in those
Countryes, and Admirall of New England; printed at London in
1627. The work is adorned with curious maps and engravings of
the time when it appeared; the narrative extends from the year
1584 to 1626. Smith's work is highly and deservedly esteemed.
The author was one of the most celebrated adventurers of a period
of remarkable adventure; his book breathes that ardor for
discovery, that spirit of enterprise which characterized the men
of his time, when the manners of chivalry were united to zeal for
commerce, and made subservient to the acquisition of wealth.

But Capt. Smith is remarkable for uniting, to the virtues which
characterized his contemporaries, several qualities to which they
were generally strangers: his style is simple and concise, his
narratives bear the stamp of truth, and his descriptions are free
from false ornament.

This author throws most valuable light upon the state and
condition of the Indians at the time when North America was first
discovered.

The second historian to consult is Beverley, who commences his
narrative with the year 1595, and ends it with 1700. The first
part of his book contains historical documents, properly so
called, relative to the infancy of the colony. The second
affords a most curious picture of the Indians at this remote
period. The third conveys very clear ideas concerning the
manners, social condition, laws, and political customs of the
Virginians in the author's lifetime.

Beverley was a native of Virginia, which occasions him to say at
the beginning of his book that he entreats his readers not to
exercise their critical severity upon it, since, having been born
in the Indies, he does not aspire to purity of language.
Notwithstanding this colonial modesty, the author shows
throughout his book the impatience with which he endures the
supremacy of the mother-country. In this work of Beverley are
also found numerous traces of that spirit of civil liberty which
animated the English colonies of America at the time when he
wrote. He also shows the dissensions which existed among them
and retarded their independence. Beverley detests his catholic
neighbors of Maryland, even more than he hates the English
government: his style is simple, his narrative interesting and
apparently trustworthy.

I saw in America another work which ought to be consulted,
entitled, The History of Virginia, by William Stith. This book
affords some curious details, but I thought it long and diffuse.

The most ancient as well as the best document to be consulted on
the history of Carolina is a work in a small quarto, entitled,
The History of Carolina, by John Lawson, printed at London in
1718. This work contains, in the first part, a journey of
discovery in the west of Carolina; the account of which, given in
the form of a journal, is in general confused and superficial;
but it contains a very striking description of the mortality
caused among the savages of that time, both by the small-pox and
the immoderate use of brandy; and with a curious picture of the
corruption of manners prevalent among them, which was increased
by the presence of Europeans. The second part of Lawson's book
is taken up with a description of the physical condition of
Carolina, and its productions. In the third part, the author
gives an interesting account of the manners, customs, and
government of the Indians at that period. There is a good deal
of talent and originality in this part of the work.

Lawson concludes his history with a copy of the charter granted
to the Carolinas in the reign of Charles II. The general tone of
this work is light, and often licentious, forming a perfect
contrast to the solemn style of the works published at the same
period in New England. Lawson's history is extremely scarce in
America, and cannot be procured in Europe. There is, however, a
copy of it in the royal library at Paris.

From the southern extremity of the United States I pass at once
to the northern limit; as the intermediate space was not peopled
till a later period.

I must first point out a very curious compilation, entitled,
Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, printed for
the first time at Boston in 1792, and reprinted in 1806. The
collection of which I speak, and which is continued to the
present day, contains a great number of very valuable documents
relating to the history of the different states of New England.
Among them are letters which have never been published, and
authentic pieces which have been buried in provincial archives.
The whole work of Gookin concerning the Indians is inserted
there.

I have mentioned several times, in the chapter to which this note
relates, the work of Nathaniel Norton, entitled New England's
Memorial; sufficiently perhaps to prove that it deserves the
attention of those who would be conversant with the history of
New England. This book is in 8vo. and was reprinted at Boston in
1826.

The most valuable and important authority which exists upon the
history of New England is the work of the Rev. Cotton Mather,
entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, or the Ecclesiastical
History of New England, 1620-1698, 2 vols. 8vo., reprinted at
Hartford, United States, in 1820.[Footnote:

A folio edition of this work was published in London in 1702.

]  The author divided his work into seven books. The first
presents the history of the events which prepared and brought
about the establishment of New England. The second contains the
lives of the first governors and chief magistrates who presided
over the country. The third is devoted to the lives and labors
of the evangelical ministers who during the same period had the
care of souls. In the fourth the author relates the institution
and progress of the University of Cambridge (Massachusetts). In
the fifth he describes the principles and the discipline of the
Church of New England. The sixth is taken up in retracing
certain facts, which, in the opinion of Mather, prove the
merciful interposition of Providence in behalf of the inhabitants
of New England. Lastly, in the seventh, the author gives an
account of the heresies and the troubles to which the Church of
New England was exposed. Cotton Mather was an evangelical
minister who was born at Boston, and passed his life there. His
narratives are distinguished by the same ardor and religious zeal
which led to the foundation of the colonies of New England.
Traces of bad taste sometimes occur in his manner of writing; but
he interests, because he is full of enthusiasm. He is often
intolerant, still oftener credulous, but he never betrays an
intention to deceive. Sometimes his book contains fine passages,
and true and profound reflections, such as the following:--

"Before the arrival of the Puritans," says he (vol. i.,
chap. iv.), "there were more than a few attempts of the English
to people and improve the parts of New England which were to the
northward of New Plymouth; but the design of those attempts being
aimed no higher than the advancement of some worldly interests, a
constant series of disasters has confounded them, until there was
a plantation erected upon the nobler designs of Christianity: and
that plantation, though it has had more adversaries than perhaps
any one upon earth, yet, having obtained help from God, it
continues to this day."

Mather occasionally relieves the austerity of his descriptions
with images full of tender feeling: after having spoken of an
English lady whose religious ardor had brought her to America
with her husband, and who soon after sank under the fatigues and
privations of exile, he adds, "As for her virtuous husband, Isaac
Johnson,

  He tried
  To live without her, liked it not, and died."--(Vol. i.)

Mather's work gives an admirable picture of the time and country
which he describes. In his account of the motives which led the
puritans to seek an asylum beyond seas, he says:--

"The God of heaven served, as it were, a summons upon the spirits
of his people in the English nation, stirring up the spirits of
thousands which never saw the faces of each other, with a most
unanimous inclination to leave the pleasant accommodations of
their native country, and go over a terrible ocean, into a more
terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment of all his ordinances.
It is now reasonable that, before we pass any farther, the
reasons of this undertaking should be more exactly made known
unto posterity, especially unto the posterity of those that were
the undertakers, lest they come at length to forget and neglect
the true interest of New England. Wherefore I shall now
transcribe some of them from a manuscript wherein they were then
tendered unto consideration.

"_General Considerations for the Plantation of New England_

"First, it will be a service unto the church of great
consequence, to tarry the gospel unto those parts of the world,
and raise a bulwark against the kingdom of antichrist, which the
Jesuits labor to rear up in all parts of the world.

"Secondly, all other churches of Europe have been brought under
desolations; and it may be feared that the like judgments are
coming upon us; and who knows but God hath provided this place to
be a refuge for many whom he means to save out of the general
destruction!

"Thirdly, the land grows weary of her inhabitants, inasmuch that
man, which is the most precious of all creatures, is here more
vile and base than the earth he treads upon; children, neighbors,
and friends, especially the poor, are counted the greatest
burdens, which, if things were right, would be the chiefest of
earthly blessings.

"Fourthly, we are grown to that intemperance in all excess of
riot, as no mean estate almost will suffice a man to keep sail
with his equals, and he that fails in it must live in scorn and
contempt; hence it comes to pass, that all arts and trades are
carried in that deceitful manner and unrighteous course, as it is
almost impossible for a good upright man to maintain his constant
charge and live comfortably in them.

"Fifthly, the schools of learning and religion are so corrupted,
as (beside the unsupportable charge of education) most children,
even the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes, are prevented,
corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evil
examples and licentious behaviors in these seminaries.

"Sixthly, the whole earth is the Lord's garden, and he hath given
it to the sons of Adam, to be tilled and improved by them: why
then should we stand starving here for places of habitation, and
in the mean time suffer whole countries, as profitable for the
use of man, to lie waste without any improvement?

"Seventhly, what can be a better or a nobler work, and more
worthy of a Christian, than to erect and support a reformed
particular church in its infancy, and unite our forces with such
a company of faithful people, as by timely assistance may grow
stronger and prosper; but for want of it, may be put to great
hazards, if not be wholly ruined.

"Eighthly, if any such as are known to be godly, and live in
wealth and prosperity here, shall forsake all this to join with
this reformed church, and with it run the hazard of a hard and
mean condition, it will be an example of great use, both for the
removing of scandal, and to give more life unto the faith of
God's people in their prayers for the plantation, and also to
encourage others to join the more willingly in it."

Farther on, when he declares the principles of the church of New
England with respect to morals, Mather inveighs with violence
against the custom of drinking healths at table, which he
denounces as a pagan and abominable practice. He proscribes with
the same rigor all ornaments for the hair used by the female sex,
as well as their custom of having the arms and neck uncovered.

In another part of his work he relates several instances of
witchcraft which had alarmed New England. It is plain that the
visible action of the devil in the affairs of this world appeared
to him an incontestible and evident fact.

This work of Cotton Mather displays in many places, the spirit of
civil liberty and political independence which characterized the
times in which he lived. Their principles respecting government
are discoverable at every page. Thus, for instance, the
inhabitants of Massachusetts, in the year 1630, ten years after
the foundation of Plymouth, are found to have devoted
400_l_. sterling to the establishment of the University of
Cambridge. In passing from the general documents relative to the
history of New England, to those which describe the several
states comprised within its limits, I ought first to notice The
History of the Colony of Massachusetts, by Hutchinson,
Lieutenant-Governor of the Massachusetts Province, 2 vols., 8vo.

The history of Hutchinson, which I have several times quoted in
the chapter to which this note relates, commences in the year
1628 and ends in 1750. Throughout the work there is a striking
air of truth and the greatest simplicity of style; it is full of
minute details.

The best history to consult concerning Connecticut is that of
Benjamin Trumbull, entitled, A Complete History of Connecticut,
Civil and Ecclesiastical, 1630-1764; 2 vols., 8vo., printed in
1818, at New Haven. This history contains a clear and calm
account of all the events which happened in Connecticut during
the period given in the title. The author drew from the best
sources; and his narrative bears the stamp of truth. All that he
says of the early days of Connecticut is extremely curious. See
especially the constitution of 1639, vol. i., ch. vi., p. 100;
and also the penal laws of Connecticut, vol. i., ch. vii.,
p. 123.

The History of New Hampshire, by Jeremy Belknap, is a work held
in merited estimation. It was printed at Boston in 1792, in 2
vols., 8vo. The third chapter of the first volume is
particularly worthy of attention for the valuable details it
affords on the political and religious principles of the
puritans, on the causes of their emigration, and on their laws.
The following curious quotation is given from a sermon delivered
in 1663: "It concerneth New England always to remember that they
are a plantation religious, not a plantation of trade. The
profession of the purity of doctrine, worship, and discipline, is
written on her forehead. Let merchants, and such as are
increasing cent per cent, remember this, that worldly gain was
not the end and design of the people of New England, but
religion. And if any man among us make religion as twelve, and
the world as thirteen, such an one hath not the true spirit of a
true New Englishman." The reader of Belknap will find in his
work more general ideas, and more strength of thought, than are
to be met with in the American historians even to the present
day.

Among the central states which deserve our attention for their
remote origin, New York and Pennsylvania are the foremost. The
best history we have of the former is entitled A History of New
York, by William Smith, printed in London in 1757. Smith gives
us important details of the wars between the French and English
in America. His is the best account of the famous confederation
of the Iroquois.

With respect to Pennsylvania, I cannot do better than point out
the work of Proud, entitled the History of Pennsylvania, from the
original Institution and Settlement of that Province, under the
first Proprietor and Governor, William Penn, in 1681, till after
the year 1742; by Robert Proud; 2 vols., 8vo., printed at
Philadelphia in 1797. This work is deserving of the especial
attention of the reader; it contains a mass of curious documents
concerning Penn, the doctrine of the Quakers, and the character,
manners, and customs of the first inhabitants of Pennsylvania.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX G.


We read in Jefferson's Memoirs as follows:--

"At the time of the first settlement of the English in Virginia,
when land was had for little or nothing, some provident persons
having obtained large grants of it, and being desirous of
maintaining the splendor of their families, entailed their
property upon their descendants. The transmission of these
estates from generation to generation, to men who bore the same
name, had the effect of raising up a distinct class of families,
who, possessing by law the privilege of perpetuating their
wealth, formed by these means a sort of patrician order,
distinguished by the grandeur and luxury of their establishments.
From this order it was that the king usually chose his counsellor
of state."[Footnote:

This passage is extracted and translated from M. Conseil's work
upon the Life of Jefferson, entitled, "_Mlanges Politiques
et Philosophiques de Jefferson._"

]

In the United States, the principal clauses of the English law
respecting descent have been universally rejected. The first
rule that we follow, says Mr. Kent, touching inheritance, is the
following: If a man dies intestate, his property goes to his
heirs in a direct line. If he has but one heir or heiress, he or
she succeeds to the whole. If there are several heirs of the
same degree, they divide the inheritance equally among them,
without distinction of sex.

This rule was prescribed for the first time in the state of New
York by a statute of the 23d of February, 1786. (See Revised
Statutes, vol. iii., Appendix, p. 48.) It has since then been
adopted in the revised statutes of the same state. At the
present day this law holds good throughout the whole of the
United States, with the exception of the state of Vermont, where
the male heir inherits a double portion: Kent's Commentaries,
vol. iv., p. 370. Mr. Kent, in the same work, vol. iv.,
pp. 1-22, gives an historical account of American legislation on
the subject of entail; by this we learn that previous to the
revolution the colonies followed the English law of entail.
Estates tail were abolished in Virginia in 1776, on a motion of
Mr. Jefferson. They were suppressed in New York in 1786; and
have since been abolished in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Georgia, and Missouri. In Vermont, Indiana, Illinois, South
Carolina, and Louisiana, entail was never introduced. Those
States which thought proper to preserve the English law of
entail, modified it in such a way as to deprive it of its most
aristocratic tendencies. "Our general principles on the subject
of government," says Mr. Kent, "tend to favor the free
circulation of property."

It cannot fail to strike the French reader who studies the law of
inheritance, that on these questions the French legislation is
infinitely more democratic even than the American.

The American law makes an equal division of the father's
property, but only in the case of his will not being known; "for
every man," says the law, "in the state of New York (Revised
Statutes, vol. iii., Appendix, p. 51), has entire liberty, power,
and authority, to dispose of his property by will, to leave it
entire, or divided in favor of any persons he chooses as his
heirs, provided he do not leave it to a political body or any
corporation." The French law obliges the testator to divide his
property equally, or nearly so, among his heirs.

Most of the American republics still admit of entails, under
certain restrictions; but the French law prohibits entail in all
cases.

If the social condition of the Americans is more democratic than
that of the French, the laws of the latter are the most
democratic of the two. This may be explained more easily than at
first appears to be the case. In France, democracy is still
occupied in the work of destruction; in America it reigns quietly
over the ruins it has made.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX H.


  SUMMARY OF THE QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS IN THE UNITED STATES.


All the states agree in granting the right of voting at the age
of twenty-one. In all of them it is necessary to have resided
for a certain time in the district where the vote is given. This
period varies from three months to two years.

As to the qualification; in the state of Massachusetts it is
necessary to have an income of three pounds sterling or a capital
of sixty pounds.

In Rhode Island a man must possess landed property to the amount
of 133 dollars.

In Connecticut he must have a property which gives an income of
seventeen dollars. A year of service in the militia also gives
the elective privilege.

In New Jersey, an elector must have a property of fifty pounds a
year.

In South Carolina and Maryland, the elector must possess fifty
acres of land.

In Tennessee, he must possess some property.

In the states of Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, the only necessary
qualification for voting is that of paying the taxes; and in most
of the states, to serve in the militia is equivalent to the
payment of taxes.

In Maine and New Hampshire any man can vote who is not on the
pauper list.

Lastly, in the states of Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana,
Indiana, Kentucky, and Vermont, the conditions of voting have no
reference to the property of the elector.

I believe there is no other state beside that of North Carolina
in which different conditions are applied to the voting for the
senate and the electing the house of representatives. The
electors of the former, in this case, should possess in property
fifty acres of land; to vote for the latter, nothing more is
required than to pay taxes.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX I.


The small number of custom-house officers employed in the United
States compared with the extent of the coast renders smuggling
very easy; notwithstanding which it is less practised than
elsewhere, because everybody endeavors to suppress it. In
America there is no police for the prevention of fires, and such
accidents are more frequent than in Europe, but in general they
are more speedily extinguished, because the surrounding
population is prompt in lending assistance.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX K.


It is incorrect to assert that centralization was produced by the
French revolution: the revolution brought it to perfection, but
did not create it. The mania for centralization and government
regulations dates from the time when jurists began to take a
share in the government, in the time of Philippe-le-Bel; ever
since which period they have been on the increase. In the year
1775, M. de Malesherbes, speaking in the name of the Cour des
Aides, said to Louis XIV.[Footnote:

See "Mmoires pour servir  l'Histoire du Droit Public de
la France en matire d'lmpots," p. 654, printed at Brussels in
1779.

]

"* * * * Every corporation and every community of citizens
retained the right of administering its own affairs; a right
which not only forms part of the primitive constitution of the
kingdom, but has a still higher origin; for it is the right of
nature and of reason. Nevertheless, your subjects, sire, have
been deprived of it; and we cannot refrain from saying that in
this respect your government has fallen into puerile extremes.
From the time when powerful ministers made it a political
principle to prevent the convocation of a national assembly, one
consequence has succeeded another, until the deliberations of the
inhabitants of a village are declared null when they have not
been authorized by the intendant. Of course, if the community
have an expensive undertaking to carry through, it must remain
under the control of the sub-delegate of the intendant, and
consequently follow the plan he proposes, employ his favorite
workmen, pay them according to his pleasure; and if an action at
law is deemed necessary, the intendant's permission must be
obtained. The cause must be pleaded before this first tribunal,
previous to its being carried into a public court; and if the
opinion of the intendant is opposed to that of the inhabitants,
or if their adversary enjoys his favor, the community is deprived
of the power of defending its rights. Such are the means, sire,
which have been exerted to extinguish the municipal spirit in
France; and to stifle, if possible, the opinions of the citizens.
The nation may be said to lie under an interdict, and to be in
wardship under guardians."

What could be said more to the purpose at the present day, when
the revolution has achieved what are called its victories in
centralization?

In 1789, Jefferson wrote from Paris to one of his friends: "There
is no country where the mania for over-governing has taken deeper
root than in France, or been the source of greater mischief."
Letter to Madison, 28th August, 1789.

The fact is that for several centuries past the central power of
France has done everything it could to extend central
administration; it has acknowledged no other limits than its own
strength. The central power to which the revolution gave birth
made more rapid advances than any of its predecessors, because it
was stronger and wiser than they had been; Louis XIV. committed
the welfare of such communities to the caprice of an intendant;
Napoleon left them to that of the minister. The same principle
governed both, though its consequences were more or less remote.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX L.


This immutability of the constitution of France is a necessary
consequence of the laws of that country.

To begin with the most important of all the laws, that which
decides the order of succession to the throne; what can be more
immutable in its principle than a political order founded upon
the natural succession of father to son?  In 1814 Louis
XVIII. had established the perpetual law of hereditary succession
in favor of his own family. The individuals who regulated the
consequences of the revolution of 1830 followed his example; they
merely established the perpetuity of the law in favor of another
family. In this respect they imitated the Chancellor Maurepas,
who, when he erected the new parliament upon the ruins of the
old, took care to declare in the same ordinance that the rights
of the new magistrates should be as inalienable as those of their
predecessors had been.

The laws of 1830, like those of 1814, point out no way of
changing the constitution; and it is evident that the ordinary
means of legislation are insufficient for this purpose. As the
king, peers, and deputies, all derive their authority from the
constitution, these three powers united cannot alter a law by
virtue of which alone they govern. Out of the pale of the
constitution, they are nothing; where, then, could they take
their stand to effect a change in its provisions?  The
alternative is clear; either their efforts are powerless against
the charter, which continues to exist in spite of them, in which
case they only reign in the name of the charter; or, they succeed
in changing the charter, and then the law by which they existed
being annulled, they themselves cease to exist. By destroying
the charter, they destroy themselves.

This is much more evident in the laws of 1830 than in those of
1814. In 1814, the royal prerogative took its stand above and
beyond the constitution; but in 1830, it was avowedly created by,
and dependant on, the constitution.

A part therefore of the French constitution is immutable, because
it is united to the destiny of a family; and the body of the
constitution is equally immutable, because there appear to be no
legal means of changing it.

These remarks are not applicable to England. That country having
no written constitution, who can assert when its constitution is
changed.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX M.


The most esteemed authors who have written upon the English
constitution agree with each other in establishing the
omnipotence of the parliament.

Delolme says: "It is a fundamental principle with the English
lawyers, that parliament can do everything except making a woman
a man, or a man a woman."

Blackstone expresses himself more in detail if not more
energetically than Delolme, in the following terms:--

"The power and jurisdiction of parliament," says Sir Edward Coke
(4 Inst. 36), "is so transcendant and absolute, that it cannot be
confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds. And
of this high court," he adds, "may be truly said, 'Si
antiquitatem spectes, est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est
honoratissima; si jurisdictionem, est capacissima.'  It hath
sovereign and uncontrollable authority in making, confirming,
enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving and
expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible
denominations; ecclesiastical or temporal; civil, military,
maritime, or criminal; this being the place where that absolute
despotic power which must, in all governments, reside somewhere,
is intrusted by the constitution of these kingdoms. All
mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend
the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this
extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new model the
succession to the crown; as was done in the reigns of Henry
VIII. and William III. It can alter the established religion of
the land; as was done in a variety of instances in the reigns of
King Henry VIII. and his three children. It can change and
create afresh even the constitution of the kingdom, and of the
parliaments themselves; as was done by the act of union and the
several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can,
in short, do everything that is not naturally impossible to be
done; and, therefore, some have not scrupled to call its power,
by a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of parliament."

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX N.


There is no question upon which the American constitutions agree
more fully than upon that of political jurisdiction. All the
constitutions which take cognizance of this matter, give to the
house of delegates the exclusive right of impeachment; excepting
only the constitution of North Carolina which grants the same
privilege to grand-juries. (Article 23.)

Almost all the constitutions give the exclusive right of
pronouncing sentence to the senate, or to the assembly which
occupies its place.

The only punishments which the political tribunals can inflict
are removal and interdiction of public functions for the future.
There is no other constitution but that of Virginia (152), which
enables them to inflict every kind of punishment.

The crimes which are subject to political jurisdiction, are, in
the federal constitution (section 4, art. 1); in that of Indiana
(art. 3, paragraphs 23 and 24); of New York (art. 5); of Delaware
(art. 5); high treason, bribery, and other high crimes or
offences.

In the constitution of Massachusetts (chap. 1, section 2); that
of North Carolina (art. 23); of Virginia (p. 252), misconduct and
mal-administration.

In the constitution of New Hampshire (p. 105) corruption,
intrigue and mal-administration.

In Vermont (chap, ii., art 24), mal-administration.

In South Carolina (art. 5); Kentucky (art. 5); Tennessee
(art. 4); Ohio (art. 1, 23, 24); Louisiana (art. 5);
Mississippi (art. 5); Alabama (art. 6); Pennsylvania (art. 4);
crimes committed in the non-performance of official duties.

In the states of Illinois, Georgia, Maine, and Connecticut, no
particular offences are specified.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX O.


It is true that the powers of Europe may carry on maritime wars
with the Union; but there is always greater facility and less
danger in supporting a maritime than a continental war. Maritime
warfare only requires one species of effort. A commercial people
which consents to furnish its government with the necessary
funds, is sure to possess a fleet. And it is far easier to
induce a nation to part with its money, almost unconsciously,
than to reconcile it to sacrifices of men and personal efforts.
Moreover, defeat by sea rarely compromises the existence or
independence of the people which endures it.

As for continental wars, it is evident that the nations of Europe
cannot be formidable in this way to the American Union. It would
be very difficult to transport and maintain in America more than
25,000 soldiers; an army which maybe considered to represent a
nation of 2,000,000 of men. The most populous nation of Europe
contending in this way against the Union, is in the position of a
nation of 2,000,000 of inhabitants at war with one of 12,000,000.
Add to this, that America has all its resources within reach,
while the European is at 4,000 miles distance from his; and that
the immensity of the American continent would of itself present
an insurmountable obstacle to its conquest.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX P.


The first American journal appeared in April, 1704, and was
published at Boston. See collection of the Historical Society of
Massachusetts, vol. vi., p. 66.

It would be a mistake to suppose that the periodical press has
always been entirely free in the American colonies: an attempt
was made to establish something analogous to a censorship and
preliminary security. Consult the Legislative Documents of
Massachusetts of the 14th of January, 1722.

The committee appointed by the general assembly (the legislative
body of the province), for the purpose of examining into
circumstances connected with a paper entitled "The New England
Courier," expresses its opinion that "the tendency of the said
journal is to turn religion into derision, and bring it into
contempt; that it mentions the sacred writings in a profane and
irreligious manner; that it puts malicious interpretations upon
the conduct of the ministers of the gospel; and that the
government of his majesty is insulted, and the peace and
tranquillity of the province disturbed by the said journal. The
committee is consequently of opinion that the printer and
publisher, James Franklin, should be forbidden to print and
publish the said journal or any other work in future, without
having previously submitted it to the secretary of the province;
and that the justices of the peace for the county of Suffolk
should be commissioned to require bail of the said James Franklin
for his good conduct during the ensuing year."

The suggestion of the committee was adopted and passed into a
law, but the effect of it was null, for the journal eluded the
prohibition by putting the name of Benjamin Franklin instead of
James Franklin at the bottom of its columns, and this manoeuvre
was supported by public opinion.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX Q.


The federal constitution has introduced the jury into the
tribunals of the Union in the same way as the states had
introduced it into their own several courts: but as it has not
established any fixed rules for the choice of jurors, the federal
courts select them from the ordinary jury-list which each state
makes for itself. The laws of the states must therefore be
examined for the theory of the formation of juries. See Story's
Commentaries on the Constitution, B. iii., chap. 38, pp. 654-659;
Sergeant's Constitutional Law, p. 165. See also the federal
laws, of the years 1789, 1800, and 1802, upon the subject.

For the purpose of thoroughly understanding the American
principles with respect to the formation of juries, I examined
the laws of states at a distance from one another, and the
following observations were the result of my inquiries.

In America all the citizens who exercise the elective franchise
have the right of serving upon a jury. The great state of New
York, however, has made a slight difference between the two
privileges, but in a spirit contrary to that of the laws of
France; for in the state of New York there are fewer persons
eligible as jurymen than there are electors. It may be said in
general that the right of forming part of a jury, like that of
electing representatives, is open to all the citizens; the
exercise of this right, however, is not put indiscriminately into
any hands.

Every year a body of municipal or county magistrates--called
_selectmen_ in New England, _supervisors_ in New York,
_trustees_ in Ohio, and _sheriffs of the parish_ in
Louisiana--choose for each county a certain number of citizens
who have the right of serving as jurymen, and who we supposed to
be capable of exercising their functions. These magistrates,
being themselves elective, excite no distrust: their powers, like
those of most republican magistrates, are very extensive and very
arbitrary, and they frequently make use of them to remove
unworthy or incompetent jurymen.

The names of the jurymen thus chosen are transmitted to the
county court; and the jury who have to decide any affair are
drawn by lot from the whole list of names.

The Americans have contrived in every way to make the common
people eligible to the jury, and to render the service as little
onerous as possible. The sessions are held in the chief town of
every county; and the jury are indemnified for their attendance
either by the state or the parties concerned. They receive in
general a dollar per day, beside their travelling expenses. In
America the being placed upon the jury is looked upon as a
burden, but it is a burden which is very supportable. See
Brevard's Digest of the Public Statute Law of South Carolina,
vol. i, pp. 446 and 454, vol. ii., pp. 218 and 333; The General
Laws of Massachusetts, revised and published by Authority of the
Legislature, vol. ii., pp. 187 and 331; The Revised Statutes of
the State of New York, vol. ii., pp. 411, 643, 717, 720; The
Statute Law of the State of Tennessee, vol. i., p. 209; Acts of
the State of Ohio, pp. 95 and 210; and Digeste Gnral des
Actes de la Lgislature de la Louisiana.

       *       *       *       *       *



                           APPENDIX R.


If we attentively examine the constitution of the jury as
introduced into civil proceedings in England, we shall readily
perceive that the jurors are under the immediate control of the
judge. It is true that the verdict of the jury, in civil as well
as in criminal cases, comprises the question of fact and the
question of right in the same reply; thus, a house is claimed by
Peter as having been purchased by him: this is the fact to be
decided. The defendant puts in a plea of incompetency on the
part of the vendor: this is the legal question to be resolved.

But the jury do not enjoy the same character of infallibility in
civil cases, according to the practice of the English courts, as
they do in criminal cases. The judge may refuse to receive the
verdict; and even after the first trial has taken place, a second
or new trial may be awarded by the court. See Blackstone's
Commentaries, book iii., ch. 24.





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