American Institutions and Their InfluenceTocqueville, Alexis de
History
American Institutions and Their Influence
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Democracy; United States -- Politics and government
[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'étais pauvre, me voici riche; du moins,
si le bien-être, en agissant sur ma conduite, laissait mon jugement en
liberté! Mais non, mes opinions sont en effet changées avec ma fortune,
et, dans l'événement heureux dont je profite, j'ai réellement découvert
la raison déterminante qui jusque-là m'avait manqué."--_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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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