How, then, has the United States come to this pass? Certainly historical accidents have contributed to set the Union in this direction. Historical accidents would, however, not have sufficed, if they had not been helped by that conception of democracy, not practical but mystical, so to speak, which I have found obtains among so many Americans. The rights of the people are not in America a political doctrine, to be employed by the nation and its governors in compassing certain ends of general utility, and to be applied only in the measure and with the limitations and qualifications which make it fruitful of good results and prevent it from giving rise to inconveniences. It is a transcendent principle, an article of faith, as it were, to be applied and developed without too much regard to the immediate consequences, which must be endured with patience if they are for the moment unpleasant or dangerous, in the conviction that the principle, being just and true, must finally produce beneficial effects. So, little by little, I was led to ask myself whether by chance, in politics at any rate, the South Americans and the Europeans were not more practical than the North Americans, and whether the North Americans, on the other hand, were not great idealists; at least, if by the practical spirit is understood the art of solving present difficulties by the quickest and simplest devices with only an immediately realisable benefit in view, instead of multiplying difficulties with future benefits in view or for love of an idea or a principle. The amazement and uncertainty caused by this preliminary survey of the very foundations of the American constitution were increased, however, by my subsequent observation of the numberless philanthropic works, educational institutions, intellectual, political, or social foundations which owe their existence to the inexhaustible generosity of the American upper classes. For though Europeans may think that every American thinks only of making money, a few weeks of travel and of observation were enough to convince me that America is quite as richly, perhaps more richly endowed than Europe with wealthy men whose only thought it is to spend their money for the good of their fellows, for the progress of the nation, in a word, for objects of public utility.