But the natural tendency of democracy is not to socialism. A single plain but remarkable fact suffices to establish that. Democracy has been in full bloom in America for more than a century, and there are no traces of socialism there except among some German immigrants of yesterday; for, of course, the communism of the eccentric religious sects of America proceeds from religious ideals, and has no bearing one way or other on the social tendency of democracy. The labouring class is politically everything in that country--everything, at least, that electoral power can make them in an elective republic; and they have never shown any desire to use their political power to become socially everything or to interfere with the freedom of property. Had this been in any way the necessary effect of democratic institutions, it must have by this time made its appearance in the United States. De Tocqueville, indeed, maintains that so far from there being any natural solidarity between democracy and socialism, they are absolutely contrary the one to the other. "Democracy," he said in a speech in the Republican Parliament of France in 1849, "extends the sphere of individual independence; socialism contracts it. Democracy gives every individual man his utmost possible value; socialism makes every man an agent, an instrument, a cipher. Democracy and socialism coincide only in the single word equality, but observe the difference: democracy desires equality in liberty; socialism seeks equality in compulsion and servitude."