mpetent
to keep alive and to renew the circulation of opinions and feelings
amongst a great people, than to manage all the speculations of
productive industry. No sooner does a government attempt to go
beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new track, than
it exercises, even unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny; for a
government can only dictate strict rules, the opinions which it favors
are rigidly enforced, and it is never easy to discriminate between its
advice and its commands. Worse still will be the case if the government
really believes itself interested in preventing all circulation of
ideas; it will then stand motionless, and oppressed by the heaviness of
voluntary torpor. Governments therefore should not be the only active
powers: associations ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of
those powerful private individuals whom the equality of conditions has
swept away.

As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken
up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world,
they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as they have found each
other out, they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated
men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve for an example,
and whose language is listened to. The first time I heard in the United
States that 100,000 men had bound themselves publicly to abstain from
spirituous liquors, it appeared to me more like a joke than a serious
engagement; and I did not at once perceive why these temperate citizens
could not content themselves with drinking water by their own firesides.
I at last understood that 300,000 Americans, alarmed by the progress
of drunkenness around them, had made up their minds to patronize
temperance. They acted just in the same way as a man of high rank who
should dress very plainly, in order to inspire the humbler orders with
a contempt of luxury. It is probable that if these 100,000 men had lived
in France, each of them would singly have memorialized the government to
watch the public-houses all over the kingdom.

Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the
intellectual and moral associations of America. The political and
industrial associations of that country strike us forcibly; but the
others elude our observation, or if we discover them, we understand them
imperfectly, because we have hardly ever seen anything of the kind.
It must, however, be acknowl