hem on all occasions.
They bear, on the contrary, a natural goodwill to civil associations,
because they readily discover that, instead of directing the minds of
the community to public affairs, these institutions serve to divert them
from such reflections; and that, by engaging them more and more in the
pursuit of objects which cannot be attained without public tranquillity,
they deter them from revolutions. But these governments do not attend
to the fact that political associations tend amazingly to multiply and
facilitate those of a civil character, and that in avoiding a dangerous
evil they deprive themselves of an efficacious remedy.

When you see the Americans freely and constantly forming associations
for the purpose of promoting some political principle, of raising one
man to the head of affairs, or of wresting power from another, you
have some difficulty in understanding that men so independent do not
constantly fall into the abuse of freedom. If, on the other hand, you
survey the infinite number of trading companies which are in operation
in the United States, and perceive that the Americans are on every side
unceasingly engaged in the execution of important and difficult plans,
which the slightest revolution would throw into confusion, you will
readily comprehend why people so well employed are by no means tempted
to perturb the State, nor to destroy that public tranquillity by which
they all profit.

Is it enough to observe these things separately, or should we not
discover the hidden tie which connects them? In their political
associations, the Americans of all conditions, minds, and ages, daily
acquire a general taste for association, and grow accustomed to the use
of it. There they meet together in large numbers, they converse, they
listen to each other, and they are mutually stimulated to all sorts of
undertakings. They afterwards transfer to civil life the notions they
have thus acquired, and make them subservient to a thousand purposes.
Thus it is by the enjoyment of a dangerous freedom that the Americans
learn the art of rendering the dangers of freedom less formidable.

If a certain moment in the existence of a nation be selected, it is easy
to prove that political associations perturb the State, and paralyze
productive industry; but take the whole life of a people, and it may
perhaps be easy to demonstrate that freedom of association in political
matters is favorable to the prosperity and even to