ndelicacy and impudence the doors of a public
career stand wide open.--Such is the august personage into whose hands,
according to the theory, I am called upon to surrender my will, my will
in full; certainly, if self-renunciation were necessary, I should
risk less in giving myself up to a king or to an aristocracy, even
hereditary; for then would my representatives be at least recommended
by their evident rank and their probable competency.--Democracy, in its
nature and composition, is a system in which the individual awards to
his representatives the least trust and deference; hence, it is the
system in which he should entrust them with the least power. Conscience
and honor everywhere enjoin a man to retain for himself some portion of
his independence; but nowhere is there so little be ceded. If a modern
constitution ought to clearly define and limit the domain of the State,
it is in respect of contemporary democracy that it ought to be the most
restrictive.

III. Origin and nature of the modern State.

Origin and nature of the modern State.--Its functions,
rights and limits.

Let us try to define these limits.--After the turmoil of invasions and
conquest, at the height of social disintegration, amidst the combats
daily occurring between private parties, there arose in every European
community a public force, which force, lasting for centuries, still
persists to our day. How it was organized, through what early stages of
violence it passed, through what accidents and struggles, and into whose
hands it is now entrusted, whether temporarily or forever, whatever
the laws of its transmission, whether by inheritance or election, is of
secondary importance; the main thing is its functions and their mode of
operation. It is essentially a mighty sword, drawn from its scabbard
and uplifted over the smaller blades around it, with which private
individuals once cut each others' throats. Menaced by it, the smaller
blades repose in their scabbards; they have become inert, useless, and,
finally rusty; with few exceptions, everybody save malefactors, has now
lost both the habit and the desire to use them, so that, henceforth,
in this pacified society, the public sword is so formidable that all
private resistance vanishes the moment it flashes.--This sword is forged
out of two interests: it was necessary to have one of its magnitude,
first, against similar blades brandished by other communities on the
frontier, and