nterests at stake may obliterate. Nor do I attach much
importance to the language of the Americans, when they manifest, in
their daily conversations, the intention of maintaining the federal
system adopted by their forefathers. A government retains its sway
over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational
consent of the multitude, than by that instinctive, and to a certain
extent involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of feelings
and resemblances of opinion. I will never admit that men constitute a
social body, simply because they obey the same head and the same laws.
Society can only exist when a great number of men consider a great
number of things in the same point of view; when they hold the same
opinions upon many subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest the
same thoughts and impressions to their minds.

The observer who examines the present condition of the United States
upon this principle, will readily discover, that although the citizens
are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they nevertheless
constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led to think that the
state of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a state of society than
that of certain nations of Europe which live under the same legislation
and the same prince.

Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all
regard religion in the same manner. They are not always agreed upon the
measures which are most conducive to good government, and they vary upon
some of the forms of government which it is expedient to adopt; but
they are unanimous upon the general principles which ought to rule
human society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from the Missouri to the
Atlantic Ocean, the people is held to be the legitimate source of all
power. The same notions are entertained respecting liberty and equality,
the liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the
responsibility of the agents of Government.

If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the moral and
philosophical principles which regulate the daily actions of life and
govern their conduct, we shall still find the same uniformity. The
Anglo-Americans *d acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the
reason of the community, as they acknowledge the political authority of
the mass of citizens; and they hold that public opinion is the surest
arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden, true or fal