ttlers in the United States, therefore, early
perceived that they were divided into a great number of small and
distinct communities which belonged to no common centre; and that it
was needful for each of these little communities to take care of its own
affairs, since there did not appear to be any central authority which
was naturally bound and easily enabled to provide for them. Thus, the
nature of the country, the manner in which the British colonies were
founded, the habits of the first emigrants, in short everything,
united to promote, in an extraordinary degree, municipal and provincial
liberties.

In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of the
country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to destroy
the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be necessary to
abolish all the laws at once. At the present day it would be even more
difficult for a party to succeed in founding a monarchy in the United
States than for a set of men to proclaim that France should henceforward
be a republic. Royalty would not find a system of legislation prepared
for it beforehand; and a monarchy would then exist, really surrounded by
republican institutions. The monarchical principle would likewise have
great difficulty in penetrating into the manners of the Americans.

In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an isolated
doctrine bearing no relation to the prevailing manners and ideas of the
people: it may, on the contrary, be regarded as the last link of a chain
of opinions which binds the whole Anglo-American world. That Providence
has given to every human being the degree of reason necessary to direct
himself in the affairs which interest him exclusively--such is the grand
maxim upon which civil and political society rests in the United States.
The father of a family applies it to his children; the master to his
servants; the township to its officers; the province to its townships;
the State to its provinces; the Union to the States; and when extended
to the nation, it becomes the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.

Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the republic
is the same which governs the greater part of human actions; republican
notions insinuate themselves into all the ideas, opinions, and habits of
the Americans, whilst they are formerly recognized by the legislation:
and before this legislation can be altered the whole community m