n the world.

It is not a question of easy solution whether aristocracy or democracy
is most fit to govern a country. But it is certain that democracy annoys
one part of the community, and that aristocracy oppresses another part.
When the question is reduced to the simple expression of the struggle
between poverty and wealth, the tendency of each side of the dispute
becomes perfectly evident without further controversy.

Chapter XII: Political Associations In The United States

Chapter Summary

Daily use which the Anglo-Americans make of the right of
association--Three kinds of political associations--In what manner
the Americans apply the representative system to associations--Dangers
resulting to the State--Great Convention of 1831 relative to the
Tariff--Legislative character of this Convention--Why the unlimited
exercise of the right of association is less dangerous in the United
States than elsewhere--Why it may be looked upon as necessary--Utility
of associations in a democratic people.

Political Associations In The United States

In no country in the world has the principle of association been
more successfully used, or more unsparingly applied to a multitude of
different objects, than in America. Besides the permanent associations
which are established by law under the names of townships, cities,
and counties, a vast number of others are formed and maintained by the
agency of private individuals.

The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest infancy
to rely upon his own exertions in order to resist the evils and the
difficulties of life; he looks upon social authority with an eye of
mistrust and anxiety, and he only claims its assistance when he is quite
unable to shift without it. This habit may even be traced in the schools
of the rising generation, where the children in their games are wont to
submit to rules which they have themselves established, and to punish
misdemeanors which they have themselves defined. The same spirit
pervades every act of social life. If a stoppage occurs in a
thoroughfare, and the circulation of the public is hindered, the
neighbors immediately constitute a deliberative body; and this
extemporaneous assembly gives rise to an executive power which remedies
the inconvenience before anybody has thought of recurring to an
authority superior to that of the persons immediately concerned. If the
public pleasures are concerned, an association is formed to prov