mported from England, and it has always
existed in America; so that the exercise of this privilege is now
amalgamated with the manners and customs of the people. At the present
time the liberty of association is become a necessary guarantee against
the tyranny of the majority. In the United States, as soon as a party is
become preponderant, all public authority passes under its control; its
private supporters occupy all the places, and have all the force of the
administration at their disposal. As the most distinguished partisans
of the other side of the question are unable to surmount the obstacles
which exclude them from power, they require some means of establishing
themselves upon their own basis, and of opposing the moral authority
of the minority to the physical power which domineers over it. Thus a
dangerous expedient is used to obviate a still more formidable danger.

The omnipotence of the majority appears to me to present such extreme
perils to the American Republics that the dangerous measure which is
used to repress it seems to be more advantageous than prejudicial. And
here I am about to advance a proposition which may remind the reader
of what I said before in speaking of municipal freedom: There are
no countries in which associations are more needed, to prevent the
despotism of faction or the arbitrary power of a prince, than those
which are democratically constituted. In aristocratic nations the
body of the nobles and the more opulent part of the community are in
themselves natural associations, which act as checks upon the abuses of
power. In countries in which these associations do not exist, if
private individuals are unable to create an artificial and a temporary
substitute for them, I can imagine no permanent protection against the
most galling tyranny; and a great people may be oppressed by a small
faction, or by a single individual, with impunity.

The meeting of a great political Convention (for there are Conventions
of all kinds), which may frequently become a necessary measure, is
always a serious occurrence, even in America, and one which is never
looked forward to, by the judicious friends of the country, without
alarm. This was very perceptible in the Convention of 1831, at which the
exertions of all the most distinguished members of the Assembly tended
to moderate its language, and to restrain the subjects which it treated
within certain limits. It is probable, in fact, that the Convention