inspection of the ordinary course
of affairs that our judgment must be formed.

If passing occurrences sometimes act as checks upon the passions of
democracy, the intelligence and the manners of the community exercise
an influence which is not less powerful and far more permanent. This is
extremely perceptible in the United States.

In New England the education and the liberties of the communities were
engendered by the moral and religious principles of their founders.
Where society has acquired a sufficient degree of stability to enable it
to hold certain maxims and to retain fixed habits, the lower orders
are accustomed to respect intellectual superiority and to submit to
it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges
which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. The democracy
in New England consequently makes a more judicious choice than it does
elsewhere.

But as we descend towards the South, to those States in which
the constitution of society is more modern and less strong, where
instruction is less general, and where the principles of morality, of
religion, and of liberty are less happily combined, we perceive that the
talents and the virtues of those who are in authority become more and
more rare.

Lastly, when we arrive at the new South-western States, in which the
constitution of society dates but from yesterday, and presents an
agglomeration of adventurers and speculators, we are amazed at the
persons who are invested with public authority, and we are led to ask by
what force, independent of the legislation and of the men who direct it,
the State can be protected, and society be made to flourish.

There are certain laws of a democratic nature which contribute,
nevertheless, to correct, in some measure, the dangerous tendencies of
democracy. On entering the House of Representatives of Washington one is
struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly. The eye frequently
does not discover a man of celebrity within its walls. Its members are
almost all obscure individuals whose names present no associations to
the mind: they are mostly village lawyers, men in trade, or even
persons belonging to the lower classes of society. In a country in which
education is very general, it is said that the representatives of the
people do not always know how to write correctly.

At a few yards' distance from this spot is the door of the Senate, which
contains within a small space a l