gree of power must be granted to public officers, for they would be
of no use without it. But the ostensible semblance of authority is by
no means indispensable to the conduct of affairs, and it is needlessly
offensive to the susceptibility of the public. The public officers
themselves are well aware that they only enjoy the superiority over
their fellow-citizens which they derive from their authority upon
condition of putting themselves on a level with the whole community by
their manners. A public officer in the United States is uniformly civil,
accessible to all the world, attentive to all requests, and obliging
in his replies. I was pleased by these characteristics of a democratic
government; and I was struck by the manly independence of the citizens,
who respect the office more than the officer, and who are less attached
to the emblems of authority than to the man who bears them.

I am inclined to believe that the influence which costumes really
exercise, in an age like that in which we live, has been a good deal
exaggerated. I never perceived that a public officer in America was the
less respected whilst he was in the discharge of his duties because his
own merit was set off by no adventitious signs. On the other hand, it is
very doubtful whether a peculiar dress contributes to the respect which
public characters ought to have for their own position, at least when
they are not otherwise inclined to respect it. When a magistrate (and
in France such instances are not rare) indulges his trivial wit at the
expense of the prisoner, or derides the predicament in which a culprit
is placed, it would be well to deprive him of his robes of office,
to see whether he would recall some portion of the natural dignity of
mankind when he is reduced to the apparel of a private citizen.

A democracy may, however, allow a certain show of magisterial pomp, and
clothe its officers in silks and gold, without seriously compromising
its principles. Privileges of this kind are transitory; they belong to
the place, and are distinct from the individual: but if public officers
are not uniformly remunerated by the State, the public charges must be
entrusted to men of opulence and independence, who constitute the
basis of an aristocracy; and if the people still retains its right
of election, that election can only be made from a certain class of
citizens. When a democratic republic renders offices which had formerly
been remunerated gratuitous