I, "that the drinking population
constitutes the majority in your country, and that temperance is
somewhat unpopular."

When these things are pointed out to the American statesmen, they
content themselves with assuring you that time will operate the
necessary change, and that the experience of evil will teach the people
its true interests. This is frequently true, although a democracy is
more liable to error than a monarch or a body of nobles; the chances of
its regaining the right path when once it has acknowledged its
mistake, are greater also; because it is rarely embarrassed by internal
interests, which conflict with those of the majority, and resist the
authority of reason. But a democracy can only obtain truth as the result
of experience, and many nations may forfeit their existence whilst they
are awaiting the consequences of their errors.

The great privilege of the Americans does not simply consist in their
being more enlightened than other nations, but in their being able to
repair the faults they may commit. To which it must be added, that a
democracy cannot derive substantial benefit from past experience, unless
it be arrived at a certain pitch of knowledge and civilization. There
are tribes and peoples whose education has been so vicious, and whose
character presents so strange a mixture of passion, of ignorance, and of
erroneous notions upon all subjects, that they are unable to discern the
causes of their own wretchedness, and they fall a sacrifice to ills with
which they are unacquainted.

I have crossed vast tracts of country that were formerly inhabited by
powerful Indian nations which are now extinct; I have myself passed some
time in the midst of mutilated tribes, which witness the daily decline
of their numerical strength and of the glory of their independence; and
I have heard these Indians themselves anticipate the impending doom of
their race. Every European can perceive means which would rescue
these unfortunate beings from inevitable destruction. They alone are
insensible to the expedient; they feel the woe which year after year
heaps upon their heads, but they will perish to a man without accepting
the remedy. It would be necessary to employ force to induce them to
submit to the protection and the constraint of civilization.

The incessant revolutions which have convulsed the South American
provinces for the last quarter of a century have frequently been
adverted to with astonishment, and