their absolute and their relative
excellence. If it be the intention of the legislator to favor the
interests of the minority at the expense of the majority, and if the
measures he takes are so combined as to accomplish the object he has in
view with the least possible expense of time and exertion, the law may
be well drawn up, although its purpose be bad; and the more efficacious
it is, the greater is the mischief which it causes.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest
possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who
are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to their
own advantage. The laws of an aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to
concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the minority, because
an aristocracy, by its very nature, constitutes a minority. It may
therefore be asserted, as a general proposition, that the purpose of
a democracy in the conduct of its legislation is useful to a greater
number of citizens than that of an aristocracy. This is, however, the
sum total of its advantages.

Aristocracies are infinitely more expert in the science of legislation
than democracies ever can be. They are possessed of a self-control which
protects them from the errors of temporary excitement, and they form
lasting designs which they mature with the assistance of favorable
opportunities. Aristocratic government proceeds with the dexterity of
art; it understands how to make the collective force of all its laws
converge at the same time to a given point. Such is not the case with
democracies, whose laws are almost always ineffective or inopportune.
The means of democracy are therefore more imperfect than those of
aristocracy, and the measures which it unwittingly adopts are frequently
opposed to its own cause; but the object it has in view is more useful.

Let us now imagine a community so organized by nature, or by its
constitution, that it can support the transitory action of bad laws,
and that it can await, without destruction, the general tendency of
the legislation: we shall then be able to conceive that a democratic
government, notwithstanding its defects, will be most fitted to conduce
to the prosperity of this community. This is precisely what has occurred
in the United States; and I repeat, what I have before remarked, that
the great advantage of the Americans consists in their being able to
commit faults which they may afterward repa