olitical world. In America the lowest
classes have conceived a very high notion of political rights, because
they exercise those rights; and they refrain from attacking those of
other people, in order to ensure their own from attack. Whilst in Europe
the same classes sometimes recalcitrate even against the supreme power,
the American submits without a murmur to the authority of the pettiest
magistrate.

This truth is exemplified by the most trivial details of national
peculiarities. In France very few pleasures are exclusively reserved
for the higher classes; the poor are admitted wherever the rich are
received, and they consequently behave with propriety, and respect
whatever contributes to the enjoyments in which they themselves
participate. In England, where wealth has a monopoly of amusement as
well as of power, complaints are made that whenever the poor happen to
steal into the enclosures which are reserved for the pleasures of the
rich, they commit acts of wanton mischief: can this be wondered at,
since care has been taken that they should have nothing to lose? *b

[Footnote b: [This, too, has been amended by much larger provisions for
the amusements of the people in public parks, gardens, museums, etc.;
and the conduct of the people in these places of amusement has improved
in the same proportion.]]

The government of democracy brings the notion of political rights to
the level of the humblest citizens, just as the dissemination of wealth
brings the notion of property within the reach of all the members of the
community; and I confess that, to my mind, this is one of its greatest
advantages. I do not assert that it is easy to teach men to exercise
political rights; but I maintain that, when it is possible, the effects
which result from it are highly important; and I add that, if there ever
was a time at which such an attempt ought to be made, that time is our
own. It is clear that the influence of religious belief is shaken, and
that the notion of divine rights is declining; it is evident that
public morality is vitiated, and the notion of moral rights is also
disappearing: these are general symptoms of the substitution of argument
for faith, and of calculation for the impulses of sentiment. If, in the
midst of this general disruption, you do not succeed in connecting
the notion of rights with that of personal interest, which is the
only immutable point in the human heart, what means will you have of
governing