idental causes which may check this
tendency--Ease with which the aristocracy coalesces with legal men--Use
of lawyers to a despot--The profession of the law constitutes the only
aristocratic element with which the natural elements of democracy will
combine--Peculiar causes which tend to give an aristocratic turn of mind
to the English and American lawyers--The aristocracy of America is
on the bench and at the bar--Influence of lawyers upon American
society--Their peculiar magisterial habits affect the legislature, the
administration, and even the people.

In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws we perceive that
the authority they have entrusted to members of the legal profession,
and the influence which these individuals exercise in the Government, is
the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy.
This effect seems to me to result from a general cause which it is
useful to investigate, since it may produce analogous consequences
elsewhere.

The members of the legal profession have taken an important part in all
the vicissitudes of political society in Europe during the last five
hundred years. At one time they have been the instruments of those
who were invested with political authority, and at another they have
succeeded in converting political authorities into their instrument. In
the Middle Ages they afforded a powerful support to the Crown, and since
that period they have exerted themselves to the utmost to limit the
royal prerogative. In England they have contracted a close alliance with
the aristocracy; in France they have proved to be the most dangerous
enemies of that class. It is my object to inquire whether, under all
these circumstances, the members of the legal profession have been
swayed by sudden and momentary impulses; or whether they have been
impelled by principles which are inherent in their pursuits, and which
will always recur in history. I am incited to this investigation by
reflecting that this particular class of men will most likely play a
prominent part in that order of things to which the events of our time
are giving birth.

Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal pursuits derive
from those occupations certain habits of order, a taste for formalities,
and a kind of instinctive regard for the regular connection of ideas,
which naturally render them very hostile to the revolutionary spirit and
the unreflecting passions of the multitude.