constitutions the members of the tribunals are elected, and they are
even subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to predict that these
innovations will sooner or later be attended with fatal consequences,
and that it will be found out at some future period that the attack
which is made upon the judicial power has affected the democratic
republic itself.

[Footnote a: See chapter VI. on the "Judicial Power in the United
States."]

It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which I have
been speaking has been confined, in the United States, to the courts of
justice; it extends far beyond them. As the lawyers constitute the only
enlightened class which the people does not mistrust, they are naturally
called upon to occupy most of the public stations. They fill the
legislative assemblies, and they conduct the administration; they
consequently exercise a powerful influence upon the formation of the
law, and upon its execution. The lawyers are, however, obliged to yield
to the current of public opinion, which is too strong for them to resist
it, but it is easy to find indications of what their conduct would be if
they were free to act as they chose. The Americans, who have made such
copious innovations in their political legislation, have introduced very
sparing alterations in their civil laws, and that with great difficulty,
although those laws are frequently repugnant to their social condition.
The reason of this is, that in matters of civil law the majority is
obliged to defer to the authority of the legal profession, and that the
American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left to their
own choice.

It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different state of
things, to hear the perpetual complaints which are made in the United
States against the stationary propensities of legal men, and their
prejudices in favor of existing institutions.

The influence of the legal habits which are common in America extends
beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely any question arises
in the United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject
of judicial debate; hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas,
and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their
daily controversies. As most public men are, or have been, legal
practitioners, they introduce the customs and technicalities of their
profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends