some nations in Europe. There are, however, no
nations upon the face of the earth more miserable than those of South
America.

Thus, not only are physical causes inadequate to produce results
analogous to those which occur in North America, but they are unable
to raise the population of South America above the level of European
States, where they act in a contrary direction. Physical causes do not,
therefore, affect the destiny of nations so much as has been supposed.

I have met with men in New England who were on the point of leaving a
country, where they might have remained in easy circumstances, to go to
seek their fortune in the wilds. Not far from that district I found
a French population in Canada, which was closely crowded on a narrow
territory, although the same wilds were at hand; and whilst the emigrant
from the United States purchased an extensive estate with the earnings
of a short term of labor, the Canadian paid as much for land as he would
have done in France. Nature offers the solitudes of the New World to
Europeans; but they are not always acquainted with the means of turning
her gifts to account. Other peoples of America have the same physical
conditions of prosperity as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws
and their manners; and these peoples are wretched. The laws and manners
of the Anglo-Americans are therefore that efficient cause of their
greatness which is the object of my inquiry.

I am far from supposing that the American laws are preeminently good
in themselves; I do not hold them to be applicable to all democratic
peoples; and several of them seem to be dangerous, even in the United
States. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the American legislation,
taken collectively, is extremely well adapted to the genius of the
people and the nature of the country which it is intended to govern. The
American laws are therefore good, and to them must be attributed a large
portion of the success which attends the government of democracy in
America: but I do not believe them to be the principal cause of that
success; and if they seem to me to have more influence upon the social
happiness of the Americans than the nature of the country, on the other
hand there is reason to believe that their effect is still inferior to
that produced by the manners of the people.

The Federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important part of the
legislation of the United States. Mexico, which is not less