can
democracy has adopted--The example of America only proves that it
is possible to regulate democracy by the assistance of manners and
legislation.

I have asserted that the success of democratic institutions in the
United States is more intimately connected with the laws themselves, and
the manners of the people, than with the nature of the country. But
does it follow that the same causes would of themselves produce the same
results, if they were put into operation elsewhere; and if the country
is no adequate substitute for laws and manners, can laws and manners
in their turn prove a substitute for the country? It will readily be
understood that the necessary elements of a reply to this question are
wanting: other peoples are to be found in the New World besides the
Anglo-Americans, and as these people are affected by the same physical
circumstances as the latter, they may fairly be compared together. But
there are no nations out of America which have adopted the same laws
and manners, being destitute of the physical advantages peculiar to the
Anglo-Americans. No standard of comparison therefore exists, and we can
only hazard an opinion upon this subject.

It appears to me, in the first place, that a careful distinction must
be made between the institutions of the United States and democratic
institutions in general. When I reflect upon the state of Europe, its
mighty nations, its populous cities, its formidable armies, and
the complex nature of its politics, I cannot suppose that even the
Anglo-Americans, if they were transported to our hemisphere, with
their ideas, their religion, and their manners, could exist without
considerably altering their laws. But a democratic nation may be
imagined, organized differently from the American people. It is not
impossible to conceive a government really established upon the will
of the majority; but in which the majority, repressing its natural
propensity to equality, should consent, with a view to the order and the
stability of the State, to invest a family or an individual with all
the prerogatives of the executive. A democratic society might exist, in
which the forces of the nation would be more centralized than they are
in the United States; the people would exercise a less direct and
less irresistible influence upon public affairs, and yet every citizen
invested with certain rights would participate, within his sphere,
in the conduct of the government. The observations