ricans had made great and successful
efforts to counteract these imperfections of human nature, and to
correct the natural defects of democracy. Their divers municipal laws
appeared to me to be a means of restraining the ambition of the citizens
within a narrow sphere, and of turning those same passions which might
have worked havoc in the State, to the good of the township or the
parish. The American legislators have succeeded to a certain extent in
opposing the notion of rights to the feelings of envy; the permanence
of the religious world to the continual shifting of politics; the
experience of the people to its theoretical ignorance; and its practical
knowledge of business to the impatience of its desires.

The Americans, then, have not relied upon the nature of their country to
counterpoise those dangers which originate in their Constitution and
in their political laws. To evils which are common to all democratic
peoples they have applied remedies which none but themselves had
ever thought of before; and although they were the first to make the
experiment, they have succeeded in it.

The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only ones which may
suit a democratic people; but the Americans have shown that it would be
wrong to despair of regulating democracy by the aid of manners and of
laws. If other nations should borrow this general and pregnant idea from
the Americans, without however intending to imitate them in the peculiar
application which they have made of it; if they should attempt to fit
themselves for that social condition, which it seems to be the will of
Providence to impose upon the generations of this age, and so to escape
from the despotism or the anarchy which threatens them; what reason is
there to suppose that their efforts would not be crowned with success?
The organization and the establishment of democracy in Christendom is
the great political problem of the time. The Americans, unquestionably,
have not resolved this problem, but they furnish useful data to those
who undertake the task.

Importance Of What Precedes With Respect To The State Of Europe

It may readily be discovered with what intention I undertook the
foregoing inquiries. The question here discussed is interesting not only
to the United States, but to the whole world; it concerns, not a nation,
but all mankind. If those nations whose social condition is democratic
could only remain free as long as they are inhabitants of