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DEMOCRACY

IN

AMERICA.

"The very Deity itself both keepeth and requireth for ever this to be kept as a law, that wheresoever there is a coagmentation of many, the lowest be knit unto the highest by that which, being interjacent, may cause each to cleave to the other, and so all to continue one. This order of things in public societies is the work of policy, and the proper instrument thereof in every degree is Power; Power being that ability which we have of ourselves, or receive from others for performance of any action."-Hooker.

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.

BY

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE,

AVOCAT A LA COUR ROYALE DE PARIS,

ETC., ETC.

TRANSLATED BY

HENRY REEVE, Esq.

THIRD EDITION.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.

1838.

342.73
T6327

6.3 VI

426219

LONDON:

PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

IN presenting the translation of this work to the public, preceded by an Introduction in which the author calls the attention of the reader to the present social state of France, I may perhaps be allowed to say a few words on the inferences which are to be drawn from the democratic institutions of America relative to our own political condition. We live at a time when so many of the maxims of government are worn out, that in casting our eyes upon the aphorisms of the great statesmen of Europe, we are astonished to find that the authority they attempted to defend is vanished, and the principles by which they defended it are no more. The book of 'The Prince is closed for ever as a State manual;

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