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CHAPTER XIII.
GOVERNMENT OF THE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.
I am well aware of the difficulties which attend this part of my
subject; but although every expression which I am about to make
use of may clash, upon some one point, with the feelings of the
different parties which divide my country, I shall speak my opinion
with the most perfect openness.
In Europe we are at a loss how to judge the true character and the more permanent propensities of democracy, because in Europe two conflicting principles exist, and we do not know what to attribute to the principles themselves, and what to refer to the passions which they bring into collision. Such, however, is not the case in America; there the people reigns without any obstacle, and it has no perils to dread, and no injuries to avenge. In America, democracy is swayed by its own free propensities; its course is natural, and its activity is unrestrained: the United States consequently afford the most favourable opportunity of studying its real character. And to no people can this inquiry be more vitally interesting than to the French nation, which is blindly driven onward by a daily and irresistible impulse, toward a state of things which may prove either despotic or repubhcan, but which will assuredly be democratic.
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.
I have already observed that universal suffrage has been adopted
in all the states of the Union: it consequently occurs among dif-
