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CHAPTER XIII.
THAT THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY NATURALLY DIVIDES THE AMERICANS
INTO A NUMBER OF SMALL PRIVATE CIRCLES.
It may probably be supposed, that the final consequence and
necessary effect of democratic institutions is to confound together
all the members of the community in private as well as in public
life, and to compel them all to live in common; but this would be
to ascribe a very coarse and oppressive form to the equality which
originates in democracy. No state of society or laws can render
men so much alike, but that education, fortune, and tastes will
interpose some differences between them; and, though different men
may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same
purposes, they will never make it their pleasure. They will therefore
always tend to evade the provisions of legislation, whatever they
may be; and departing in some one respect from the circle within
which they were to be bounded, they will set up, close by the great
political community, small private circles, united together by the
similitude of their conditions, habits, and manners.
In the United States the citizens have no sort of pre-eminence over each other; they owe each other no mutual obedience or respect; they all meet for the administration of justice, for the government of the State, and in general to treat of the affairs which concern their common welfare; but I never heard that attempts have been made to bring them all to follow the same diversions, or to amuse themselves promiscuously in the same places of recreation.
The Americans, who mingle so readily in their political assemblies and courts of justice, are wont on the contrary carefully to separate into small distinct circles, in order to indulge by themselves in the enjoyments of private life. Each of them is willing to acknowledge all his fellow-citizens as his equals, but he will only receive a very limited number of them among his friends or
