onounced equal), that they all should have an equal chance of
raising themselves by their talents and perseverance; but, when so many
competitors are permitted to enter the field, few can arrive at the
goal, and the mass are doomed to disappointment. However fair,
therefore, it may be to admit all to the competition, certain it is that
the competition cannot add to the happiness of a people, when we
consider the feelings of bitterness and ill-will naturally engendered
among the disappointed multitude.

In monarchical and aristocratical institutions, the middling and lower
classes, whose chances of advancement are so small that they seldom lift
their eyes or thoughts above their own sphere, are therefore much
happier, and it may be added, much more virtuous than those who struggle
continually for preferment in the tumultuous sea of democracy. Wealth
can give some importance, but wealth in a democracy gives an importance
which is so common to many that it loses much of its value; and when it
has been acquired, it is not sufficient for the restless ambition of the
American temperament, which will always spurn wealth for power. The
effects, therefore, of a democracy are, first to raise an inordinate
ambition among the people, and then to cramp the very ambition which it
has raised; and, as I may comment upon hereafter, it appears as if this
ambition of the people, _individually_ checked by the nature of their
institutions, becomes, as it were, concentrated and collected into a
focus in upholding and contemplating the success and increase of power
in the federal government. Thus has been produced a species of
demoralising reaction; the disappointed _units_ to a certain degree
satisfying themselves with any advance in the power and importance of
the whole Union, wholly regardless of the means by which such increase
may have been obtained.

But this unsatisfied ambition has found another vent in the formation of
many powerful religious and other associations. In a country where
there will ever be an attempt of the people to tyrannise over everybody
and everything, power they will have; and if they cannot obtain it in
the various departments of the States Governments, they will have it in
opposition to the Government; for all these societies and associations
connect themselves directly with politics. [See Note 1.] It is of
little consequence by what description of tie "these sticks in the
fable" are bound up together; on