e person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority
in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public
opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member of the
community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it.
They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the
more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition
may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number
would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed
by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always be
extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in
the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public
opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its
ministering prophet.

Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be
diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that
it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action
of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to
the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of
equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind
of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him
from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain
laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a
democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken
all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind
would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.

If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by
democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or
retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would
only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of
independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new
dress for servitude. There is--and I cannot repeat it too often--there
is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom
as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For
myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but
little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass
beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a million
of