n the bud or allow
them to be formed, as nobody would be able to foresee in what cases
associations might be established and in what cases they would be put
down, the spirit of association would be entirely paralyzed. The former
of these laws would only assail certain associations; the latter would
apply to society itself, and inflict an injury upon it. I can conceive
that a regular government may have recourse to the former, but I do not
concede that any government has the right of enacting the latter.]

It is therefore chimerical to suppose that the spirit of association,
when it is repressed on some one point, will nevertheless display
the same vigor on all others; and that if men be allowed to prosecute
certain undertakings in common, that is quite enough for them eagerly
to set about them. When the members of a community are allowed and
accustomed to combine for all purposes, they will combine as readily for
the lesser as for the more important ones; but if they are only allowed
to combine for small affairs, they will be neither inclined nor able
to effect it. It is in vain that you will leave them entirely free to
prosecute their business on joint-stock account: they will hardly care
to avail themselves of the rights you have granted to them; and, after
having exhausted your strength in vain efforts to put down prohibited
associations, you will be surprised that you cannot persuade men to form
the associations you encourage.

I do not say that there can be no civil associations in a country where
political association is prohibited; for men can never live in society
without embarking in some common undertakings: but I maintain that in
such a country civil associations will always be few in number, feebly
planned, unskillfully managed, that they will never form any vast
designs, or that they will fail in the execution of them.

This naturally leads me to think that freedom of association in
political matters is not so dangerous to public tranquillity as is
supposed; and that possibly, after having agitated society for some
time, it may strengthen the State in the end. In democratic countries
political associations are, so to speak, the only powerful persons who
aspire to rule the State. Accordingly, the governments of our time look
upon associations of this kind just as sovereigns in the Middle Ages
regarded the great vassals of the Crown: they entertain a sort of
instinctive abhorrence of them, and they combat t