s felt by those who rise, by whatsoever means, above the crowd.
Trade is the only road open to them. In democracies nothing is more
great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of
the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic
passions are directed towards it. Neither their own prejudices, nor
those of anybody else, can prevent the rich from devoting themselves
to it. The wealthy members of democracies never form a body which has
manners and regulations of its own; the opinions peculiar to their class
do not restrain them, and the common opinions of their country urge them
on. Moreover, as all the large fortunes which are to be met with in a
democratic community are of commercial growth, many generations must
succeed each other before their possessors can have entirely laid aside
their habits of business.

Circumscribed within the narrow space which politics leave them, rich
men in democracies eagerly embark in commercial enterprise: there they
can extend and employ their natural advantages; and indeed it is even by
the boldness and the magnitude of their industrial speculations that we
may measure the slight esteem in which productive industry would have
been held by them, if they had been born amidst an aristocracy.

A similar observation is likewise applicable to all men living in
democracies, whether they be poor or rich. Those who live in the midst
of democratic fluctuations have always before their eyes the phantom of
chance; and they end by liking all undertakings in which chance plays a
part. They are therefore all led to engage in commerce, not only for
the sake of the profit it holds out to them, but for the love of the
constant excitement occasioned by that pursuit.

The United States of America have only been emancipated for half a
century [in 1840] from the state of colonial dependence in which they
stood to Great Britain; the number of large fortunes there is small, and
capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world has made such rapid
progress in trade and manufactures as the Americans: they constitute at
the present day the second maritime nation in the world; and although
their manufactures have to struggle with almost insurmountable natural
impediments, they are not prevented from making great and daily
advances. In the United States the greatest undertakings and
speculations are executed without difficulty, because the whole
population is engaged in pr