life, when that condition is altered nothing
whatever remains of the thought or feeling. Thus a law may bind two
members of the community very closely to one another; but that law being
abolished, they stand asunder. Nothing was more strict than the tie
which united the vassal to the lord under the feudal system; at the
present day the two men know not each other; the fear, the gratitude,
and the affection which formerly connected them have vanished, and not
a vestige of the tie remains. Such, however, is not the case with those
feelings which are natural to mankind. Whenever a law attempts to tutor
these feelings in any particular manner, it seldom fails to weaken them;
by attempting to add to their intensity, it robs them of some of their
elements, for they are never stronger than when left to themselves.

Democracy, which destroys or obscures almost all the old conventional
rules of society, and which prevents men from readily assenting to new
ones, entirely effaces most of the feelings to which these conventional
rules have given rise; but it only modifies some others, and frequently
imparts to them a degree of energy and sweetness unknown before. Perhaps
it is not impossible to condense into a single proposition the whole
meaning of this chapter, and of several others that preceded it.
Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of nature more
tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the
various members of the community more widely apart.

Chapter IX: Education Of Young Women In The United States

No free communities ever existed without morals; and, as I observed
in the former part of this work, morals are the work of woman.
Consequently, whatever affects the condition of women, their habits
and their opinions, has great political importance in my eyes. Amongst
almost all Protestant nations young women are far more the mistresses of
their own actions than they are in Catholic countries. This independence
is still greater in Protestant countries, like England, which have
retained or acquired the right of self-government; the spirit of freedom
is then infused into the domestic circle by political habits and by
religious opinions. In the United States the doctrines of Protestantism
are combined with great political freedom and a most democratic state
of society; and nowhere are young women surrendered so early or so
completely to their own guidance. Long before an American gir