a general and permanent feeling amongst democratic
nations. It may be remarked, that at the present day the lower orders in
England are striving with all their might to destroy local independence,
and to transfer the administration from all points of the circumference
to the centre; whereas the higher classes are endeavoring to retain this
administration within its ancient boundaries. I venture to predict that
a time will come when the very reverse will happen.

These observations explain why the supreme power is always stronger, and
private individuals weaker, amongst a democratic people which has passed
through a long and arduous struggle to reach a state of equality than
amongst a democratic community in which the citizens have been equal
from the first. The example of the Americans completely demonstrates
the fact. The inhabitants of the United States were never divided by
any privileges; they have never known the mutual relation of master and
inferior, and as they neither dread nor hate each other, they have never
known the necessity of calling in the supreme power to manage their
affairs. The lot of the Americans is singular: they have derived from
the aristocracy of England the notion of private rights and the taste
for local freedom; and they have been able to retain both the one and
the other, because they have had no aristocracy to combat.

If at all times education enables men to defend their independence, this
is most especially true in democratic ages. When all men are alike, it
is easy to found a sole and all-powerful government, by the aid of
mere instinct. But men require much intelligence, knowledge, and art to
organize and to maintain secondary powers under similar circumstances,
and to create amidst the independence and individual weakness of the
citizens such free associations as may be in a condition to struggle
against tyranny without destroying public order.

Hence the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will
increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion
as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance. It
is true, that in ages of imperfect civilization the government is
frequently as wanting in the knowledge required to impose a despotism
upon the people as the people are wanting in the knowledge required to
shake it off; but the effect is not the same on both sides. However rude
a democratic people may be, the central power which rule