ip each of them of several of the highest
qualities of humanity. Despotism therefore appears to me peculiarly to
be dreaded in democratic ages. I should have loved freedom, I believe,
at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship
it. On the other hand, I am persuaded that all who shall attempt, in
the ages upon which we are entering, to base freedom upon aristocratic
privilege, will fail--that all who shall attempt to draw and to retain
authority within a single class, will fail. At the present day no ruler
is skilful or strong enough to found a despotism, by re-establishing
permanent distinctions of rank amongst his subjects: no legislator is
wise or powerful enough to preserve free institutions, if he does not
take equality for his first principle and his watchword. All those of
our contemporaries who would establish or secure the independence and
the dignity of their fellow-men, must show themselves the friends of
equality; and the only worthy means of showing themselves as such, is to
be so: upon this depends the success of their holy enterprise. Thus the
question is not how to reconstruct aristocratic society, but how to make
liberty proceed out of that democratic state of society in which God has
placed us.

These two truths appear to me simple, clear, and fertile in
consequences; and they naturally lead me to consider what kind of
free government can be established amongst a people in which social
conditions are equal. It results from the very constitution of
democratic nations and from their necessities, that the power of
government amongst them must be more uniform, more centralized, more
extensive, more searching, and more efficient than in other countries.
Society at large is naturally stronger and more active, individuals more
subordinate and weak; the former does more, the latter less; and this is
inevitably the case. It is not therefore to be expected that the range
of private independence will ever be as extensive in democratic as
in aristocratic countries--nor is this to be desired; for, amongst
aristocratic nations, the mass is often sacrificed to the individual,
and the prosperity of the greater number to the greatness of the few.
It is both necessary and desirable that the government of a democratic
people should be active and powerful: and our object should not be to
render it weak or indolent, but solely to prevent it from abusing its
aptitude and its strength.

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