more
indolent and more feeble. Thus democratic nations naturally stand more
in need of forms than other nations, and they naturally respect them
less. This deserves most serious attention. Nothing is more pitiful
than the arrogant disdain of most of our contemporaries for questions
of form; for the smallest questions of form have acquired in our time an
importance which they never had before: many of the greatest interests
of mankind depend upon them. I think that if the statesmen of
aristocratic ages could sometimes contemn forms with impunity, and
frequently rise above them, the statesmen to whom the government of
nations is now confided ought to treat the very least among them
with respect, and not neglect them without imperious necessity. In
aristocracies the observance of forms was superstitious; amongst us they
ought to be kept with a deliberate and enlightened deference.

Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and
extremely dangerous, is that which leads them ta despise and undervalue
the rights of private persons. The attachment which men feel to a right,
and the respect which they display for it, is generally proportioned to
its importance, or to the length of time during which they have enjoyed
it. The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are
commonly of small importance, of recent growth, and extremely
precarious--the consequence is that they are often sacrificed without
regret, and almost always violated without remorse. But it happens that
at the same period and amongst the same nations in which men conceive
a natural contempt for the rights of private persons, the rights of
society at large are naturally extended and consolidated: in other
words, men become less attached to private rights at the very time at
which it would be most necessary to retain and to defend what little
remains of them. It is therefore most especially in the present
democratic ages, that the true friends of the liberty and the greatness
of man ought constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of
government from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals
to the general execution of its designs. At such times no citizen is so
obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed--no
private rights are so unimportant that they can be surrendered with
impunity to the caprices of a government. The reason is plain:--if the
private right of an individual is violated