true children of the
wilderness; their mother watches them from time to time with mingled
melancholy and joy: to look at their strength and her languor, one might
imagine that the life she has given them has exhausted her own, and
still she regrets not what they have cost her. The house inhabited by
these emigrants has no internal partition or loft. In the one chamber
of which it consists, the whole family is gathered for the night. The
dwelling is itself a little world--an ark of civilization amidst an
ocean of foliage: a hundred steps beyond it the primeval forest spreads
its shades, and solitude resumes its sway."

Appendix T

It is not the equality of conditions which makes men immoral and
irreligious; but when men, being equal, are at the same time immoral and
irreligious, the effects of immorality and irreligion easily manifest
themselves outwardly, because men have but little influence upon each
other, and no class exists which can undertake to keep society in order.
Equality of conditions never engenders profligacy of morals, but it
sometimes allows that profligacy to show itself.

Appendix U

Setting aside all those who do not think at all, and those who dare not
say what they think, the immense majority of the Americans will still be
found to appear satisfied with the political institutions by which they
are governed; and, I believe, really to be so. I look upon this state
of public opinion as an indication, but not as a demonstration, of
the absolute excellence of American laws. The pride of a nation, the
gratification of certain ruling passions by the law, a concourse of
circumstances, defects which escape notice, and more than all the rest,
the influence of a majority which shuts the mouth of all cavillers, may
long perpetuate the delusions of a people as well as those of a man.
Look at England throughout the eighteenth century. No nation was ever
more prodigal of self-applause, no people was ever more self-satisfied;
then every part of its constitution was right--everything, even to its
most obvious defects, was irreproachable: at the present day a vast
number of Englishmen seem to have nothing better to do than to
prove that this constitution was faulty in many respects. Which was
right?--the English people of the last century, or the English people of
the present day?

The same thing has occurred in France. It is certain that during the
reign of Louis XIV the great bulk of the nation w