to excite the warmest of human affections, without arousing the
ambitious passions of the heart of man. The officers of the country are
not elected, and their authority is very limited. Even the State is
only a second-rate community, whose tranquil and obscure administration
offers no inducement sufficient to draw men away from the circle
of their interests into the turmoil of public affairs. The federal
government confers power and honor on the men who conduct it; but
these individuals can never be very numerous. The high station of the
Presidency can only be reached at an advanced period of life, and the
other federal functionaries are generally men who have been favored
by fortune, or distinguished in some other career. Such cannot be the
permanent aim of the ambitious. But the township serves as a centre for
the desire of public esteem, the want of exciting interests, and
the taste for authority and popularity, in the midst of the ordinary
relations of life; and the passions which commonly embroil society
change their character when they find a vent so near the domestic hearth
and the family circle.

In the American States power has been disseminated with admirable skill
for the purpose of interesting the greatest possible number of persons
in the common weal. Independently of the electors who are from time to
time called into action, the body politic is divided into innumerable
functionaries and officers, who all, in their several spheres, represent
the same powerful whole in whose name they act. The local administration
thus affords an unfailing source of profit and interest to a vast number
of individuals.

The American system, which divides the local authority among so many
citizens, does not scruple to multiply the functions of the town
officers. For in the United States it is believed, and with truth,
that patriotism is a kind of devotion which is strengthened by ritual
observance. In this manner the activity of the township is continually
perceptible; it is daily manifested in the fulfilment of a duty or the
exercise of a right, and a constant though gentle motion is thus kept up
in society which animates without disturbing it.

The American attaches himself to his home as the mountaineer clings to
his hills, because the characteristic features of his country are there
more distinctly marked than elsewhere. The existence of the townships
of New England is in general a happy one. Their government is suited