cratic revolution which we
are undergoing without having experienced the revolution itself. The
emigrants who fixed themselves on the shores of America in the beginning
of the seventeenth century severed the democratic principle from all
the principles which repressed it in the old communities of Europe, and
transplanted it unalloyed to the New World. It has there been allowed to
spread in perfect freedom, and to put forth its consequences in the laws
by influencing the manners of the country.

It appears to me beyond a doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive,
like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions. But I
do not conclude from this that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw
the same political consequences which the Americans have derived from
a similar social organization. I am far from supposing that they have
chosen the only form of government which a democracy may adopt; but the
identity of the efficient cause of laws and manners in the two countries
is sufficient to account for the immense interest we have in becoming
acquainted with its effects in each of them.

It is not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I have
examined America; my wish has been to find instruction by which we may
ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine that I have intended to write a
panegyric will perceive that such was not my design; nor has it been
my object to advocate any form of government in particular, for I am
of opinion that absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any
legislation; I have not even affected to discuss whether the social
revolution, which I believe to be irresistible, is advantageous or
prejudicial to mankind; I have acknowledged this revolution as a fact
already accomplished or on the eve of its accomplishment; and I have
selected the nation, from amongst those which have undergone it, in
which its development has been the most peaceful and the most complete,
in order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be possible, to
distinguish the means by which it may be rendered profitable. I confess
that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy
itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its
passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its
progress.

In the first part of this work I have attempted to show the tendency
given to the laws by the democracy of America, which is abandoned almost
with