American Institutions and Their Influence | Page 6

providential Causes which contribute to the Maintenance of the democratic Republic in the United States. Influence of the Laws upon the Maintenance of the democratic Republic in the United States. Influence of Manners upon the Maintenance of the democratic Republic in the United States. Religion considered as a political Institution, which powerfully Contributes to the Maintenance of the democratic Republic among the Americans. Indirect Influence of religious Opinions upon political Society in the United States. Principal Causes which render Religion powerful in America. How the Instruction, the Habits, and the practical Experience of the Americans, promote the Success of their democratic Institutions. The Laws contribute more to the Maintenance of the democratic Republic in the United States than the physical Circumstances of the Country, and the Manners more than the Laws. Whether Laws and Manners are sufficient to maintain democratic Institutions in other Countries beside America. Importance of what precedes with respect to the State of Europe.

CHAPTER XVIII
. The present and probable future Condition of the three Races which Inhabit the Territory of the United States. The present and probable future Condition of the Indian Tribes which Inhabit the Territory possessed by the Union. Situation of the black Population in the United States, and Dangers with which its Presence threatens the Whites. What are the Chances in favor of the Duration of the American Union, and what Dangers threaten it. Of the republican Institutions of the United States, and what their Chances of Duration are. Reflections on the Causes of the commercial Prosperity of the United States. Conclusion.
Appendix
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION.
Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed.
I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over the government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce.
The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.
I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily advancing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States; and that the democracy which governs the American communities, appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe.
I hence conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader.
It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going on among us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.
Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided among a small number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of the inhabitants; the fight of governing descended with the family inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only means by which man could act on man; and landed property was the sole source of power.
Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded, and began to exert itself; the clergy opened its ranks to all classes, to the poor and the rich, the villain and the lord; equality penetrated into the government through the church, and the being who, as a serf, must have vegetated in perpetual bondage, took his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and not unfrequently above the heads of kings.
The different relations of men became more complicated and more numerous, as society gradually became more stable and more civilized. Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal functionaries soon rose from the obscurity of the tribunals and their dusty chambers, to appear at the court of the monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in their ermine and their mail.
While the kings were ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the