is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded. The first, which modifies secondary laws, is not incom patible with a very settled state of society. The other shakes the very foundations of the Constitution, and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation; this species of instability is always followed by troubles and revolutions, and the nation which suffers under it is in a violent and transitory state. Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability have no necessary connection; for they have been found united or separate, according to times and circumstances. The first is common in the United States, but not the second: the Americans often change their laws, but the foundations of the Constitution are respected. In our days, the republican principle rules in America, as the monarchical principle did in France under LouisXIV. The French of that period were not only friends of the monarchy, but thought it impossible to put anything in its place; they received it as we receive the rays of the sun and the return of the seasons. Amongst them the royal power had neither advocates nor opponents. In like manner does the republican government exist in America, without contention or opposition, without proofs or arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort of consensus universalis. It is, however, my opinion, that, by changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the stability of their government. It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their designs by the mutability of legislation, will learn to look upon the republic as an inconvenient form of society; the evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and indirectly bring about a revolution; but this epoch is still very remote. It may be foreseen even now, that, when the Americans lose their republican institutions, they will speedily arrive at a despotic government, without a long interval of limited monarchy. Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more absolute than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the indefinite powers which had fearlessly been intrusted to an elected magistrate are then transferred to an hereditary sovereign. This is true in general, but it is more peculiarly applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, the magistrates are not elected by a particular class of citizens, but by the majority of the nation; as they are the immédiate representatives of the passions of the multitude, and are wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they excite neither hatred nor fear: hence, as I have already shown, very little care has been taken to limit their authority, and they are left in possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of things has created habits which would outlive itself; the American magistrate would retain his indefinite power, but would cease to be responsible for it; and it is impossible to say what bounds could then be set to tyranny. Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise in America, and already predict the exact period at which it will assume the reins of government. I have previously observed, and I repeat it, that the present tendency of American society appears to me to become more and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of political rights, or confiscate those rights to the advantage of a single man; but I cannot believe that they will ever give the exclusive use of them to a privileged class of citizens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an aristocracy. An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens, who, without being very far removed from the - mass of the people, are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above them;-a body which it is easy to touch, and difficult to strike, with which the people are indaily contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature and to the secret instincts of the human heart, than a subjectionof this kind; and men who are left to follow their own bent will always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to the regular administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic institutions cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, legalizing it beforehand, and introducing it into the family as well as into society; but these are things so repugnant to natural equity, that they can only be extorted from men by constraint. I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society began to exist, which has, by its own free will and its own exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the aristocracies of the Middle Ages were founded by military conquest; the conqueror was the noble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequality was then imposed by force; and after it had been once introduced into the manners of the country, it maintained itself, and passed naturally into the laws. Communities have existed which were aristocratic from their earliest origin, owing to circumstances anterior to that event, and which became more democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the lot of the Romans, and of the barbarians after them. But a people, having taken its rise in civilization and democracy, which should gradually establish inequality of condition, until it arrived at inviolable privileges and exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing indicates that America is likely to be the first to furnish such an example. SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY OF THE UNITED STATES. The Americans destined by Nature to be a great Maritime People. - Extent of their Coasts. -Depth of their Ports.—Size of their Rivers. The Commercial Superiority of the Anglo-Americans less attributable, however, to Physical Circumstances, than to Moral and Intellectual Causes. - Reason of this Opinion. - Future of the Anglo-Americans as a Commercial Nation. - The Dissolution of the Union would not check the Maritime Vigor of the States. Reason of this. - Anglo-Americans will naturally supply the Wants of the Inhabitants of South America. They will become, like the English, the Factors of a great Portion of the World. THE coast of the United States, from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine River in the Gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand miles in extent.* These shores form an unbroken line, and are all subject to the same government. No nation in the world possesses vaster, deeper, or more secure ports for commerce than the Americans. The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated country, at a distance of three thousand miles from the central point of civilization. America consequently stands in daily need of Europe. The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately succeed in producing or manufacturing at home most of the articles which they require; but the two continents can never be independent of each other, so numerous are the natural ties between their wants, their ideas, their habits, and their manners. The Union has peculiar commodities which have now become necessary to us, as they cannot be cultivated, or can be raised only at an enormous expense, upon the soil *It is hardly necessary to remind the American reader that the annexation of Texas, and the accession of Oregon and California on the Pacific, since M. de Tocqueville wrote, have made this coast-line half as long again. AM. ED. of Europe. The Americans consume only a small portion of this produce, and they are willing to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore the market of America, as America is the market of Europe; and maritime commerce is no less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the United States to transport their raw materials to the ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with our manufactured produce. The United States must therefore either furnish much business to other maritime nations, even if they should themselves renounce commerce, as the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done, or they must become one of the first maritime powers of the globe. The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a decided taste for the sea. The Declaration of Independence, by breaking the commercial bonds which united them to England, gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. Ever since that time, the shipping of the Union has increased almost as rapidly as the number of its inhabitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their own shores nine tenths of the European produce which they consume. And they also bring three quarters of the exports of the New World to the European consumer. The ships of the United States fill the docks of Havre and of Liverpool, whilst the number of English and French vessels at New York is comparatively small. Thus, not only does the American merchant brave competition on his own ground, but even successfully supports that of foreign nations in their own ports. This is readily explained by the fact, that the vessels of the United States cross the seas at a cheaper rate. As long as the mercantile shipping of the United States preserves this superiority, it will not only retain what it has acquired, but will constantly increase in prosperity. It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can navigate at a lower rate than other nations; one is at first |