I am well aware of the difficulties which attend this part
of my subject, but although every expression which I am about to
make use of may clash, upon some one point, with the feelings of
the different parties which divide my country, I shall speak my
opinion with the most perfect openness.
In Europe we are at a loss how to judge the true character
and the more permanent propensities of democracy, because in
Europe two conflicting principles exist, and we do not know what
to attribute to the principles themselves, and what to refer to
the passions which they bring into collision. Such, however, is
not the case in America; there the people reigns without any
obstacle, and it has no perils to dread and no injuries to
avenge. In America, democracy is swayed by its own free
propensities; its course is natural and its activity is
unrestrained; the United States consequently afford the most
favorable opportunity of studying its real character. And to no
people can this inquiry be more vitally interesting than to the
French nation, which is blindly driven onwards by a daily and
irresistible impulse towards a state of things which may prove
either despotic or republican, but which will assuredly be
democratic.
