American Institutions And Their Influence

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The absence of this new species of confederation has been the
cause which has brought all unions to civil war, to subjection,
or to a stagnant apathy; and the peoples which formed these
leagues have been either too dull to discern, or too
pusillanimous to apply this great remedy. The American
confederation perished by the same defects.

But the confederate states of America had been long accustomed to
form a portion of one empire before they had won their
independence: they had not contracted the habit of governing
themselves, and their national prejudices had not taken deep root
in their minds. Superior to the rest of the world in political
knowledge, and sharing that knowledge equally among themselves,
they were little agitated by the passions which generally oppose
the extension of federal authority in a nation, and those
passions were checked by the wisdom of the chief citizens.

The Americans applied the remedy with prudent firmness as soon as
they were conscious of the evil; they amended their laws, and
they saved their country.

* * * * *

ADVANTAGES OF THE FEDERAL SYSTEM IN GENERAL, AND ITS
SPECIAL UTILITY IN AMERICA.

Happiness and Freedom of small Nations.--Power of Great
Nations.--Great Empires favorable to the Growth of
Civilisation.--Strength often the first Element of national
Prosperity.--Aim of the federal System to unite the twofold
Advantages resulting from a small and from a large
Territory.--Advantages derived by the United States from this
System.--The Law adapts itself to the Exigencies of the
Population; Population does not conform to the Exigencies of
the Law.--Activity, Melioration, Love, and Enjoyment of Freedom
in the American Communities.--Public Spirit of the Union the
abstract of provincial Patriotism.--Principles and Things
circulate freely over the Territory of the United States.--The
Union is happy and free as a little Nation, and respected as a
great Empire.

In small nations the scrutiny of society penetrates into every
part, and the spirit of improvement enters into the most trifling
details; as the ambition of the people is necessarily checked by
its weakness, all the efforts and resources of the citizens are
turned to the internal benefit of the community, and are not
likely to evaporate in the fleeting breath of glory. The desires
of every individual are limited, because extraordinary faculties
are rarely to be met with. The gifts of an equal fortune render
the various conditions of life uniform; and the manners of the
inhabitants are orderly and simple. Thus, if we estimate the
gradations of popular morality and enlightenment, we shall
generally find that in small nations there are more persons in
easy circumstances, a more numerous population, and a more
tranquil state of society than in great empires.

When tyranny is established in the bosom of a small nation, it is
more galling than elsewhere, because, as it acts within a narrow
circle, every point of that circle is subject to its direct
influence. It supplies the place of those great designs which it
cannot entertain, by a violent or an exasperating interference in
a multitude of minute details; and it leaves the political world
to which it properly belongs, to meddle with the arrangements of
domestic life. Tastes as well as actions are to be regulated at
its pleasure; and the families of the citizens as well as the
affairs of the state are to be governed by its decisions. This
invasion of rights occurs, however, but seldom, and freedom is in
truth the natural state of small communities. The temptations
which the government offers to ambition are too weak, and the
resources of private individuals are too slender, for the
sovereign power easily to fall within the grasp of a single
citizen: and should such an event have occurred, the subjects of
the state can without difficulty overthrow the tyrant and his
oppression by a simultaneous effort.

Small nations have therefore ever been the cradles of political
liberty: and the fact that many of them have lost their
immunities by extending their dominion, shows that the freedom
they enjoyed was more a consequence of their inferior size than
of the character of the people.

The history of the world affords no instance of a great nation
retaining the form of a republican government for a long series
of years,[Footnote:

I do not speak of a confederation of small republics, but of a
great consolidated republic.

] and this had led to the conclusion that such a state of things
is impracticable. For my own part, I cannot but censure the
imprudence of attempting to limit the possible, and to judge the
future, on the part of a being who is hourly deceived by the most
palpable realities of life, and who is constantly taken by
surprise in the circumstances with which he is most familiar.
But it may be advanced with confidence that the existence of a
great republic will always be exposed to far greater perils than
that of a small one.

All the passions which are most fatal to republican institutions
spread with an increasing territory, while the virtues which
maintain their dignity do not augment in the same proportion.
The ambition of the citizens increases with the power of the
state; the strength of parties, with the importance of the ends
they have in view; but that devotion to the common weal, which is
the surest check on destructive passions, is not stronger in a
large than in a small republic. It might, indeed, be proved
without difficulty that it is less powerful and less sincere.
The arrogance of wealth and the dejection of wretchedness,
capital cities of unwonted extent, a lax morality, a vulgar
egotism, and a great confusion of interests, are the dangers
which almost invariably arise from the magnitude of states. But
several of these evils are scarcely prejudicial to a monarchy,
and some of them contribute to maintain its existence. In
monarchical states the strength of the government is its own; it
may use, but it does not depend on, the community: and the
authority of the prince is proportioned to the prosperity of the
nation: but the only security which a republican government
possesses against these evils lies in the support of the
majority. This support is not, however, proportionably greater
in a large republic than it is in a small one; and thus while the
means of attack perpetually increase both in number and in
influence, the power of resistance remains the same; or it may
rather be said to diminish, since the propensities and interests
of the people are diversified by the increase of the population,
and the difficulty of forming a compact majority is constantly
augmented. It has been observed, moreover, that the intensity of
human passions is heightened, not only by the importance of the
end which they propose to attain, but by the multitude of
individuals who are animated by them at the same time. Every one
has had occasion to remark that his emotions in the midst of a
sympathizing crowd are far greater than those which he would have
felt in solitude. In great republics the impetus of political
passion is irresistible, not only because it aims at gigantic
purposes, but because it is felt and shared by millions of men at
the same time.

It may therefore be asserted as a general proposition, that
nothing is more opposed to the well-being and the freedom of man
than vast empires. Nevertheless it is important to acknowledge
the peculiar advantages of great states. For the very reason
which renders the desire of power more intense in these
communities than among ordinary men, the love of glory is also
more prominent in the hearts of a class of citizens, who regard
the applause of a great people as a reward worthy of their
exertions, and an elevating encouragement to man. If we would
learn why it is that great nations contribute more powerfully to
the spread of human improvement than small states, we shall
discover an adequate cause in the rapid and energetic circulation
of ideas, and in those great cities which are the intellectual
centres where all the rays of human genius are reflected and
combined. To this it may be added that most important
discoveries demand a display of national power which the
government of a small state is unable to make; in great nations
the government entertains a greater number of general notions,
and is more completely disengaged from the routine of precedent
and the egotism of local prejudice; its designs are conceived
with more talent, and executed with more boldness.

In time of peace the well-being of small nations is undoubtedly
more general and more complete; but they are apt to suffer more
acutely from the calamities of war than those great empires whose
distant frontiers may for ages avert the presence of the danger
from the mass of the people, which is more frequently afflicted
than ruined by the evil.

But in this matter, as in many others, the argument derived from
the necessity of the case predominates over all others. If none
but small nations existed, I do not doubt that mankind would be
more happy and more free; but the existence of great nations is
unavoidable.

This consideration introduces the element of physical strength as
a condition of national prosperity.

It profits a people but little to be affluent and free, if it is
perpetually exposed to be pillaged or subjugated; the number of
its manufactures and the extent of its commerce are of small
advantage, if another nation has the empire of the seas and gives
the law in all the markets of the globe. Small nations are often
impoverished, not because they are small, but because they are
weak; and great empires prosper less because they are great than
because they are strong. Physical strength is therefore one of
the first conditions of the happiness and even of the existence
of nations. Hence it occurs, that unless very peculiar
circumstances intervene, small nations are always united to large
empires in the end, either by force or by their own consent; yet
I am unacquainted with a more deplorable spectacle than that of a
people unable either to defend or to maintain its independence.

The federal system was created with the intention of combining
the different advantages which result from the greater and the
lesser extent of nations; and a single glance over the United
States of America suffices to discover the advantages which they
have derived from its adoption.

In great centralized nations the legislator is obliged to impart
a character of uniformity to the laws, which does not always suit
the diversity of customs and of districts; as he takes no
cognizance of special cases, he can only proceed upon general
principles; and the population is obligated to conform to the
exigencies of the legislation, since the legislation cannot adapt
itself to the exigencies and customs of the population; which is
the cause of endless trouble and misery. This disadvantage does
not exist in confederations; congress regulates the principal
measures of the national government, and all the details of the
administration are reserved to the provincial legislatures. It
is impossible to imagine how much this division of sovereignty
contributes to the well-being of each of the states which compose
the Union. In these small communities, which are never agitated
by the desire of aggrandizement or the cares of self-defence, all
public authority and private energy is employed in internal
melioration. The central government of each state, which is in
immediate juxtaposition to the citizens, is daily apprised of the
wants which arise in society; and new projects are proposed every
year, which are discussed either at town-meetings or by the
legislature of the state, and which are transmitted by the press
to stimulate the zeal and to excite the interest of the citizens.
This spirit of melioration is constantly alive in the American
republics, without compromising their tranquillity; the ambition
of power yields to the less refined and less dangerous love of
comfort. It is generally believed in America that the existence
and the permanence of the republican form of government in the
New World depend upon the existence and the permanence of the
federal system; and it is not unusual to attribute a large share
of the misfortunes which have befallen the new states of South
America to the injudicious erection of great republics, instead
of a divided and confederate sovereignty.

It is incontestably true that the love and the habits of
republican government in the United States were engendered in the
townships and the provincial assemblies. In a small state, like
that of Connecticut for instance, where cutting a canal or laying
down a road is a momentous political question, where the state
has no army to pay and no wars to carry on, and where much wealth
and much honor cannot be bestowed upon the chief citizens, no
form of government can be more natural or more appropriate than
that of a republic. But it is the same republican spirit, it is
these manners and customs of a free people, which are engendered
and nurtured in the different states, to be afterward applied to
the country at large. The public spirit of the Union is, so to
speak, nothing more than an abstract of the patriotic zeal of the
provinces. Every citizen of the United States transfuses his
attachment to his little republic into the common store of
American patriotism. In defending the Union, he defends the
increasing prosperity of his own district, the right of
conducting its affairs, and the hope of causing measures of
improvement to be adopted which may be favorable to his own
interests; and these are motives which are wont to stir men more
readily than the general interests of the country and the glory
of the nation.

On the other hand, if the temper and the manners of the
inhabitants especially fitted them to promote the welfare of a
great republic, the federal system smoothed the obstacles which
they might have encountered. The confederation of all the
American states presents none of the ordinary disadvantages
resulting from great agglomerations of men. The Union is a great
republic in extent, but the paucity of objects for which its
government provides assimilates it to a small state. Its acts
are important, but they are rare. As the sovereignty of the
Union is limited and incomplete, its exercise is not incompatible
with liberty; for it does not excite those insatiable desires of
fame and power which have proved so fatal to great republics. As
there is no common centre to the country, vast capital cities,
colossal wealth, abject poverty, and sudden revolutions are alike
unknown; and political passion, instead of spreading over the
land like a torrent of desolation, spends its strength against
the interests and the individual passions of every state.

Nevertheless, all commodities and ideas circulate throughout the
Union as freely as in a country inhabited by one people. Nothing
checks the spirit of enterprise. The government avails itself of
the assistance of all who have talents or knowledge to serve it.
Within the frontiers of the Union the profoundest peace prevails,
as within the heart of some great empire; abroad, it ranks with
the most powerful nations of the earth: two thousand miles of
coast are open to the commerce of the world; and as it possesses
the keys of the globe, its flag is respected in the most remote
seas. The Union is as happy and as free as a small people, and
as glorious and as strong as a great nation.

* * * * *

WHY THE FEDERAL SYSTEM IS NOT ADAPTED TO ALL PEOPLES,
AND HOW THE ANGLO-AMERICANS WERE ENABLED TO
ADOPT IT.

Every federal System contains defects which baffle the efforts of
the Legislator.--The federal System is complex.--It demands a
daily Exercise of Discretion on the Part of the
Citizens.--Practical knowledge of the Government common among
the Americans.--Relative weakness of the Government of the
Union another defect inherent in the federal System.--The
Americans have diminished without remedying it.--The
Sovereignty of the separate States apparently weaker, but
really stronger, than that of the Union.--Why.--Natural causes
of Union must exist between confederate Peoples beside the
Laws.--What these Causes are among the Anglo-Americans.--Maine
and Georgia, separated by a Distance of a thousand Miles, more
naturally united than Normandy and Britany.--War, the main
Peril of Confederations.--This proved even by the Example of
the United States.--The Union has no great Wars to
fear.--Why.--Dangers to which Europeans would be exposed if
they adopted the federal System of the Americans.

When a legislator succeeds, after persevering efforts, in
exercising an indirect influence upon the destiny of nations, his
genius is lauded by mankind, while in point of fact, the
geographical position of the country which he is unable to
change, a social condition which arose without his co-operation,
manners and opinions which he cannot trace to their source, and
an origin with which he is unacquainted, exercise so irresistible
an influence over the courses of society, that he is himself
borne away by the current, after an ineffectual resistance. Like
the navigator, he may direct the vessel which bears him along,
but he can neither change its structure, nor raise the winds, nor
lull the waters which swell beneath him.

I have shown the advantages which the Americans derive from their
federal system; it remains for me to point out the circumstances
which render that system practicable, as its benefits are not to
be enjoyed by all nations. The incidental defects of the federal
system which originate in the laws may be corrected by the skill
of the legislator, but there are farther evils inherent in the
system which cannot be counteracted by the peoples which adopt
it. These nations must therefore find the strength necessary to
support the natural imperfections of the government.

The most prominent evil of all federal systems is the very
complex nature of the means they employ. Two sovereignties are
necessarily in the presence of each other. The legislator may
simplify and equalize the action of these two sovereignties, by
limiting each of them to a sphere of authority accurately
defined; but he cannot combine them into one, or prevent them
from running into collision at certain points. The federal
system therefore rests upon a theory which is necessarily
complicated, and which demands the daily exercise of a
considerable share of discretion on the part of those it governs.

A proposition must be plain to be adopted by the understanding of
a people. A false notion, which is clear and precise, will
always meet with a greater number of adherents in the world than
a true principle which is obscure or involved. Hence it arises
that parties, which are like small communities in the heart of
the nation, invariably adopt some principle or some name as a
symbol, which very inadequately represents the end they have in
view, and the means which are at their disposal, but without
which they could neither act nor subsist. The governments which
are founded upon a single principle or a single feeling which is
easily defined, are perhaps not the best, but they are
unquestionably the strongest and the most durable in the world.

In examining the constitution of the United States, which is the
most perfect federal constitution that ever existed, one is
startled, on the other hand, at the variety of information and
the excellence of discretion which it presupposes in the people
whom it is meant to govern. The government of the Union depends
entirely upon legal fictions; the Union is an ideal notion which
only exists in the mind, and whose limits and extent can only be
discerned by the understanding.

When once the general theory is comprehended, numerous
difficulties remain to be solved in its application; for the
sovereignty of the Union is so involved in that of the states,
that it is impossible to distinguish its boundaries at the first
glance. The whole structure of the government is artificial and
conventional; and it would be ill-adapted to a people which has
not long been accustomed to conduct its own affairs, or to one in
which the science of politics has not descended to the humblest
classes of society. I have never been more struck by the good
sense and the practical judgment of the Americans than in the
ingenious devices by which they elude the numberless difficulties
resulting from their federal constitution. I scarcely ever met
with a plain American citizen who could not distinguish, with
surprising facility, the obligations created by the laws of
congress from those created by the laws of his own state; and
who, after having discriminated between the matters which come
under the cognizance of the Union, and those which the local
legislature is competent to regulate, could not point out the
exact limit of the several jurisdictions of the federal courts
and the tribunals of the state.

The constitution of the United States is like those exquisite
productions of human industry which ensure wealth and renown to
their inventors, but which are profitless in any other hands.
This truth is exemplified by the condition of Mexico at the
present time. The Mexicans were desirous of establishing a
federal system, and they took the federal constitution of their
neighbors the Anglo-Americans as their model, and copied it with
considerable accuracy.[Footnote:

See the Mexican constitution of 1824.

] But although they had borrowed the letter of the law, they
were unable to create or to introduce the spirit and the sense
which gave it life. They were involved in ceaseless
embarrassments between the mechanism of their double government;
the sovereignty of the states and that of the Union perpetually
exceeded their respective privileges, and entered into collision;
and to the present day Mexico is alternately the victim of
anarchy and the slave of military despotism.

The second and the most fatal of all the defects I have alluded
to, and that which I believe to be inherent in the federal
system, is the relative weakness of the government of the Union.
The principle upon which all confederations rest is that of a
divided sovereignty. The legislator may render this partition
less perceptible, he may even conceal it for a time from the
public eye, but he cannot prevent it from existing; and a divided
sovereignty must always be less powerful than an entire
supremacy. The reader has seen in the remarks I have made on the
constitution of the United States, that the Americans have
displayed singular ingenuity in combining the restriction of the
power of the Union within the narrow limits of the federal
government, with the semblance, and to a certain extent with the
force of a national government. By this means the legislators of
the Union have succeeded in diminishing, though not in
counteracting, the natural danger of confederations.

It has been remarked that the American government does not apply
itself to the states, but that it immediately transmits its
injunctions to the citizens, and compels them as isolated
individuals to comply with its demands. But if the federal law
were to clash with the interests and prejudices of a state, it
might be feared that all the citizens of that state would
conceive themselves to be interested in the cause of a single
individual who should refuse to obey. If all the citizens of the
state were aggrieved at the same time and in the same manner by
the authority of the Union, the federal government would vainly
attempt to subdue them individually; they would instinctively
unite in the common defence, and they would derive a
ready-prepared organization from the share of sovereignty which
the institution of their state allows them to enjoy. Fiction
would give way to reality, and an organized portion of the
territory might then contest the central authority.

The same observation holds good with regard to the federal
jurisdiction. If the courts of the Union violated an important
law of a state in a private case, the real, if not the apparent
contest would arise between the aggrieved state, represented by a
citizen, and the Union, represented by its courts of
justice.[Footnote:

For instance, the Union possesses by the constitution the right
of selling unoccupied lands for its own profit. Supposing that
the state of Ohio should claim the same right in behalf of
certain territories lying within its boundaries, upon the plea
that the constitution refers to those lands alone which do not
belong to the jurisdiction of any particular state, and
consequently should choose to dispose of them itself, the
litigation would be carried on in the name of the purchasers from
the state of Ohio, and the purchasers from the Union, and not in
the names of Ohio and the Union. But what would become of this
legal fiction if the federal purchaser was confirmed in his right
by the courts of the Union, while the other competitor was
ordered to retain possession by the tribunals of the state of
Ohio?