
Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)

If this kind of government appears to me to be useful and rational, I am nevertheless constrained to admit that it is expensive.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
It is to be observed that whenever the exclusive right of regulating certain matters is not reserved to Congress by the Constitution, the States may take up the affair until it is brought before the National Assembly.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
The time may be already anticipated at which the American Republics will be obliged to introduce the plan of election by an elected body more frequently into their system of representation, or they will incur no small risk of perishing miserably amongst the shoals of democracy.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
When a community really has a mixed government, that is to say, when it is equally divided between two adverse principles, it must either pass through a revolution or fall into complete dissolution.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
absolute power an authority peculiar to itself, did it, as I conceive, an undeserved honor; for despotism, taken by itself, can produce no durable results. On close inspection we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government. Whatever exertions may be made, no true power can b
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but I learned from their discourses that men are not guilty in the eye of God for any opinions concerning political government which they may profess with sincerity, any more than they are for their mistakes in building a house or in driving a furrow.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
Its average population is from two to three thousand; *a so that, on the one hand, the interests of its inhabitants are not likely to conflict, and, on the other, men capable of conducting its affairs are always to be found among its citizens.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
the obligation which has been imposed of attacking the laws through the courts of justice alone.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
He will inform you what his rights are, and by what means he exercises them; he will be able to point out the customs which obtain in the political world. You will find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the administration, and that he is familiar with the mechanism of the laws.