Democracy in America

Each day the princes of Europe hold their delegates in a stricter dependence, and they invent new methods to direct them more closely and oversee them with less trouble. It is not enough for them to conduct all affairs by their agents;

caprices

tutelary

see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls.

Thus, little by little the state becomes a debtor to most of the wealthy, and it centralizes the greatest capital sums in its own hands.

To create a national representation in a very centralized country is therefore to diminish the evil that extreme centralization can produce, but not to destroy it.

tutelage

Subjection in small affairs manifests itself every day and makes itself felt without distinction by all citizens. It does not make them desperate; but it constantly thwarts them and brings them to renounce the use of their wills. Thus little by little, it extinguishes their spirits and enervates their souls, whereas obedience, which is due only in

Despotism therefore appears to me particularly to be dreaded in democratic ages.