of power. He felt, on his imperial throne, which on another and public occasion he called wood and velvet unless occupied by him, and which was but another wording of Louis XIV.'s l'état c'est moi, that which all sultans have felt when their janizaries deposed them-he felt, that of all governments the czar-government is the most precarious. He felt what, with other important truths, Mr. de Tocqueville had the boldness to tell the national assembly, in a carefully considered report of a committee, in 1851, when he said:

"That people, of all nations in the whole world, which has indeed overthrown its government more frequently than any other, has, nevertheless, the habit, and feels more than any other the necessity of being ruled.

"The nations which have a federal existence, even those which, without having divided the sovereignty, possess an aristocracy, or who enjoy provincial liberties deeply rooted in their traditions-these nations are able to exist a long time with a feeble government, and even to support, for a certain period, the complete absence of a government. Each part of the people has its own life, which permits society to support itself for some time when the general life is suspended. But are we one of those nations? Have we not centralized all matters, and thus created of all governments that which, indeed, it is the easiest to upset, but with which it is at the same time the most difficult to dispense for a moment?"

1 The Memoirs of Count Miot, the first volumes of which have lately been published, show more in detail, than any other work, with what eagerness, consistency and boldness, Napoleon I. endeavored, step by step, to break down every guarantee of liberty which the French people had established. He did this so soon as he had been made consul for life, and succeeded, through the newly-established senate and council of state, in nearly all cases. When he attempted to abolish the trial by jury, supported as he was by his high law-officers, the institution was saved by a few men, showing, on that occasion, a degree of resolution which had become rare, even at so early a period.

2 Mr. de Tocqueville made this report on the 8th of July, in the name of the majority of that committee, to which had been referred several propositions relating to a revision of the constitution. It was the time

With this extract I conclude, for the present, my remarks on self-government, and with them the enumeration of the guarantees and institutions which characterize, and in their aggregate constitute Anglican liberty.

when the constitutional term of the president drew to its end, and the desire of annulling the ineligibility for a second term became manifest. It was the feverish time that preceded the second of December, destined to become another of the many commentaries on the facility with which governments founded upon centralization are upset, by able conspiracies or by a terror-striking surprise, such as the revolution of February had been, when the Orleans dynasty was expelled, and another proof how easy it is in such states to obtain an acquiescent majority or its semblance.

In connection with the foregoing, I must ask leave to add the concluding remarks of the Ancien Régime, published since the first edition of Civil Liberty was issued. I know of no passage in modern literature which reminds the reader so directly of the energy and gloom of Tacitus. I quote from Mr. Bonner's translation, New York, 1856, and wish to say that the whole work of Mr. de Tocqueville is a continued historical commentary of all that is said in the present work on Gallican political tendencies.

"When I examine that nation (the French) in itself, I cannot help thinking it is more extraordinary than any of the events of its history. Did there ever appear on the earth another nation so fertile in contrasts, so extreme in its acts-more under the dominion of feeling, less ruled by principle; always better or worse than was anticipated-now below the level of humanity, now far above; a people so unchangeable in its leading features, that it may be recognized by portraits drawn two or three thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in its daily opinions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to itself, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight of what it has done; naturally fond of home and routine, yet once driven forth, and forced to adopt new customs, ready to carry principles to any lengths, and to dare anything; indocile by disposition, but better pleased with the arbitrary and even violent rule of a sovereign, than with a free and regular government under its chief citizens; now fixed in hostility to subjection of any kind, now so passionately wedded to servitude that nations made to serve can not vie with it; led by a thread so long as no word of resistance is spoken, wholly ungovernable when the standard of revolt has been raised-thus always deceiving its masters, who fear it too much or too little; never so free that it can not be subjugated, nor so kept down that it can not break the yoke; qualified for every pursuit, but excelling in nothing but war; more prone to worship chance, force, success, eclat, noise, than real glory; endowed

They prevail more or less developed wherever the Anglican race has spread and formed governments, or established distinct politics. Yet, as each of them may be carried out with peculiar consistency, or is subject to be developed under the influence of additional circumstances, or as a peculiar character may be given to the expansion of the one or the other element, it is a natural consequence that the system of guarantees which we have called Anglican, presents itself in various forms. All the broad Anglican principles, as they have been stated, are necessary to us, but there is, nevertheless, that which we can call American liberty-a development of Anglican liberty peculiar to ourselves. Those features which may, perhaps, be called the most characteristic, are given in the following chap

ter.

with more heroism than virtue, more genius than common sense; better adapted for the conception of grand designs than the accomplishment of great enterprises; the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, but never indifference?

"No nation but such a one as this could give birth to a revolution so sudden, so radical, so impetuous in its course, and yet so full of missteps, contradictory facts, and conflicting examples. The French could not have done it but for the reasons I have alleged; but it must be admitted even these reasons would not suffice to explain such a revolution in any country but France."

CHAPTER XXII.

AMERICAN LIBERTY.

AMERICAN liberty belongs to the great division of Anglican liberty. It is founded upon the checks, guarantees and selfgovernment of the Anglican race. The trial by jury, the representative government, the common law, self-taxation, the supremacy of the law, publicity, the submission of the army to the legislature, and whatever else has been enumerated, form part and parcel of our liberty. There are, however, features and guarantees, which are peculiar to ourselves, and which, therefore, we may say constitute American liberty. They may be summed up, perhaps, under these heads republican federalism, strict separation of the state from the church, greater equality and acknowledgment of abstract rights in the citizen, and a more popular or democratic cast of the whole polity.

The Americans do not say that there can be no liberty without republicanism, nor do they, indeed, believe that wherever a republican or kingless government exists, there is liberty. The founders of our own independence acknowledged that freedom can exist under a monarchical government, in the very act of their declaration of independence. Throughout

1 We have discussed the trial by jury and even the grand jury, as elements of Anglican liberty. I am now obliged to add, that when this page was correcting for the press, the author learned that the state of Michigan had passed a law by which, after the 12th day of April, 1859, the grand jury is to be dispensed with as an ordinary instrument of criminal proceeding, though power is reserved to the judges to resort to it in certain special cases. The people of Michigan have thus shown an inclination toward the French system. French, and continental European lawyers in general have an aversion to the grand jury.

that instrument the Americans are spoken of as freemen whose rights and liberties England had unwarrantably invaded. It rests all its assertions and all the claimed rights on the liberty that had been enjoyed, and after a long recital of deeds of misrule ascribed to the king, it says: "A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." It broadly admits, therefore, that a free people may have a monarch, and that the Americans were, and considered themselves a free people before they claimed to form a separate nation.

Nevertheless it will be denied by no one that the Americans believe that to be the happiest political state of things in which a republican government is the fittest; nor that republicanism has thoroughly infused itself into all their institutions and views. This republicanism, though openly pronounced at the time of the revolution only, had been long, and historically prepared, by nearly all the institutions and the peculiarly fortunate situation of the colonies, or, it may be said, that the republican elements of British self-government found a peculiarly favorable soil in America from the first settlements.

A fault of England, to speak from an English point of view, was of great service to American republicanism. England never created a colonial aristocracy. Had she sprinkled this country with a colonial peerage and put this peerage in some vital connection with the peerage of Great Britain; for instance, had she allowed the colonial peers to elect representative peers to sit in the British house of lords, as is the case with Scottish peers, and had she given some proportionate precedence to American noblemen, e.g. had she allowed an American duke to take precedence with a British earl, she would have had a strong support in this country at the time of the revolution. Possibly, we would have had not only a simple war of independence, but a civil war, and our so-called revolution, which was no revolution in the sense in which we take the word when we apply it to the revolutions of England and France, and which in German is called an Abfall (severance,) must have had a far different character. It was one of our great bless