the Constitution, during the whole of which time the people have had the power to make alterations, but as yet there has been only one case of a proposed amendment that has been successful. That was made in 1802, and its main object was to do away with a difficulty that arose out of a provision in the Constitution, that two persons should be voted for by each elector, and that the one having the highest number of votes should be president, and the one next in number should be vicepresident.* That provision was found to work ill when, in 1800, two persons received precisely the same number of votes, and Aaron Burr, who was intended for vice-president, came near being made president, and thereafter the electors were required to designate the person whom they intended for president, and the one for vice-president. In addition, it contained several provisions for securing to the people the enjoyment of the right to the free exercise of religion; to bear arms; to be secure against searches and seizures, &c. During the whole period there have been complaints that the Constitution did not work well. In turn, the east, the west, the north, and the south, have been dissatisfied. Every session, for many years, has given birth to numerous projects for its amendment, but thus far no one has secured in its favour a sufficient number of votes to pass through Congress, which is only the first step. There is always a majority that prefer the existing system to any that can be substituted. It is the only system of government, the framers of which contemplated the necessity • The Constitution of England is only the will of Parliament, and can be changed by a simple majority of both houses. If we compare the changes produced by the bills for relieving the Dissenters and the Catholics-the reform bill -the corporations bill-the tithes bills, and various others, we shall find that they vastly exceed those of the United States. In fact, we believe that almost any one of the above is equal to all the changes made in the Constitutions of the United States and of the several states, in half a century. At the present moment new changes are proposed in England, while none are likely to take place in the United States. If we compare the duration of the Constitution of the United States with that of those of France, the difference is immense. Prussia has not changed a Constitution, but the whole system of government is changed. The Constitution of the United States is almost the only form of government that has passed through half a century without material change. of amendment, and provided therefor; and, to all appearance, that provision will secure it against alteration, more effectually than any other course that could have been adopted. Had the English Parliament not possessed the power of amendment, revolutions would have occurred. France had no Parliament, no body like that of England, accustomed to the use of power; there was none of "that vital instinct which silently adapts constitutions to the exigencies of self-preservation,"* and revolution was the only remedy for the evils of the state. Had there been no such provision in the Constitution of the United States as that to which we have referred, it is not improbable that a convention would have been called to remedy imaginary evils that, if left alone, were sure to be remedied by that vital instinct which is now silently adapting the Constitution of 1789 to the wants of the people of 1839. Being so called, as it would be difficult to find a body of tinkers that would come together, to do nothing, it is probable that they would have made a hole, if they could not have found one. Had the framers of the state constitutions displayed the same wisdom, and provided for amendments, it is probable that the changes would have been smaller than they have been. Whenever the science of government shall have attained perfection, it will be found, that to leave to the people the management of their own affairs, with the greatest facility to check and control their agents, is the sure way to obtain steadiness of action, security, freedom, exemption from taxation, a state of peace, prosperity, and happiness, a rapid increase of wealth, and the establishment of THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE, THAT EVERY MAN IS, EQUALLY WITH HIS NEIGHBOUR, ENTITLED TO PERFECT SECURITY OF PERSON AND PROPERTY, AND EQUALLY BOUND TO CONTRIBUTE FOR ITS MAINTEXANCE, IN PROPORTION TO HIS INTEREST. • Niebuhr's Rome, vol. ii., p. 168. CHAPTER VIII. REVIEW. M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. No work treating of the political condition of man has recently attracted so much attention as that of M. de Tocqueville, and as his views differ in many respects from those which we have submitted to the reader, we shall now proceed to give a few extracts therefrom, with our remarks thereupon. Nothing in the United States, says M. de Tocqueville, "struck me so forcibly as the general equality of conditions."+ Again he says: "The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which my observations constantly terminated."‡ Further examination would have satisfied him that instead of equality being a "fundamental," it was a consequential fact. The law of primogeniture was as firmly established in some of the British provinces as it now is in England, and would have continued to the present moment, had the people and their neighbours been incessantly engaged in plundering and oppressing each other, as has been so much the case in Europe. The "fundamental fact" at the base of the system of equality and political freedom now existing in the United States, is that more than other nations they have obeyed the command, "do unto others as ye would have others do unto you," and they have reaped the advantage in the enjoyment of security, in the rapid growth of wealth, and in the great improvement of physical, moral, and political condition. M. de Tocqueville thus continues: "I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the new world presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily • Democracy in America. + Ibid., Introduction, p. xiii. + Ibid., p. xiv. pressing towards the extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States; and that the democracy which governs the American communities seems to be rapidly rising into power in Europe."* The fundamental fact of the United States is here regarded as being in Europe a consequential one, as it really is in both. The growth of democracy in Europe is in the precise ratio of the increase of wealth. The productive power of England, of France, and of Germany, is now rapidly increasing, and every day gives to the people increased power to discern and to assert their right to perfect freedom in the disposal of their labour, and of the proceeds thereof-to the secure enjoyment of the rights of person and of property-to perfect equality of political condition. The establishment of the system of self-government is the inevitable result of improvement of physical and moral condition.† The democratic revolution that is now going on, is deemed by M. de Tocqueville to be irresistible, because "it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history." He says-"Whilst the kings were ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce. Every new discovery, every new want which it engendered, and every new desire which craved satisfaction, was a step towards the universal level. The taste for luxury, the love of war, the sway of fashion, and the most superficial, as well as the deepest passions of the human heart, co-operated to enrich the poor and to impoverish the rich."§ He is of opinion that, in perusing the history of France, "we scarcely meet with a single great event, in the lapse of some hundred years, which has not turned to the advantage of equality;" the noble going Democracy in America, Introduction, p. xiv. "The necessity for external government to man, is in the inverse ratio of the vigour of his self-government. When the last is most complete, the first is least wanted. Hence the more virtue, the more liberty."-Coleridge, Table Talk, vol. ii., p. 193. We doubt not the converse of the proposition is equally true, and that we may say, the more liberty, the more virtue. ↑ Democracy in America, Introduction, p. xiv. § Ibid., p. xvii. Ibid., p. xviii. down in the social ladder, and the roturier going up, every half century bringing them nearer to each other, until they must shortly meet. This phenomenon he does not deem peculiar to France. It meets his eyes in every direction throughout Christendom. "The various occurrences of national existence have," he says, "every where turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have aided it by their exertions; those who have intentionally laboured in its cause, and those who have served it unwittingly; those who fought for it, and those who declared themselves its opponents-have been driven along in the same track-have all laboured to one end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly; all have been blind instruments in the hands of God. The gradual development of the equality of conditions is, therefore," he thinks, "a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress."+ Here our good and evil passions are made equally to contribute towards the execution of "a divine decree;" they are "blind instruments in the hands of God," who employs men in the work of murder and of plunder, of ruin and devastation, for the purpose of establishing an equality of conditions among them. If such were the case, should we not see the same approach to equality in Spain, Italy, and India, as in England and the United States? If love of war has in any degree tended to promote equality in France, why has it not done so in India and in Persia? In both it has prevailed universally, and the natural consequence has been, that not only is this "divine decree" evaded, but there has been for centuries past a constantly increasing tendency to inequality of condition, physical, moral, and political. It does not therefore elude "all human interference." Whenever men see fit to set at defiance the one great command, to which we have before so frequently referred-whenever they undertake the work of plunder, oppression, and murder-whenever they avail themselves of any of the remedies for over-population-they, by that act, do what * Democracy in America, Introduction, p. xix, + Ibid., p. xx. |