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CHAPTER XII.
POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.
Daily use which the Anglo-Americans make of the Right of Association.—Three kinds of political Association.—In what Manner the Americans apply the representative System to Associations.—Dangers resulting to the State.—Great Convention of 1831 relative to the Tariff. Legislative Character of this Convention. Why the unlimited Exercise of the Right of Association is less dangerous in the United States than elsewhere. Why it may be looked upon as necessary. Utility of Associations in a democratic People.
In no country in the world has the principle of association been
more successfully used, or more unsparingly applied to a multitude of
different objects, than in America. Beside the permanent associations
which are established by law under the names of townships,
cities, and counties, a vast number of others are formed and
maintained by the agency of private individuals.
The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest infancy to rely upon his own exertions, in order to resist the evils and the difficulties of life; he looks upon the social authority with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, and he only claims its assistance when he is quite unable to shift without it. This habit may even be traced in the schools of the rising generation, where the children in their games are wont to submit to rules which they have themselves established, and to punish misdemeanors which they have themselves defined. The same spirit pervades every act of social life. If a stoppage occurs in a thoroughfare, and the circulation of the public is hindered, the neighbours immediately constitute a deliberative body; and this extemporaneous assembly gives rise to an executive power, which remedies the inconvenience, before anybody has thought of recurring to an authority superior to that of the persons immediately concerned. If the public pleasures are concerned, an association is formed to provide for the splendour and the regularity of the entertainment. Societies are formed to
