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law is observed because it is a self-imposed evil in the first place and an evil of transient duration in the second.
ACTIVITY WHICH PERVADES ALL THE BRANCHES OF THE BODY POLITIC IN THE UNITED STATES; INFLUENCE WHICH IT EXERCISES UPON SOCIETY.
More difficult to conceive the political Activity which pervades the United States than the Freedom and Equality which reign here.—The great Activity which perpetually agitates the legislative Bodies is only an Episode to the general Activity.—Difficult for an American to confine himself to his own Business.—Political Agitation extends to all social Intercourse.—Commercial Activity of the Americans partly attributable to this Cause.—Indirect Advantages which Society derives from a democratic Government.
On passing from a country in which free institutions are established to one where they do not exist, the traveller is struck by the change; in the former all is bustle and activity, in the latter everything is calm and motionless. In the one, melioration and progress are the general topics of inquiry; in the other, it seems as if the community only aspired to repose in the enjoyment of the advantages which it has acquired. Nevertheless, the country which exerts itself so strenuously to promote its welfare is generally more wealthy and more prosperous than that which appears to be so contented with its lot; and when we compare them together, we can scarcely conceive how so many new wants are daily felt in the former, while so few seem to occur in the latter.
If this remark is applicable to those free countries in which monarchical and aristocratic institutions subsist, it is still more striking with regard to democratic republics. In these states it is not only a portion of the people which is busied with the melioration of its social condition, but the whole community is engaged in the task; and it is not the exigencies and the convenience of a single class for which a provision is to be made, but the exigencies and the convenience of all ranks of life.
It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which the Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of the ex-
