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IMPORTANCE OF WHAT PRECEDES WITH RESPECT TO THE STATE OF EUROPE.
It may readily be discovered with what intention I undertook
the foregoing inquiries. The question here discussed is interesting
not only to the United States, but to the whole world; it concerns,
not a nation, but all mankind. If those nations whose social
condition is democratic could only remain free as long as they are
inhabitants of the wilds, we could not but despair of the future
destiny of the human race; for democracy is rapidly acquiring a more
extended sway, and the wilds are gradually peopled with men. If
it were true that laws and manners are insufficient to maintain
democratic institutions, what refuge would remain open to the
notions except the despotism of a single individual? I am aware
that there are many worthy persons at the present time who are
not alarmed at this latter alternative, and who are so tired of
liberty as to be glad of repose, far from those storms by which it is
attended. But these individuals are ill acquainted with the haven
to which they are bound. They are so deluded by their recollections,
as to judge the tendency of absolute power by what it was
formerly, and not by what it might become at the present time.
If absolute power were re-established among the democratic nations of Europe, I am persuaded that it would assume a new form, and appear under features unknown to our forefathers. There was a time in Europe, when the laws and the consent of the people had invested princes with almost unlimited authority; but they scarcely ever availed themselves of it. I do not speak of the prerogatives of the nobility, of the authority of supreme courts of justice, of corporations and their chartered rights, or of provincial privileges, which served to break the blows of the sovereign authority, and to maintain a spirit of resistance in the nation. Independently of these political institutions—which, however opposed they might be to personal liberty, served to keep alive the love of freedom in the mind of the public, and which may be esteemed to have been useful in this respect—the manners and opinions of the nation confined the royal authority within barriers which were not less powerful, although they were less conspicuous. Religion, the affections of the people, the benevolence of the prince,
