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CHAPTER VI.
WHAT SORT OF DESPOTISM DEMOCRATIC NATIONS HAVE TO FEAR.
I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a
democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might
offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism; and I
perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much use had already
been made by most of our rulers, of the notions, the sentiments,
and the wants engendered by this same social condition, for the
purpose of extending the circle of their power. This led me to
think that the nations of Christendom would perhaps eventually
undergo some sort of oppression like that which hung over several
of the nations of the ancient world.
A more accurate examination of the subject, and five years of further meditations, have not diminished my apprehensions, but they have changed the object of them.
No sovereign ever lived in former ages so absolute or so powerful as to undertake to administer by his own agency, and without the assistance of intermediate powers, all the parts of a great empire: none ever attempted to subject all his subjects indiscriminately to strict uniformity of regulation, and personally to tutor and direct every member of the community. The notion of such an undertaking never occurred to the human mind; and if any man had conceived it, the want of information, the imperfection of the administrative system, and above all, the natural obstacles caused by the inequality of conditions, would speedily have checked the execution of so vast a design.
When the Roman emperors were at the height of their power, the different nations of the empire still preserved manners and customs of great diversity; although they were subject to the same monarch, most of the provinces were separately administered; they abounded in powerful and active municipalities; and although the
