Quotes About Government

So religion, which among the Americans never directly takes part in the government of society, must be considered as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not give them the taste for liberty, it singularly facilitates their use of it.

It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases; on the contrary, social obligations were there imposed upon him more various than anywhere else.

Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science;

The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.

Absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any legislation.

It would seem that if despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.

But a democracy can only obtain truth as the result of experience, and many nations may forfeit their existence whilst they are awaiting the consequences of their errors.

I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are opening upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be the produce of artificial contrivance; that centralization will be the natural form of government.

However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation.

the advantage of democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted, that it protects the interests of the whole community, but simply that it protects those of the majority.

Democratic institutions strongly tend to promote the feeling of envy.

No form or combination of social polity has yet been devised to make an energetic people out of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.

I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and it is a virtue which may be found among the people, but never among the leaders of the people.

It had been supposed, until our time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form it appeared. But it is a discovery of modern days that there are such things as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of the people.

Nothing is more striking to an European traveller in the United States than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration.

The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.

In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the only source of power; but in no stage of government does the body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence.

In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.

Whether democracy or aristocracy is the better form of government constitutes a very difficult question. But, clearly, democracy inconveniences one person while aristocracy oppresses another. That is a truth which establishes itself and precludes any discussion: you are rich and I am poor.

In other words, the government of the democracy is the only one under which the power which lays on taxes escapes the payment of them.

to be a government of liberty regulated by law, with such results in the development of strength, in population, wealth, and military and commercial power, as no age had ever witnessed.

The American learns about the law by participating in the making of it. He teaches himself about the forms of government by governing. He watches the great work of society being done every day before his eyes and, in a sense, by his hand. In the United States, all of education is directed toward politics. In Europe, its principal purpose is to prepare people for private life. Citizens take part in public affairs too seldom to prepare them for it in advance.

The deeper we penetrate into the working of these parties, the more do we perceive that the object of the one is to limit, and that of the other to extend, the popular authority.