In this general excitement the most distinguished men were ready to forestall the wants of the community, and the people clung to them for support, and placed them at its head.

But events of this magnitude are rare, and it is from an inspection of the ordinary course of affairs that our judgment must be formed.
If passing occurrences sometimes act as checks upon the passions of democracy, the intelligence and the manners of the community exercise an influence which is not less powerful and far more permanent.

This is extremely perceptible in the United States.
In New England the education and the liberties of the communities were engendered by the moral and religious principles of their founders.
Where society has acquired a sufficient degree of stability to enable it to hold certain maxims and to retain fixed habits, the lower orders are accustomed to respect intellectual superiority and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind.

The democracy in New England consequently makes a more judicious choice than it does elsewhere.
But as we descend towards the South, to those States in which the constitution of society is more modern and less strong, where instruction is less general, and where the principles of morality, of religion, and of liberty are less happily combined, we perceive that the talents and the virtues of those who are in authority become more and more rare.
Lastly, when we arrive at the new South-western States, in which the constitution of society dates but from yesterday, and presents an agglomeration of adventurers and speculators, we are amazed at the persons who are invested with public authority, and we are led to ask by what force, independent of the legislation and of the men who direct it, the State can be protected, and society be made to flourish.
There are certain laws of a democratic nature which contribute, nevertheless, to correct, in some measure, the dangerous tendencies of democracy.

On entering the House of Representatives of Washington one is struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly.