In order that an association amongst a democratic people should have any power, it must be a numerous body.
The persons of whom it is composed are therefore scattered over a wide extent, and each of them is detained in the place of his domicile by the narrowness of his income, or by the small unremitting exertions by which he earns it.

Means then must be found to converse every day without seeing each other, and to take steps in common without having met.

Thus hardly any democratic association can do without newspapers.

There is consequently a necessary connection between public associations and newspapers: newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers; and if it has been correctly advanced that associations will increase in number as the conditions of men become more equal, it is not less certain that the number of newspapers increases in proportion to that of associations.

Thus it is in America that we find at the same time the greatest number of associations and of newspapers.
This connection between the number of newspapers and that of associations leads us to the discovery of a further connection between the state of the periodical press and the form of the administration in a country; and shows that the number of newspapers must diminish or increase amongst a democratic people, in proportion as its administration is more or less centralized.