Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Considerations Upon the Nature and Tendency of Free Institutions
The reason then why it is of so much importance to examine and understand the structure of society, and not merely the machinery of government, is because at the present day, more than at any former period, the political institutions are molded by the manners. It is true, every form of government may strictly be said to depend upon the constitution of society upon the social organization in which it has taken root. But this dependence is of a totally different character, in different countries. In some, the manners exert a positive in?uence while In others, they have properly a negative in?uence only. In a commonwealth, where the standard of popular intelligence 1s high, and no impediment exists to the exercise of that popular authority which rightfully springs from such a state, the people may truly be said to create and to uphold the government. On the contrary, where the population is sunk in ignorance and apathy, government assumes the character of a self existing institution, for there IS no power beyond to direct and control it. In one instance, the will of society impresses itself as an active power upon the institutions, both ordaining and controlling them: in the other, for defect of will, the government is simply permitted to be what chance, or circumstances, originally made it. The political institutions of Russia, and the United States, equally depend upon the social organization; but in the former the in?uence is negative, in the latter it is direct and positive. In the former, the'
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