Will the Agricultural Associations reflect on these descrip tions of the past and present state, and the future prospects, of the country? Will the Grand Central Society-we beg pardon for our mistake in adding to their title the term "grand”—it is a word in bad odour, and they have had too good taste to assume it will then the "Central Society" ponder over these reminiscences, and carry in their minds the lessons they afford, and the guides they offer to them, when in their committees, as men of business, whose characters will be compromised by their approval of crude, absurd, and impracticable schemes, they are discussing the "measures" they shall propose for removing the "overwhelming distress" under which they have proclaimed that they are suffering? Say rather, will they not blush at such perversion of language? Will they not be ashamed to take their stand before the public with a cry of distress as selfdubbed paupers, and as spendthrifts confessed? Will they mix their whining complaints with the "busy hum of men," which would otherwise, in these piping times, consist only of sounds arising out of universal cheerfulness of voice and alacrity of movement? We put one more question—will the really great, noble, and rich of our aristocracy, by their silence, suffer it to be thought, that they hold themselves to be represented by the members of this Central Society?

In a very few days from the time while we are writing, with the impatient printer at our elbow, the High Court of Parliament will be convened. Our Constitutional Monarch will then, through his Parliament to his people, promulgate those sentiments, which, in the wisdom of His Councils, are thought fit to be so made known. May we be permitted to express a hope that, upon this occasion, the blessings of Providence will not be again spoken of as a visitation of evil. Five successive plentiful seasons have, by the bounty of the Almighty, "filled "the hungry with good things:" and shall our gracious King, because a few of the "rich have been sent empty "away," be advised to soothe the ears of his robed and titled auditors, with lamentations over the privation of some of their superfluous and imaginary luxuries; instead of pouring forth, from the true dictates of his own kind heart, his grateful acknowledgments to Divine Providence, for so plentiful a

bestowal of those gifts of nature, which constitute the blessings of the human race? Blessings-for which man is awfully responsible, if, through human institutions, they are converted into curses, or are profanely so denominated.

The subject of currency we mention, almost only to say that we are quite aware of the intentions of the landed interest, in regard to the circulating medium of the country. It may not, however, be amiss to advert now to that particular view of the subject on their part, which is the exciting cause of their present violent movements. They treat the continuous fall in the prices of corn, since the return to cash payments, as evidence of the magnitude of the preceding depreciation. A greater mistake never was made. If a country, after having lost its precious metals, by an excessive issue of bank paper, sets about in earnest to recover them by withdrawing the necessary amount of its notes, the greatest consequent depression of prices will occur first, when they will be forced even below the proper level; and they will be kept below that level, until the quantity of gold sufficient to saturate the circulation is obtained. This end being accomplished, the prices will recover again, and take their proper station in the common markets of general commerce. It is only by offering to other countries its own goods at unusually low prices, and refraining to buy their's, that any country can suddenly draw to itself an unusual quantity of the precious metals but when the commercial intercourse is again carried on in goods, that country is enabled to demand for her's a full equivalent; and, accordingly, getting a better price for her exports, her general prices participate in the rise. The steady and gradual fall in the price of corn, which we have been witnessing for a number of years after the restoration of our metallic currency, furnished positive evidence that the cause of that fall does not lie in the circulating medium. With respect to the general question, we hold that it has nothing to do with the particular case of the landed interest; and we may expect that the ignorance of the simplest rudiments of the science displayed by their orators, will ensure their ready discomfiture, whenever they attempt to enforce their notions upon any deliberative body of men. To that fate, then, we shall be content to leave them for this time: and we doubt not, but that we shall

be early enough in the field in our next number, if, contrary to our expectations, such weak assailants be able to preserve any thing like a front in the presence of their opponents. Upon this and all other subjects, we shall honor the Central Agricultural Society with our best attentions. For the present, we take our leave of them.

ARTICLE XIII.

De la Démocratie en Amérique.

Par M. ALEXIS DE

TOCQUEVILLE, Avocat à la Cour Royale de Paris, 8vo.,

2 vols. Paris: 1835.

Democracy in America. By M. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, &c., translated by HENRY REEVE, Esq., 8vo., 2 vols. London: 1835.

WE question whether any of the readers of this very striking and able book, have sat down to peruse it, with as much impartiality, as M. de Tocqueville has shown in its composition. Remarkable as it is in many respects, luminous in its details, comprehensive in its design, and consistent in its parts, we are inclined to place its even-handed justice above its other merits, as the rarest and most prominent of them all. The author displays singular dexterity in detecting and appreciating the force and action of those elements in the American Constitution, which, like the hidden and more delicate springs in a piece of complex mechanism, escape the notice of the ordinary observer; though it is by their influence alone. that the motion of the whole is caused, or can be accounted for. But we esteem even more highly the tone of dispassionate philosophy in which he treats the conflicting powers of the social system; and the calm discernment with which he turns. from the immediate object of his inquiry in the American States, to the condition of the communities of Europe, and to the question of democracy in the world. "This book," says he," is written to favour no particular views, and in composing "it I have entertained no design of serving or attacking any "party-I have undertaken not to see differently, but "to look further than parties, and whilst they are busied for

"the morrow, I have turned my thoughts to the future." To this declaration of an independence of opinion, which very few politicians of any day are inclined to understand or to admit, we may justly refer the very opposite judgments which have been passed on the real tendency of M. de Tocqueville's book. He has stated the mixed and respective good and evil of democratic and aristocratic institutions so fully and fairly, that the candid reader, left to form an opinion-but enabled to form a more enlightened opinion-of his own, may decide in favour of the one or the other. The positions of the author are not absolute, but relative. Whatever may be the ends of government, his first object is to describe the means by which democracy has been established in America; and whilst he approves the skilful adaptation of a new political system to that new people, he leaves the reader to adopt such conclusions as to the value and fitness of the democratic principle in itself, as may result from a knowledge of what it is able, and what it is unable to effect.

"When the opponents of democracy assert that a single individual performs the duties which he undertakes, much better than the government of the community, it appears to me that they are perfectly right. The government of an individual, supposing an equality of instruction on either side, is more consistent, more persevering, and more accurate, than that of a multitude; and it is much better qualified, judiciously to discriminate the characters of the men it employs. If any deny what I advance, they have certainly never seen a democratic government, or have formed their opinion upon very partial evidence.

"Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind of government upon the people, but it produces that which the most skilful governments are frequently unable to awaken;—namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it; and which may, under favourable circumstances, beget the most amazing benefits. These are the advantages of democracy.

', We must first understand what the purport of society, and the aim of government, is held to be. If it be your intention to confer a certain elevation upon the human mind, and to teach it to regard the things of this world with generous feelings;—to inspire men with a scorn of mere temporal advantage;— to give birth to living convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of honourable devotedness;-if you hold it to be a good thing to refine the habits, to embellish the manners, to cultivate the arts of a nation, and to promote the love of poetry, of beauty, and of renown ;-if you would constitute a people not unfitted to act with power upon all other nations, nor unprepared for those high enterprises which, whatever be the result of its efforts, will leave a name for ever famous in time; if you believe such to be the principal object of society, you must avoid the government of democracy, which would be a very uncertain guide to the end we have in view.

"But if you hold it to be expedient to divert the moral and intellectual VOL. II. No I.

X

activity of man to the production of comfort, and to the acquirement of the necessaries of life;-if a clear understanding be more profitable to men than genius ;-if your object be, not to stimulate the virtues of heroism, but to create habits of peace;-if you had rather witness vices than crimes, and are content to meet with fewer noble deeds, provided offences be diminished in the same proportion; if, instead of living in the midst of a brilliant state of society, you are contented to have prosperity around you ;-if, in short, you are of opinion that the principal object of a government is not to confer the greatest possible share of power and of glory upon the body of the nation, but to insure the greatest degree of enjoyment, and the least degree of misery, to each of the individuals who compose it;-if such be your desires, you can have no surer means of satisfying them, than by equalizing the conditions of men, and establishing democratic institutions.

"But if the time be passed at which such a choice was possible, and if some superhuman power impel us towards one or other of these two governments without consulting our wishes, let us at least endeavour to make the best of that which is allotted to us; and let us so inquire into its good and its evil propensities, as to be able to foster the former, and repress the latter to the utmost.”—(Vol. II., pp. 139-142.)

Although we cannot wholly assent to the definition of either one or the other of the alternatives, which our author gives in this passage, we have quoted it as an instance of the impartial view which he takes of both sides of the question; and because the concluding sentence of our extract succinctly expresses the entire object of the work, which is explained at greater length in the introduction. The limits of these pages forbid us to enter upon an analysis of the details of the American constitution, which the volumes before us contain. For the accurate and instructive account of the government of the United States, which is here for the first time presented to the European public, we refer our readers to the work itself, and the British public in particular to the able and impartial translation of Mr. Reeve. Our own intention is to follow M. de Tocqueville through those parts of his book which he has devoted to the social characteristics of the American people, as they stand connected with the present success and future stability of a democratic republic in that country; and to inquire into the nature of the changes and perils which threaten them. We shall necessarily leave a multitude of points untouched in so cursory a notice of a book, which has much of the point and minuteness of Montesquieu, joined to the speculative wisdom of Harrington. But we shall borrow sufficiently from its pages to illustrate the great political lesson which the United States present to our attention.