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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO M. DE CORCELLE. - Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2

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Subject Area: Political Theory

TO M. DE CORCELLE. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, vol. 2 [1861]

Edition used:

Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated from the French by the translator of Napoleon’s Correspondence with King Joseph. With large Additions. In Two Volumes (London: Macamillan, 1861). 2 vols.

Part of: Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, 2 vols.

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TO M. DE CORCELLE.

I am travelling, dear friend, in the character of a lover of nature rather than in that of a philosopher. Still, whenever I am obliged to read a newspaper, or to converse seriously, I try to understand what I am told. The result is, that with the true spirit of an American, I have acquired a supreme contempt for the federal constitution of Switzerland, which I unceremoniously call a league and not a federation.

A government of this kind is, without exception, the most impotent, weak, awkward, and incapable machine to lead a nation to anything but anarchy. The small amount of political vitality in this people has also struck me. The kingdom of England is a hundred times more republican than this republic. Some may say, that the difference of races is the cause. But this is an argument which I never admit except as a last resource, and when I have nothing else to say. I had rather allege as the reason a fact that is little known, or, at least, which was unknown to me till now; that in most of the Swiss cantons parochial liberty is recent. The municipalities of the towns ruled the country parishes just as the power of the crown did in France. This petty centralization was kept up by the citizens, who, like our centralizing authorities, would suffer no interference with their acts.

Enough of politics. If you still have the speech of Quincy Adams keep it for me.