The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

Democracy does not create strong ties between people. But it does make living together easier.

By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.

The Americans make associations to give entertainment, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner, they found hospitals, prisons and schools.