What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.
Alexis de TocquevilleThe Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.
Alexis de TocquevilleI considered mores to be one of the great general causes responsible for the maintenance of a democratic republic . . . the term "mores" . . . meaning . . . habits of the heart.
Alexis de TocquevilleTown meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach.
Alexis de TocquevilleThough it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
Alexis de Tocqueville