Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville
page 66 of 628 (10%)
federal liberty which is the proper end and object of authority; it is
a liberty for that only which is just and good: for this liberty you are
to stand with the hazard of your very lives and whatsoever crosses it is
not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained in a
way of subjection to authority; and the authority set over you will, in
all administrations for your good, be quietly submitted unto by all but
such as have a disposition to shake off the yoke and lose their true
liberty, by their murmuring at the honor and power of authority."

The remarks I have made will suffice to display the character of
Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the result (and
this should be constantly present to the mind of two distinct elements),
which in other places have been in frequent hostility, but which in
America have been admirably incorporated and combined with one another.
I allude to the spirit of Religion and the spirit of Liberty.

The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent sectarians
and daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some of their religious
opinions were, they were entirely free from political prejudices. Hence
arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are constantly
discernible in the manners as well as in the laws of the country.

It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, their
family, and their native land to a religious conviction were absorbed
in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at
so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the
acquirement of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as
liberties of the world, is scarcely inferior to that with which they
devoted themselves to Heaven.

DigitalOcean Referral Badge