which they intended to make their capital, but which, up to the present
time, is hardly more densely peopled than Pontoise, though, according
to them, it will one day contain a million of inhabitants. They have
already rooted up trees for ten miles round, lest they should interfere
with the future citizens of this imaginary metropolis. They have erected
a magnificent palace for Congress in the centre of the city, and have
given it the pompous name of the Capitol. The several States of the
Union are every day planning and erecting for themselves prodigious
undertakings, which would astonish the engineers of the great European
nations. Thus democracy not only leads men to a vast number of
inconsiderable productions; it also leads them to raise some monuments
on the largest scale: but between these two extremes there is a blank.
A few scattered remains of enormous buildings can therefore teach us
nothing of the social condition and the institutions of the people by
whom they were raised. I may add, though the remark leads me to step
out of my subject, that they do not make us better acquainted with its
greatness, its civilization, and its real prosperity. Whensoever a power
of any kind shall be able to make a whole people co-operate in a single
undertaking, that power, with a little knowledge and a great deal of
time, will succeed in obtaining something enormous from the co-operation
of efforts so multiplied. But this does not lead to the conclusion that
the people was very happy, very enlightened, or even very strong.

The Spaniards found the City of Mexico full of magnificent temples
and vast palaces; but that did not prevent Cortes from conquering the
Mexican Empire with 600 foot soldiers and sixteen horses. If the Romans
had been better acquainted with the laws of hydraulics, they would not
have constructed all the aqueducts which surround the ruins of their
cities--they would have made a better use of their power and their
wealth. If they had invented the steam-engine, perhaps they would not