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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: European nations - a condition to which all the others tend - I
am led to believe that they will soon be left with no other
alternative than democratic liberty, or the tyranny of the
Caesars. *n
[Footnote n: [This prediction of the return of France to imperial
despotism, and of the true character of that despotic power, was
written in 1832, and realized to the letter in 1852.]]
And indeed it is deserving of consideration, whether men are
to be entirely emancipated or entirely enslaved; whether their
rights are to be made equal, or wholly taken away from them. If
the rulers of society were reduced either gradually to raise the
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