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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: selfish adulation that comes from a great and singular success.
It is the consciousness of victory over a false theory of
government which has afflicted mankind for many ages, that gives
joy to the true American, as it did to De Tocqueville in his
great triumph.
When De Tocqueville wrote, we had lived less than fifty
years under our Constitution. In that time no great national
commotion had occurred that tested its strength, or its power of
resistance to internal strife, such as had converted his beloved
France into fields of slaughter torn by tempests of wrath.
He had a strong conviction that no government could be
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