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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 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: conceive that a regular government may have recourse to the
former, but I do not concede that any government has the right of
enacting the latter.]
It is therefore chimerical to suppose that the spirit of
association, when it is repressed on some one point, will
nevertheless display the same vigor on all others; and that if
men be allowed to prosecute certain undertakings in common, that
is quite enough for them eagerly to set about them. When the
members of a community are allowed and accustomed to combine for
all purposes, they will combine as readily for the lesser as for
the more important ones; but if they are only allowed to combine
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