Page:Democracy in America (Reeve, v. 1).djvu/97



SOCIAL condition is commonly the result of circumstances, sometimes of laws, oftener still of these two causes united; but wherever it exists, it may justly he considered as the source of almost all the laws, the usages, and the ideas which regulate the conduct of nations: whatever it does not produce, it modifies.

It is therefore necessary, if we would become acquainted with the legislation and the manners of a nation, to begin by the study of its social condition.

THE STRIKING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS IS ITS ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY.

The first emigrants of New England.—Their equality.—Aristocratic laws introduced in the South.—Period of the Revolution.—Change in the law of descent.—Effects produced by this change.—Democracy carried to its utmost limits in the new States of the West.—Equality of education.

important observations suggest themselves upon the social condition of the Anglo-Americans; but there is one which takes precedence of