ABSTRACT
The most ordinary knowledge of the commonest events shows us that in 1800 the government of England was essentially aristocratic, and that the class which, though never despotic, was decidedly dominant, was the class of landowners and of large merchants. The social condition, the feelings and convictions of Englishmen in 1800, were even more aristocratic than were English political institutions. The electorate, which had in the main represented the landed interest, was extended in 1832 so as to give predominant power to the Lecture middle classes and to the manufacturers. The word " democracy " has, owing in great measure to the popularity and influence of Tocque- ville's Democracy in America, acquired a new ambiguity. A glance at the democracies, either of the United States or of Switzerland, would show us in each case types of legislation differing alike from each other, and from the laws either of democratic England or of republican France.
