ABSTRACT
Deterioration of the critical faculty in American political thought has kept citizens of the Republic from realizing that arbitrary power in a democracy may be a menace to liberty as the outright tyranny of a dictatorship. Religion in America, however, was viewed by de Tocqueville as a virile and vital force. He was certain that: "Unbelief is an accident and faith is the only permanent state of mankind". Religious faith, strong in the American origins, had been strengthened by the wise constitutional separation of Church and State, with the paradoxical result that "the real authority of religion was increased by a state of things which diminished its apparent force". In short, the various reasons are summarized combine to demonstrate the survival of the Republic is not endangered by weakness in the central government. As de Tocqueville concluded: "If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority".
