Social Conditions

“This kind of aristocracy sympathized with the body of the people whose passions and interests it easily embraced; but it was too weak and too short loved to excite either love or hatred. This was the class which headed the insurrection in the south and furnished the best leaders of the American revolution”

This quote from Tocqueville’s third chapter really stuck out to me with the complexity and overall embodiment of America at the time. He is saying that this form of governance was equally influential in the two regions of the country but had vast differences in the way it influenced the people. The inhabitants in the North were loving and fought for equality along with justice and rights for all. Yet in the South it made the move towards slavery and profit. I find it so interesting that people from all walks of life who came to America for a fresh start at a new life had become so separated in their beliefs of the system. Some found it as a way for them to gain profit with slavery and gold while many found it as a way for liberation from their motherland’s strict laws. The government for the people by the people was a great way for those who had been previously prosecuted to find a safe home, but it wasn’t a safe home for those who were brought there against their will.