American Institutions and Their Influence, Alexis de Tocqueville [the gingerbread man read aloud .txt] 📗

ions. Noforeigner has ever exhibited such a deep, clear, and correctinsight of the machinery of our complicated systems of federaland state governments. The most intelligent Europeans areconfounded with our _imperium in imperio_; and theirconstant wonder is, that these systems are not continuallyjostling each other. M. DE TOCQUEVILLE has clearly perceived,and traced correctly and distinctly, the orbits in which theymove, and has described, or rather defined, our federalgovernment, with an accurate precision, unsurpassed even by anAmerican pen. There is no citizen of this country who will notderive instruction from our author's account of our nationalgovernment, or, at least, who will not find his own ideassystematised, and rendered more fixed and precise, by the perusalof that account.

Among other subjects discussed by the author, that of thepolitical influence of the institution of trial by jury,is one of the most curious and interesting. He has certainlypresented it in a light e