CHAPTER VIII: The Federal Constitution--Part V.
Advantages Of The Federal System In General, And Its Special Utility In America.
Happiness and freedom of small nations--Power of great nations--Great empires favorable to the growth of civilization--Strength often the first element of national prosperity--Aim of the Federal system to unite the twofold advantages resulting from a small and from a large territory--Advantages derived by the United States from this system--The law adapts itself to the exigencies of the population; population does not conform to the exigencies of the law--Activity, amelioration, love and enjoyment of freedom in the American communities--Public spirit of the Union the abstract of provincial patriotism--Principles and things circulate freely over the territory of the United States--The Union is happy and free as a little nation, and respected as a great empire.
In small nations the scrutiny of society penetrates into every part, and the spirit of improvement enters into the most trifling details; as the ambition of the people is necessarily checked by its weakness, all the efforts and resources of the citizens are turned to the internal benefit of the community, and are not likely to evaporate in the fleeting breath of glory.

The desires of every individual are limited, because extraordinary faculties are rarely to be met with.

The gifts of an equal fortune render the various conditions of life uniform, and the manners of the inhabitants are orderly and simple.

Thus, if one estimate the gradations of popular morality and enlightenment, we shall generally find that in small nations there are more persons in easy circumstances, a more numerous population, and a more tranquil state of society, than in great empires.
When tyranny is established in the bosom of a small nation, it is more galling than elsewhere, because, as it acts within a narrow circle, every point of that circle is subject to its direct influence.

It supplies the place of those great designs which it cannot entertain by a violent or an exasperating interference in a multitude of minute details; and it leaves the political world, to which it properly belongs, to meddle with the arrangements of domestic life.