Newport

Timezone: UTC-4.

Singing hymns with the friend-organist's help in an almost empty congregational church. I am grateful.

Like a stereotypical European, I forced my dear friend to get to the groceries on foot rather than drive the car. An evening dinner was followed by a very intense discussion about the stories of creation and a few other very grave matters. This made me briefly think that I found myself in a distinctly American situation – where, unlike in most of Europe save for a few countries like my own homeland, the Bible is still very much a point of reference, even when the positions stated are contrarian – but I refrained from said generalisation. Let my impressions be dedicated to my hosts' home alone. And their home is a warm, hospitable place, while my hosts are beautiful, charitable people. I thank God for them and wish them blessings. Friendship is precious, and even more so at a time of change.

It is to be remembered that the affections of men generally lie on the side of authority. Patriotism is not durable in a conquered nation. The New Englander is attached to his township, not only because he was born in it, but because it constitutes a social body of which he is a member, and whose government claims and deserves the exercise of his sagacity. In Europe the absence of local public spirit is a frequent subject of regret to those who are in power; everyone agrees that there is no surer guarantee of order and tranquility, and yet nothing is more difficult to create. If the municipal bodies were made powerful and independent, the authorities of the nation might be disunited and the peace of the country endangered. Yet, without power and independence, a town may contain good subjects, but it can have no active citizens. Another important fact is that the township of New England is so constituted as to excite the warmest of human affections, without arousing the ambitious passions of the heart of man. The officers of the country are not elected, and their authority is very limited. Even the State is only a second-rate community, whose tranquil and obscure administration offers no inducement sufficient to draw men away from the circle of their interests into the turmoil of public affairs. The federal government confers power and honor on the men who conduct it; but these individuals can never be very numerous. The high station of the Presidency can only be reached at an advanced period of life, and the other federal functionaries are generally men who have been favored by fortune, or distinguished in some other career. Such cannot be the permanent aim of the ambitious. But the township serves as a centre for the desire of public esteem, the want of exciting interests, and the taste for authority and popularity, in the midst of the ordinary relations of life; and the passions which commonly embroil society change their character when they find a vent so near the domestic hearth and the family circle.
Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America”