Remark that, in spite of all, public order is maintained without paid
troops, (Continental Europe will find it hard to credit this.)
Tranquillity reigns in the largest cities of the United States; respect
for the law is in every heart; great ballotings take place, millions of
excited men await the result with trembling; yet, notwithstanding, not
an act of violence is committed. American riots--for some there are--are
certainly less numerous than ours; and they have the merit of not being
transformed into revolutions.

The greater part of the immigrants remain, of course, in the large
cities; here they come almost to make the laws, and here, too, noble
causes encounter the most opponents. Mr. Lincoln, to cite an example,
received only a minority of suffrages in the city of New York, whilst
the unanimity of the country suffrages secured him the vote of the
State. Contempt of the colored class, that crime of the North, breaks
out most of all in the large cities, and particularly among
agglomerations of immigrants; none are harsher to free negroes, it must
be admitted, than newly-landed Europeans who have come to seek a fortune
in America.

As to crimes, they are numerous only in cities; still the criminal
records of the United States appear somewhat full when compared with
ours. I know how great a part of this must be assigned to the
insufficiency of repression; in America, criminals doubtless escape
punishment much oftener than among us. Notwithstanding, there is real
security; and a child might travel over the entire West without being
exposed to the slightest danger.

M. de Tocqueville has said that morals are infinitely more rigid in