{now seen in France = following the French Revolution of 1848
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-1873), nephew of the first Emperor
Napoleon, had been elected as President of France and was
consolidating his power--in December 1851, shortly after Cooper's
death, he would proclaim himself Emperor Napoleon III}

If the existence of nations resembled that of individuals, it
would not be difficult to foretell the consequences of this state
of things; but communities may be said to have no lives, and are
ever to be found occupying their places, and using the means
assigned to them by Providence, whether free or enslaved,
prosperous or the reverse. No one can foretell the future of this
great country, in consequence of the extent and number of its
outlets, each a provision of Providence to put a check on
revolutions and violence.

The elements of a monarchy do not exist among us; the habits of
the entire country are opposed to the reception of such a form of
government. Nor do we know, bad as our condition is rapidly
getting to be, strong as are the tendencies to social
dissolution, and to the abuses which demand force to subdue, that
anything would be gained by the adoption of any substitute for
the present polity of the country to be found in Europe. The
abuses there are possibly worse than our own, and the only
question would seem to be as to the degree of suffering and wrong
to which men are compelled to submit through the infirmities of
their own nature. There is one great advantage in the monarchical
principle, when subdued by liberal institutions, as in the case
of the government of that nation from which we are derived, which