Posted by:
Yes, I do read, unfortunately
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Date: March 11, 2024 07:19AM
As a matter of fact "Democracy in America" was one of the picks for our book club last year. So not very long ago. I don't think any of us (including the person who picked it) managed to read the entire thing in the alloted month. So no, I haven't read it cover to cover. I doubt you have either, have you? But I have read at least two or three hundred pages of it. (It's nearly a thousand pages long in the Penguin Classics edition that I bought, although most of that is admittedly is in an 11/12 pt font. :) That info about the font size isn't readily available online BTW FYI AFAIK.)
The Penguin edition is combined into a single volume. The relevant passage is fairly early on in what was originally the first volume where he discusses the origins of American society. I've read it because it's early on the book. LOL. It points out what your ilk would term the "unconscious biases" of the American legal system against the poor. It may be discussing bail, but it is relevant in regard to the problem in general. In fact, things have probably gotten worse since he wrote this. This passage is the US legal system in a nutshell.
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Here is the relevant passage. Since I'm using a phone I've had to resort to cutting and pasting it from Project Gutenberg in a different translation. (I'm sure you're familiar with that technique).
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Laws and customs are frequently to be met with in the United States which contrast strongly with all that surrounds them. These laws seem to be drawn up in a spirit contrary to the prevailing tenor of the American legislation; and these customs are no less opposed to the tone of society. If the English colonies had been founded in an age of darkness, or if their origin was already lost in the lapse of years, the problem would be insoluble.
I shall quote a single example to illustrate what I advance. The civil and criminal procedure of the Americans has only two means of action—committal and bail. The first measure taken by the magistrate is to exact security from the defendant, or, in case of refusal, to incarcerate him: the ground of the accusation and the importance of the charges against him are then discussed. It is evident that a legislation of this kind is hostile to the poor man, and favorable only to the rich. The poor man has not always a security to produce, even in a civil cause; and if he is obliged to wait for justice in prison, he is speedily reduced to distress. The wealthy individual, on the contrary, always escapes imprisonment in civil causes; nay, more, he may readily elude the punishment which awaits him for a delinquency by breaking his bail. So that all the penalties of the law are, for him, reducible to fines. Nothing can be more aristocratic than this system of legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law, and they usually reserve the greatest social advantages to themselves. The explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws of which I speak are English, and the Americans have retained them, however repugnant they may be to the tenor of their legislation and the mass of their ideas. Next to its habits, the thing which a nation is least apt to change is its civil legislation. Civil laws are only familiarly known to legal men, whose direct interest it is to maintain them as they are, whether good or bad, simply because they themselves are conversant with them. The body of the nation is scarcely acquainted with them; it merely perceives their action in particular cases; but it has some difficulty in seizing their tendency, and obeys them without premeditation.