Now, remove force and independence from the [people], and you will always find only those under its administration and no citizens” (Tocqueville, 64). Tocqueville argues that the passion and civic involvement of the citizens, though perhaps unenlightened, provides a necessary ingredient for any free republic. The clearest example of the benefits civic engagement brings is in the township, a governing structure where “as everywhere, the people are the source of social powers, but nowhere do they exercise their power more immediately” (Tocqueville, 59). The township’s embrace of the citizens ' passions and trust in the people to govern their own affairs creates a remarkable change within the public. In the township, where citizen learn to direct society, their natural “desire for esteem, the need of real interest, the taste for power and for attention, come to be concentrated; these passions, which so often trouble Society, change character when they can be expressed so near the domestic heart and in a way in the bosom of the family” (Tocqueville, 64).…