The return of the invisible hand

The return of the invisible hand

I'd like to look at this passage:

Nothing is more striking to an European traveller in the United States than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration. Written laws exist in America, and one sees that they are daily executed; but although everything is in motion, the hand which gives the impulse to the social machine can nowhere be discovered.
--pg. 62?

...in terms of this earlier passage:

If [American] society is tranquil, it is not because it relies upon its strength and its well-being [as people might in a feudal society, for example], but because it knows its weaknesses and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it its life.
--p. 33?

How do you convince a people disabused of the notion of authority to accept peaceable government? This was an issue Jefferson, at least, was aware of (in the Declaration). Somehow, today, this has come about. I think the first quotation can be applied to today. Why are we fearful of changing the Constitution? our healthcare system? Why do causes that have not gained legitimate legislative traction after years of lobbying so consistently seek change within the system (e.g. abortion protesters, etc.)? There is a sense in America that the system works because and only because we obey it.

De Tocqueville suggests an answer. In a feudal society, peasants obey because of the strength of the state. In a democracy, do we really obey because of the debility of the state? If not, where did this local sense of self-government come from?