CANADA HISTORY - DOCUMENTS ARTS
Chapter XIV: Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy -
Part II
Respect For The Law In The United States
Respect of the Americans for the law - Parental affection which they
entertain for it - Personal interest of everyone to increase the
authority of the law.
It is not always feasible to consult the whole people, either
directly or indirectly, in the formation of the law; but it cannot
be denied that, when such a measure is possible the authority of the
law is very much augmented. This popular origin, which impairs the
excellence and the wisdom of legislation, contributes prodigiously
to increase its power. There is an amazing strength in the
expression of the determination of a whole people, and when it
declares itself the imagination of those who are most inclined to
contest it is overawed by its authority. The truth of this fact is
very well known by parties, and they consequently strive to make out
a majority whenever they can. If they have not the greater number of
voters on their side, they assert that the true majority abstained
from voting; and if they are foiled even there, they have recourse
to the body of those persons who had no votes to give.
In the United States, except slaves, servants, and paupers in the
receipt of relief from the townships, there is no class of persons
who do not exercise the elective franchise, and who do not
indirectly contribute to make the laws. Those who design to attack
the laws must consequently either modify the opinion of the nation
or trample upon its decision.
A second reason, which is still more weighty, may be further
adduced; in the United States everyone is personally interested in
enforcing the obedience of the whole community to the law; for as
the minority may shortly rally the majority to its principles, it is
interested in professing that respect for the decrees of the
legislator which it may soon have occasion to claim for its own.
However irksome an enactment may be, the citizen of the United
States complies with it, not only because it is the work of the
majority, but because it originates in his own authority, and he
regards it as a contract to which he is himself a party.
In the United States, then, that numerous and turbulent multitude
does not exist which always looks upon the law as its natural enemy,
and accordingly surveys it with fear and with fear and with
distrust. It is impossible, on the other hand, not to perceive that
all classes display the utmost reliance upon the legislation of
their country, and that they are attached to it by a kind of
parental affection.
I am wrong, however, in saying all classes; for as in America the
European scale of authority is inverted, the wealthy are there
placed in a position analogous to that of the poor in the Old World,
and it is the opulent classes which frequently look upon the law
with suspicion. I have already observed that the advantage of
democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted, that it protects
the interests of the whole community, but simply that it protects
those of the majority. In the United States, where the poor rule,
the rich have always some reason to dread the abuses of their power.
This natural anxiety of the rich may produce a sullen
dissatisfaction, but society is not disturbed by it; for the same
reason which induces the rich to withhold their confidence in the
legislative authority makes them obey its mandates; their wealth,
which prevents them from making the law, prevents them from
withstanding it. Amongst civilized nations revolts are rarely
excited, except by such persons as have nothing to lose by them; and
if the laws of a democracy are not always worthy of respect, at
least they always obtain it; for those who usually infringe the laws
have no excuse for not complying with the enactments they have
themselves made, and by which they are themselves benefited, whilst
the citizens whose interests might be promoted by the infraction of
them are induced, by their character and their stations, to submit
to the decisions of the legislature, whatever they may be. Besides
which, the people in America obeys the law not only because it
emanates from the popular authority, but because that authority may
modify it in any points which may prove vexatory; a law is observed
because it is a self-imposed evil in the first place, and an evil of
transient duration in the second.
Activity Which Pervades All The Branches Of The Body Politic In The
United States; Influence Which It Exercises Upon Society
More difficult to conceive the political activity which pervades the
United States than the freedom and equality which reign there - The
great activity which perpetually agitates the legislative bodies is
only an episode to the general activity - Difficult for an American
to confine himself to his own business - Political agitation extends
to all social intercourse - Commercial activity of the Americans
partly attributable to this cause - Indirect advantages which
society derives from a democratic government.
On passing from a country in which free institutions are established
to one where they do not exist, the traveller is struck by the
change; in the former all is bustle and activity, in the latter
everything is calm and motionless. In the one, amelioration and
progress are the general topics of inquiry; in the other, it seems
as if the community only aspired to repose in the enjoyment of the
advantages which it has acquired. Nevertheless, the country which
exerts itself so strenuously to promote its welfare is generally
more wealthy and more prosperous than that which appears to be so
contented with its lot; and when we compare them together, we can
scarcely conceive how so many new wants are daily felt in the
former, whilst so few seem to occur in the latter.
If this remark is applicable to those free countries in which
monarchical and aristocratic institutions subsist, it is still more
striking with regard to democratic republics. In these States it is
not only a portion of the people which is busied with the
amelioration of its social condition, but the whole community is
engaged in the task; and it is not the exigencies and the
convenience of a single class for which a provision is to be made,
but the exigencies and the convenience of all ranks of life.
It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which the
Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of the extreme
equality which subsists amongst them, but the political activity
which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be
understood. No sooner do you set foot upon the American soil than
you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused clamor is heard on
every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the immediate
satisfaction of their social wants. Everything is in motion around
you; here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide
upon the building of a church; there, the election of a
representative is going on; a little further the delegates of a
district are posting to the town in order to consult upon some local
improvements; or in another place the laborers of a village quit
their ploughs to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public
school. Meetings are called for the sole purpose of declaring their
disapprobation of the line of conduct pursued by the Government;
whilst in other assemblies the citizens salute the authorities of
the day as the fathers of their country. Societies are formed which
regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils under which
the State labors, and which solemnly bind themselves to give a
constant example of temperance. *c
[Footnote c: At the time of my stay in the United States the
temperance societies already consisted of more than 270,000 members,
and their effect had been to diminish the consumption of fermented
liquors by 500,000 gallons per annum in the State of Pennsylvania
alone.]
The great political agitation of the American legislative bodies,
which is the only kind of excitement that attracts the attention of
foreign countries, is a mere episode or a sort of continuation of
that universal movement which originates in the lowest classes of
the people and extends successively to all the ranks of society. It
is impossible to spend more efforts in the pursuit of enjoyment.
The cares of political life engross a most prominent place in the
occupation of a citizen in the United States, and almost the only
pleasure of which an American has any idea is to take a part in the
Government, and to discuss the part he has taken. This feeling
pervades the most trifling habits of life; even the women frequently
attend public meetings and listen to political harangues as a
recreation after their household labors. Debating clubs are to a
certain extent a substitute for theatrical entertainments: an
American cannot converse, but he can discuss; and when he attempts
to talk he falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was
addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to warm in the course
of the discussion, he will infallibly say, "Gentlemen," to the
person with whom he is conversing.
In some countries the inhabitants display a certain repugnance to
avail themselves of the political privileges with which the law
invests them; it would seem that they set too high a value upon
their time to spend it on the interests of the community; and they
prefer to withdraw within the exact limits of a wholesome egotism,
marked out by four sunk fences and a quickset hedge. But if an
American were condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs,
he would be robbed of one half of his existence; he would feel an
immense void in the life which he is accustomed to lead, and his
wretchedness would be unbearable. *d I am persuaded that, if ever a
despotic government is established in America, it will find it more
difficult to surmount the habits which free institutions have
engendered than to conquer the attachment of the citizens to
freedom.
[Footnote d: The same remark was made at Rome under the first
Caesars. Montesquieu somewhere alludes to the excessive despondency
of certain Roman citizens who, after the excitement of political
life, were all at once flung back into the stagnation of private
life.]
This ceaseless agitation which democratic government has introduced
into the political world influences all social intercourse. I am not
sure that upon the whole this is not the greatest advantage of
democracy. And I am much less inclined to applaud it for what it
does than for what it causes to be done. It is incontestable that
the people frequently conducts public business very ill; but it is
impossible that the lower orders should take a part in public
business without extending the circle of their ideas, and without
quitting the ordinary routine of their mental acquirements. The
humblest individual who is called upon to co-operate in the
government of society acquires a certain degree of self-respect; and
as he possesses authority, he can command the services of minds much
more enlightened than his own. He is canvassed by a multitude of
applicants, who seek to deceive him in a thousand different ways,
but who instruct him by their deceit. He takes a part in political
undertakings which did not originate in his own conception, but
which give him a taste for undertakings of the kind. New
ameliorations are daily pointed out in the property which he holds
in common with others, and this gives him the desire of improving
that property which is more peculiarly his own. He is perhaps
neither happier nor better than those who came before him, but he is
better informed and more active. I have no doubt that the democratic
institutions of the United States, joined to the physical
constitution of the country, are the cause (not the direct, as is so
often asserted, but the indirect cause) of the prodigious commercial
activity of the inhabitants. It is not engendered by the laws, but
the people learns how to promote it by the Experience derived from
legislation.
When the opponents of democracy assert that a single individual
performs the duties which he undertakes much better than the
government of the community, it appears to me that they are
perfectly right. The government of an individual, supposing an
equality of instruction on either side, is more consistent, more
persevering, and more accurate than that of a multitude, and it is
much better qualified judiciously to discriminate the characters of
the men it employs. If any deny what I advance, they have certainly
never seen a democratic government, or have formed their opinion
upon very partial evidence. It is true that even when local
circumstances and the disposition of the people allow democratic
institutions to subsist, they never display a regular and methodical
system of government. Democratic liberty is far from accomplishing
all the projects it undertakes, with the skill of an adroit
despotism. It frequently abandons them before they have borne their
fruits, or risks them when the consequences may prove dangerous; but
in the end it produces more than any absolute government, and if it
do fewer things well, it does a greater number of things. Under its
sway the transactions of the public administration are not nearly so
important as what is done by private exertion. Democracy does not
confer the most skilful kind of government upon the people, but it
produces that which the most skilful governments are frequently
unable to awaken, namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a
superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it, and
which may, under favorable circumstances, beget the most amazing
benefits. These are the true advantages of democracy.
In the present age, when the destinies of Christendom seem to be in
suspense, some hasten to assail democracy as its foe whilst it is
yet in its early growth; and others are ready with their vows of
adoration for this new deity which is springing forth from chaos:
but both parties are very imperfectly acquainted with the object of
their hatred or of their desires; they strike in the dark, and
distribute their blows by mere chance.
We must first understand what the purport of society and the aim of
government is held to be. If it be your intention to confer a
certain elevation upon the human mind, and to teach it to regard the
things of this world with generous feelings, to inspire men with a
scorn of mere temporal advantage, to give birth to living
convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of honorable devotedness;
if you hold it to be a good thing to refine the habits, to embellish
the manners, to cultivate the arts of a nation, and to promote the
love of poetry, of beauty, and of renown; if you would constitute a
people not unfitted to act with power upon all other nations, nor
unprepared for those high enterprises which, whatever be the result
of its efforts, will leave a name forever famous in time - if you
believe such to be the principal object of society, you must avoid
the government of democracy, which would be a very uncertain guide
to the end you have in view.
But if you hold it to be expedient to divert the moral and
intellectual activity of man to the production of comfort, and to
the acquirement of the necessaries of life; if a clear understanding
be more profitable to man than genius; if your object be not to
stimulate the virtues of heroism, but to create habits of peace; if
you had rather witness vices than crimes and are content to meet
with fewer noble deeds, provided offences be diminished in the same
proportion; if, instead of living in the midst of a brilliant state
of society, you are contented to have prosperity around you; if, in
short, you are of opinion that the principal object of a Government
is not to confer the greatest possible share of power and of glory
upon the body of the nation, but to ensure the greatest degree of
enjoyment and the least degree of misery to each of the individuals
who compose it - if such be your desires, you can have no surer
means of satisfying them than by equalizing the conditions of men,
and establishing democratic institutions.
But if the time be passed at which such a choice was possible, and
if some superhuman power impel us towards one or the other of these
two governments without consulting our wishes, let us at least
endeavor to make the best of that which is allotted to us; and let
us so inquire into its good and its evil propensities as to be able
to foster the former and repress the latter to the utmost.
Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences - Part
I
Chapter Summary
Natural strength of the majority in democracies - Most of the
American Constitutions have increased this strength by artificial
means - How this has been done - Pledged delegates - Moral power of
the majority - Opinion as to its infallibility - Respect for its
rights, how augmented in the United States.
Unlimited Power Of The Majority In The United States, And Its
Consequences
The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute
sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in democratic
States which is capable of resisting it. Most of the American
Constitutions have sought to increase this natural strength of the
majority by artificial means. *a
[Footnote a: We observed, in examining the Federal Constitution,
that the efforts of the legislators of the Union had been
diametrically opposed to the present tendency. The consequence has
been that the Federal Government is more independent in its sphere
than that of the States. But the Federal Government scarcely ever
interferes in any but external affairs; and the governments of the
State are in the governments of the States are in reality the
authorities which direct society in America.]
The legislature is, of all political institutions, the one which is
most easily swayed by the wishes of the majority. The Americans
determined that the members of the legislature should be elected by
the people immediately, and for a very brief term, in order to
subject them, not only to the general convictions, but even to the
daily passion, of their constituents. The members of both houses are
taken from the same class in society, and are nominated in the same
manner; so that the modifications of the legislative bodies are
almost as rapid and quite as irresistible as those of a single
assembly. It is to a legislature thus constituted that almost all
the authority of the government has been entrusted.
But whilst the law increased the strength of those authorities which
of themselves were strong, it enfeebled more and more those which
were naturally weak. It deprived the representatives of the
executive of all stability and independence, and by subjecting them
completely to the caprices of the legislature, it robbed them of the
slender influence which the nature of a democratic government might
have allowed them to retain. In several States the judicial power
was also submitted to the elective discretion of the majority, and
in all of them its existence was made to depend on the pleasure of
the legislative authority, since the representatives were empowered
annually to regulate the stipend of the judges.
Custom, however, has done even more than law. A proceeding which
will in the end set all the guarantees of representative government
at naught is becoming more and more general in the United States; it
frequently happens that the electors, who choose a delegate, point
out a certain line of conduct to him, and impose upon him a certain
number of positive obligations which he is pledged to fulfil. With
the exception of the tumult, this comes to the same thing as if the
majority of the populace held its deliberations in the market-place.
Several other circumstances concur in rendering the power of the
majority in America not only preponderant, but irresistible. The
moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the notion that
there is more intelligence and more wisdom in a great number of men
collected together than in a single individual, and that the
quantity of legislators is more important than their quality. The
theory of equality is in fact applied to the intellect of man: and
human pride is thus assailed in its last retreat by a doctrine which
the minority hesitate to admit, and in which they very slowly
concur. Like all other powers, and perhaps more than all other
powers, the authority of the many requires the sanction of time; at
first it enforces obedience by constraint, but its laws are not
respected until they have long been maintained.
The right of governing society, which the majority supposes itself
to derive from its superior intelligence, was introduced into the
United States by the first settlers, and this idea, which would be
sufficient of itself to create a free nation, has now been
amalgamated with the manners of the people and the minor incidents
of social intercourse.
The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim (which is
still a fundamental principle of the English Constitution) that the
King could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was
imputed to his advisers. This notion was highly favorable to habits
of obedience, and it enabled the subject to complain of the law
without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans
entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.
The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another
principle, which is, that the interests of the many are to be
preferred to those of the few. It will readily be perceived that the
respect here professed for the rights of the majority must naturally
increase or diminish according to the state of parties. When a
nation is divided into several irreconcilable factions, the
privilege of the majority is often overlooked, because it is
intolerable to comply with its demands.
If there existed in America a class of citizens whom the legislating
majority sought to deprive of exclusive privileges which they had
possessed for ages, and to bring down from an elevated station to
the level of the ranks of the multitude, it is probable that the
minority would be less ready to comply with its laws. But as the
United States were colonized by men holding equal rank amongst
themselves, there is as yet no natural or permanent source of
dissension between the interests of its different inhabitants.
There are certain communities in which the persons who constitute
the minority can never hope to draw over the majority to their side,
because they must then give up the very point which is at issue
between them. Thus, an aristocracy can never become a majority
whilst it retains its exclusive privileges, and it cannot cede its
privileges without ceasing to be an aristocracy.
In the United States political questions cannot be taken up in so
general and absolute a manner, and all parties are willing to
recognize the right of the majority, because they all hope to turn
those rights to their own advantage at some future time. The
majority therefore in that country exercises a prodigious actual
authority, and a moral influence which is scarcely less
preponderant; no obstacles exist which can impede or so much as
retard its progress, or which can induce it to heed the complaints
of those whom it crushes upon its path. This state of things is
fatal in itself and dangerous for the future.
How The Unlimited Power Of The Majority Increases In America The
Instability Of Legislation And Administration Inherent In Democracy
The Americans increase the mutability of the laws which is inherent
in democracy by changing the legislature every year, and by
investing it with unbounded authority - The same effect is produced
upon the administration - In America social amelioration is
conducted more energetically but less perseveringly than in Europe.
I have already spoken of the natural defects of democratic
institutions, and they all of them increase at the exact ratio of
the power of the majority. To begin with the most evident of them
all; the mutability of the laws is an evil inherent in democratic
government, because it is natural to democracies to raise men to
power in very rapid succession. But this evil is more or less
sensible in proportion to the authority and the means of action
which the legislature possesses.
In America the authority exercised by the legislative bodies is
supreme; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their wishes with
celerity, and with irresistible power, whilst they are supplied by
new representatives every year. That is to say, the circumstances
which contribute most powerfully to democratic instability, and
which admit of the free application of caprice to every object in
the State, are here in full operation. In conformity with this
principle, America is, at the present day, the country in the world
where laws last the shortest time. Almost all the American
constitutions have been amended within the course of thirty years:
there is therefore not a single American State which has not
modified the principles of its legislation in that lapse of time. As
for the laws themselves, a single glance upon the archives of the
different States of the Union suffices to convince one that in
America the activity of the legislator never slackens. Not that the
American democracy is naturally less stable than any other, but that
it is allowed to follow its capricious propensities in the formation
of the laws. *b
[Footnote b: The legislative acts promulgated by the State of
Massachusetts alone, from the year 1780 to the present time, already
fill three stout volumes; and it must not be forgotten that the
collection to which I allude was published in 1823, when many old
laws which had fallen into disuse were omitted. The State of
Massachusetts, which is not more populous than a department of
France, may be considered as the most stable, the most consistent,
and the most sagacious in its undertakings of the whole Union.]
The omnipotence of the majority, and the rapid as well as absolute
manner in which its decisions are executed in the United States, has
not only the effect of rendering the law unstable, but it exercises
the same influence upon the execution of the law and the conduct of
the public administration. As the majority is the only power which
it is important to court, all its projects are taken up with the
greatest ardor, but no sooner is its attention distracted than all
this ardor ceases; whilst in the free States of Europe the
administration is at once independent and secure, so that the
projects of the legislature are put into execution, although its
immediate attention may be directed to other objects.
In America certain ameliorations are undertaken with much more zeal
and activity than elsewhere; in Europe the same ends are promoted by
much less social effort, more continuously applied.
Some years ago several pious individuals undertook to ameliorate the
condition of the prisons. The public was excited by the statements
which they put forward, and the regeneration of criminals became a
very popular undertaking. New prisons were built, and for the first
time the idea of reforming as well as of punishing the delinquent
formed a part of prison discipline. But this happy alteration, in
which the public had taken so hearty an interest, and which the
exertions of the citizens had irresistibly accelerated, could not be
completed in a moment. Whilst the new penitentiaries were being
erected (and it was the pleasure of the majority that they should be
terminated with all possible celerity), the old prisons existed,
which still contained a great number of offenders. These jails
became more unwholesome and more corrupt in proportion as the new
establishments were beautified and improved, forming a contrast
which may readily be understood. The majority was so eagerly
employed in founding the new prisons that those which already
existed were forgotten; and as the general attention was diverted to
a novel object, the care which had hitherto been bestowed upon the
others ceased. The salutary regulations of discipline were first
relaxed, and afterwards broken; so that in the immediate
neighborhood of a prison which bore witness to the mild and
enlightened spirit of our time, dungeons might be met with which
reminded the visitor of the barbarity of the Middle Ages.
Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences - Part
II
Tyranny Of The Majority
How the principle of the sovereignty of the people is to be
understood -Impossibility of conceiving a mixed government - The
sovereign power must centre somewhere - Precautions to be taken to
control its action - These precautions have not been taken in the
United States - Consequences.
I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically
speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet
I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I then, in contradiction with myself?
A general law - which bears the name of Justice - has been made and
sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a
majority of mankind. The rights of every people are consequently
confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be
considered in the light of a jury which is empowered to represent
society at large, and to apply the great and general law of justice.
Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than
the society in which the laws it applies originate?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right
which the majority has of commanding, but I simply appeal from the
sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. It has been
asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of
justice and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its
own, and that consequently, full power may fearlessly be given to
the majority by which it is represented. But this language is that
of a slave.
A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being whose
opinions, and most frequently whose interests, are opposed to those
of another being, which is styled a minority. If it be admitted that
a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging
his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same
reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by
agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles
increase with the consciousness of their strength. *c And for these
reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow-
creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any
one of them.
[Footnote c: No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong
another people; but parties may be looked upon as lesser nations
within a greater one, and they are aliens to each other: if,
therefore, it be admitted that a nation can act tyrannically towards
another nation, it cannot be denied that a party may do the same
towards another party.]
I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in
the same government, so as at the same time to maintain freedom, and
really to oppose them to one another. The form of government which
is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me to be a mere
chimera. Accurately speaking there is no such thing as a mixed
government (with the meaning usually given to that word), because in
all communities some one principle of action may be discovered which
preponderates over the others. England in the last century, which
has been more especially cited as an example of this form of
Government, was in point of fact an essentially aristocratic State,
although it comprised very powerful elements of democracy; for the
laws and customs of the country were such that the aristocracy could
not but preponderate in the end, and subject the direction of public
affairs to its own will. The error arose from too much attention
being paid to the actual struggle which was going on between the
nobles and the people, without considering the probable issue of the
contest, which was in reality the important point. When a community
really has a mixed government, that is to say, when it is equally
divided between two adverse principles, it must either pass through
a revolution or fall into complete dissolution.
I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always be
made to predominate over the others; but I think that liberty is
endangered when this power is checked by no obstacles which may
retard its course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; human beings
are not competent to exercise it with discretion, and God alone can
be omnipotent, because His wisdom and His justice are always equal
to His power. But no power upon earth is so worthy of honor for
itself, or of reverential obedience to the rights which it
represents, that I would consent to admit its uncontrolled and
all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means
of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon
an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize
the germ of tyranny, and I journey onward to a land of more hopeful
institutions.
In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions
of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe,
from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am
not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that
country as at the very inadequate securities which exist against
tyranny.
When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to
whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion
constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the
majority, and implicitly obeys its injunctions; if to the executive
power, it is appointed by the majority, and remains a passive tool
in its hands; the public troops consist of the majority under arms;
the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial
cases; and in certain States even the judges are elected by the
majority. However iniquitous or absurd the evil of which you
complain may be, you must submit to it as well as you can. *d
[Footnote d: A striking instance of the excesses which may be
occasioned by the despotism of the majority occurred at Baltimore in
the year 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A
journal which had taken the other side of the question excited the
indignation of the inhabitants by its opposition. The populace
assembled, broke the printing-presses, and attacked the houses of
the newspaper editors. The militia was called out, but no one obeyed
the call; and the only means of saving the poor wretches who were
threatened by the frenzy of the mob was to throw them into prison as
common malefactors. But even this precaution was ineffectual; the
mob collected again during the night, the magistrates again made a
vain attempt to call out the militia, the prison was forced, one of
the newspaper editors was killed upon the spot, and the others were
left for dead; the guilty parties were acquitted by the jury when
they were brought to trial.
I said one day to an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, "Be so good as to
explain to me how it happens that in a State founded by Quakers, and
celebrated for its toleration, freed blacks are not allowed to
exercise civil rights. They pay the taxes; is it not fair that they
should have a vote?"
"You insult us," replied my informant, "if you imagine that our
legislators could have committed so gross an act of injustice and
intolerance."
"What! then the blacks possess the right of voting in this county?"
"Without the smallest doubt."
"How comes it, then, that at the polling-booth this morning I did
not perceive a single negro in the whole meeting?"
"This is not the fault of the law: the negroes have an undisputed
right of voting, but they voluntarily abstain from making their
appearance."
"A very pretty piece of modesty on their parts!" rejoined I.
"Why, the truth is, that they are not disinclined to vote, but they
are afraid of being maltreated; in this country the law is sometimes
unable to maintain its authority without the support of the
majority. But in this case the majority entertains very strong
prejudices against the blacks, and the magistrates are unable to
protect them in the exercise of their legal privileges."
"What! then the majority claims the right not only of making the
laws, but of breaking the laws it has made?"]
If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted
as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of
its passions; an executive, so as to retain a certain degree of
uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as to remain independent
of the two other powers; a government would be formed which would
still be democratic without incurring any risk of tyrannical abuse.
I do not say that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in America at
the present day, but I maintain that no sure barrier is established
against them, and that the causes which mitigate the government are
to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more
than in its laws.
Effects Of The Unlimited Power Of The Majority Upon The Arbitrary
Authority Of The American Public Officers
Liberty left by the American laws to public officers within a
certain sphere -Their power.
A distinction must be drawn between tyranny and arbitrary power.
Tyranny may be exercised by means of the law, and in that case it is
not arbitrary; arbitrary power may be exercised for the good of the
community at large, in which case it is not tyrannical. Tyranny
usually employs arbitrary means, but, if necessary, it can rule
without them.
In the United States the unbounded power of the majority, which is
favorable to the legal despotism of the legislature, is likewise
favorable to the arbitrary authority of the magistrate. The majority
has an entire control over the law when it is made and when it is
executed; and as it possesses an equal authority over those who are
in power and the community at large, it considers public officers as
its passive agents, and readily confides the task of serving its
designs to their vigilance. The details of their office and the
privileges which they are to enjoy are rarely defined beforehand;
but the majority treats them as a master does his servants when they
are always at work in his sight, and he has the power of directing
or reprimanding them at every instant.
In general the American functionaries are far more independent than
the French civil officers within the sphere which is prescribed to
them. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by the popular authority to
exceed those bounds; and as they are protected by the opinion, and
backed by the co-operation, of the majority, they venture upon such
manifestations of their power as astonish a European. By this means
habits are formed in the heart of a free country which may some day
prove fatal to its liberties.
Power Exercised By The Majority In America Upon Opinion
In America, when the majority has once irrevocably decided a
question, all discussion ceases - Reason of this - Moral power
exercised by the majority upon opinion - Democratic republics have
deprived despotism of its physical instruments - Their despotism
sways the minds of men.
It is in the examination of the display of public opinion in the
United States that we clearly perceive how far the power of the
majority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted in
Europe. Intellectual principles exercise an influence which is so
invisible, and often so inappreciable, that they baffle the toils of
oppression. At the present time the most absolute monarchs in Europe
are unable to prevent certain notions, which are opposed to their
authority, from circulating in secret throughout their dominions,
and even in their courts. Such is not the case in America; as long
as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as
soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, a submissive silence
is observed, and the friends, as well as the opponents, of the
measure unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason of this is
perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the
powers of society in his own hands, and to conquer all opposition
with the energy of a majority which is invested with the right of
making and of executing the laws.
The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the
actions of the subject without subduing his private will; but the
majority possesses a power which is physical and moral at the same
time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men, and
it represses not only all contest, but all controversy. I know no
country in which there is so little true independence of mind and
freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitutional state in
Europe every sort of religious and political theory may be advocated
and propagated abroad; for there is no country in Europe so subdued
by any single authority as not to contain citizens who are ready to
protect the man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the
consequences of his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to live
under an absolute government, the people is upon his side; if he
inhabits a free country, he may find a shelter behind the authority
of the throne, if he require one. The aristocratic part of society
supports him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But in
a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like those
of the United States, there is but one sole authority, one single
element of strength and of success, with nothing beyond it.
In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the
liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write
whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond
them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he
is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His
political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only
authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of
compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he
published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with
many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is
loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think
without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in
silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has
been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by
remorse for having spoken the truth.
Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which tyranny
formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has refined the
arts of despotism which seemed, however, to have been sufficiently
perfected before. The excesses of monarchical power had devised a
variety of physical means of oppression: the democratic republics of
the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind
as that will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway
of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the
soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it
and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted
by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and
the soul is enslaved. The sovereign can no longer say, "You shall
think as I do on pain of death;" but he says, "You are free to think
differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all
that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are
henceforth an alien among your people. You may retain your civil
rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be
chosen by your fellow-citizens if you solicit their suffrages, and
they will affect to scorn you if you solicit their esteem. You will
remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind.
Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being, and those
who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest
they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you
your life, but it is an existence in comparably worse than death."
Monarchical institutions have thrown an odium upon despotism; let us
beware lest democratic republics should restore oppression, and
should render it less odious and less degrading in the eyes of the
many, by making it still more onerous to the few.
Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old World
expressly intended to censure the vices and deride the follies of
the times; Labruyere inhabited the palace of Louis XIV when he
composed his chapter upon the Great, and Moliere criticised the
courtiers in the very pieces which were acted before the Court. But
the ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of; the
smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke
which has any foundation in truth renders it indignant; from the
style of its language to the more solid virtues of its character,
everything must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever
be his eminence, can escape from this tribute of adulation to his
fellow-citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual practice of
self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can
only learn from strangers or from Experience.
If great writers have not at present existed in America, the reason
is very simply given in these facts; there can be no literary genius
without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in
America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast
number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The empire
of the majority succeeds much better in the United States, since it
actually removes the wish of publishing them. Unbelievers are to be
met with in America, but, to say the truth, there is no public organ
of infidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to
protect the morality of nations by prohibiting licentious books. In
the United States no one is punished for this sort of works, but no
one is induced to write them; not because all the citizens are
immaculate in their manners, but because the majority of the
community is decent and orderly.
In these cases the advantages derived from the exercise of this
power are unquestionable, and I am simply discussing the nature of
the power itself. This irresistible authority is a constant fact,
and its judicious exercise is an accidental occurrence.
Effects Of The Tyranny Of The Majority Upon The National Character
Of The Americans
Effects of the tyranny of the majority more sensibly felt hitherto
in the manners than in the conduct of society - They check the
development of leading characters - Democratic republics organized
like the United States bring the practice of courting favor within
the reach of the many - Proofs of this spirit in the United States -
Why there is more patriotism in the people than in those who govern
in its name.
The tendencies which I have just alluded to are as yet very slightly
perceptible in political society, but they already begin to exercise
an unfavorable influence upon the national character of the
Americans. I am inclined to attribute the singular paucity of
distinguished political characters to the ever-increasing activity
of the despotism of the majority in the United States. When the
American Revolution broke out they arose in great numbers, for
public opinion then served, not to tyrannize over, but to direct the
exertions of individuals. Those celebrated men took a full part in
the general agitation of mind common at that period, and they
attained a high degree of personal fame, which was reflected back
upon the nation, but which was by no means borrowed from it.
In absolute governments the great nobles who are nearest to the
throne flatter the passions of the sovereign, and voluntarily
truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not degrade
itself by servitude: it often submits from weakness, from habit, or
from ignorance, and sometimes from loyalty. Some nations have been
known to sacrifice their own desires to those of the sovereign with
pleasure and with pride, thus exhibiting a sort of independence in
the very act of submission. These peoples are miserable, but they
are not degraded. There is a great difference between doing what one
does not approve and feigning to approve what one does; the one is
the necessary case of a weak person, the other befits the temper of
a lackey.
In free countries, where everyone is more or less called upon to
give his opinion in the affairs of state; in democratic republics,
where public life is incessantly commingled with domestic affairs,
where the sovereign authority is accessible on every side, and where
its attention can almost always be attracted by vociferation, more
persons are to be met with who speculate upon its foibles and live
at the cost of its passions than in absolute monarchies. Not because
men are naturally worse in these States than elsewhere, but the
temptation is stronger, and of easier access at the same time. The
result is a far more extensive debasement of the characters of
citizens.
Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor with the
many, and they introduce it into a greater number of classes at
once: this is one of the most serious reproaches that can be
addressed to them. In democratic States organized on the principles
of the American republics, this is more especially the case, where
the authority of the majority is so absolute and so irresistible
that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, and almost abjure
his quality as a human being, if te intends to stray from the track
which it lays down.
In that immense crowd which throngs the avenues to power in the
United States I found very few men who displayed any of that manly
candor and that masculine independence of opinion which frequently
distinguished the Americans in former times, and which constitutes
the leading feature in distinguished characters, wheresoever they
may be found. It seems, at first sight, as if all the minds of the
Americans were formed upon one model, so accurately do they
correspond in their manner of judging. A stranger does, indeed,
sometimes meet with Americans who dissent from these rigorous
formularies; with men who deplore the defects of the laws, the
mutability and the ignorance of democracy; who even go so far as to
observe the evil tendencies which impair the national character, and
to point out such remedies as it might be possible to apply; but no
one is there to hear these things besides yourself, and you, to whom
these secret reflections are confided, are a stranger and a bird of
passage. They are very ready to communicate truths which are useless
to you, but they continue to hold a different language in public.
If ever these lines are read in America, I am well assured of two
things: in the first place, that all who peruse them will raise
their voices to condemn me; and in the second place, that very many
of them will acquit me at the bottom of their conscience.
I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and it is a virtue
which may be found among the people, but never among the leaders of
the people. This may be explained by analogy; despotism debases the
oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the
king has often great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably
servile. It is true that the American courtiers do not say "Sire,"
or "Your Majesty" - a distinction without a difference. They are
forever talking of the natural intelligence of the populace they
serve; they do not debate the question as to which of the virtues of
their master is pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure
him that he possesses all the virtues under heaven without having
acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give
him their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to
the rank of his concubines, but, by sacrificing their opinions, they
prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not
obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil of allegory; but,
before they venture upon a harsh truth, they say, "We are aware that
the people which we are addressing is too superior to all the
weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of its temper for an
instant; and we should not hold this language if we were not
speaking to men whom their virtues and their intelligence render
more worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world." It would
have been impossible for the sycophants of Louis XIV to flatter more
dexterously. For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments,
whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and
adulation will cling to power. The only means of preventing men from
degrading themselves is to invest no one with that unlimited
authority which is the surest method of debasing them.
The Greatest Dangers Of The American Republics Proceed From The
Unlimited Power Of The Majority
Democratic republics liable to perish from a misuse of their power,
and not by impotence - The Governments of the American republics are
more centralized and more energetic than those of the monarchies of
Europe - Dangers resulting from this - Opinions of Hamilton and
Jefferson upon this point.
Governments usually fall a sacrifice to impotence or to tyranny. In
the former case their power escapes from them; it is wrested from
their grasp in the latter. Many observers, who have witnessed the
anarchy of democratic States, have imagined that the government of
those States was naturally weak and impotent. The truth is, that
when once hostilities are begun between parties, the government
loses its control over society. But I do not think that a democratic
power is naturally without force or without resources: say, rather,
that it is almost always by the abuse of its force and the
misemployment of its resources that a democratic government fails.
Anarchy is almost always produced by its tyranny or its mistakes,
but not by its want of strength.
It is important not to confound stability with force, or the
greatness of a thing with its duration. In democratic republics, the
power which directs *e society is not stable; for it often changes
hands and assumes a new direction. But whichever way it turns, its
force is almost irresistible. The Governments of the American
republics appear to me to be as much centralized as those of the
absolute monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than they are. I
do not, therefore, imagine that they will perish from weakness. *f
[Footnote e: This power may be centred in an assembly, in which case
it will be strong without being stable; or it may be centred in an
individual, in which case it will be less strong, but more stable.]
[Footnote f: I presume that it is scarcely necessary to remind the
reader here, as well as throughout the remainder of this chapter,
that I am speaking, not of the Federal Government, but of the
several governments of each State, which the majority controls at
its pleasure.]
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event
may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which
may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and
oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be
the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.
Mr. Hamilton expresses the same opinion in the "Federalist," No. 51.
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the
society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part
of the society against the injustice of the other part. Justice is
the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has
been, and ever will be, pursued until it be obtained, or until
liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, under the forms of
which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker,
anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where
the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the
stronger: and as in the latter state even the stronger individuals
are prompted by the uncertainty of their condition to submit to a
government which may protect the weak as well as themselves, so in
the former state will the more powerful factions be gradually
induced by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect
all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be
little doubted that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated from
the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of right under
the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be
displayed by such reiterated oppressions of the factious majorities,
that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be
called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had
proved the necessity of it."
Jefferson has also thus expressed himself in a letter to Madison: *g
"The executive power in our Government is not the only, perhaps not
even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the
Legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will
continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the
executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant
period." I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson upon this
subject rather than that of another, because I consider him to be
the most powerful advocate democracy has ever sent forth.
[Footnote g: March 15, 1789.]
Chapter XVI: Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States - Part I
Chapter Summary
The national majority does not pretend to conduct all business - Is
obliged to employ the town and county magistrates to execute its
supreme decisions.
I have already pointed out the distinction which is to be made
between a centralized government and a centralized administration.
The former exists in America, but the latter is nearly unknown
there. If the directing power of the American communities had both
these instruments of government at its disposal, and united the
habit of executing its own commands to the right of commanding; if,
after having established the general principles of government, it
descended to the details of public business; and if, having
regulated the great interests of the country, it could penetrate
into the privacy of individual interests, freedom would soon be
banished from the New World.
But in the United States the majority, which so frequently displays
the tastes and the propensities of a despot, is still destitute of
the more perfect instruments of tyranny. In the American republics
the activity of the central Government has never as yet been
extended beyond a limited number of objects sufficiently prominent
to call forth its attention. The secondary affairs of society have
never been regulated by its authority, and nothing has hitherto
betrayed its desire of interfering in them. The majority is become
more and more absolute, but it has not increased the prerogatives of
the central government; those great prerogatives have been confined
to a certain sphere; and although the despotism of the majority may
be galling upon one point, it cannot be said to extend to all.
However the predominant party in the nation may be carried away by
its passions, however ardent it may be in the pursuit of its
projects, it cannot oblige all the citizens to comply with its
desires in the same manner and at the same time throughout the
country. When the central Government which represents that majority
has issued a decree, it must entrust the execution of its will to
agents, over whom it frequently has no control, and whom it cannot
perpetually direct. The townships, municipal bodies, and counties
may therefore be looked upon as concealed break-waters, which check
or part the tide of popular excitement. If an oppressive law were
passed, the liberties of the people would still be protected by the
means by which that law would be put in execution: the majority
cannot descend to the details and (as I will venture to style them)
the puerilities of administrative tyranny. Nor does the people
entertain that full consciousness of its authority which would
prompt it to interfere in these matters; it knows the extent of its
natural powers, but it is unacquainted with the increased resources
which the art of government might furnish.
This point deserves attention, for if a democratic republic similar
to that of the United States were ever founded in a country where
the power of a single individual had previously subsisted, and the
effects of a centralized administration had sunk deep into the
habits and the laws of the people, I do not hesitate to assert, that
in that country a more insufferable despotism would prevail than any
which now exists in the monarchical States of Europe, or indeed than
any which could be found on this side of the confines of Asia.
The Profession Of The Law In The United States Serves To
Counterpoise The Democracy
Utility of discriminating the natural propensities of the members of
the legal profession - These men called upon to act a prominent part
in future society -In what manner the peculiar pursuits of lawyers
give an aristocratic turn to their ideas - Accidental causes which
may check this tendency - Ease with which the aristocracy coalesces
with legal men - Use of lawyers to a despot - The profession of the
law constitutes the only aristocratic element with which the natural
elements of democracy will combine - Peculiar causes which tend to
give an aristocratic turn of mind to the English and American
lawyers - The aristocracy of America is on the bench and at the bar
- Influence of lawyers upon American society - Their peculiar
magisterial habits affect the legislature, the administration, and
even the people.
In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws we perceive
that the authority they have entrusted to members of the legal
profession, and the influence which these individuals exercise in
the Government, is the most powerful existing security against the
excesses of democracy. This effect seems to me to result from a
general cause which it is useful to investigate, since it may
produce analogous consequences elsewhere.
The members of the legal profession have taken an important part in
all the vicissitudes of political society in Europe during the last
five hundred years. At one time they have been the instruments of
those who were invested with political authority, and at another
they have succeeded in converting political authorities into their
instrument. In the Middle Ages they afforded a powerful support to
the Crown, and since that period they have exerted themselves to the
utmost to limit the royal prerogative. In England they have
contracted a close alliance with the aristocracy; in France they
have proved to be the most dangerous enemies of that class. It is my
object to inquire whether, under all these circumstances, the
members of the legal profession have been swayed by sudden and
momentary impulses; or whether they have been impelled by principles
which are inherent in their pursuits, and which will always recur in
history. I am incited to this investigation by reflecting that this
particular class of men will most likely play a prominent part in
that order of things to which the events of our time are giving
birth.
Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal pursuits
derive from those occupations certain habits of order, a taste for
formalities, and a kind of instinctive regard for the regular
connection of ideas, which naturally render them very hostile to the
revolutionary spirit and the unreflecting passions of the multitude.
The special information which lawyers derive from their studies
ensures them a separate station in society, and they constitute a
sort of privileged body in the scale of intelligence. This notion of
their superiority perpetually recurs to them in the practice of
their profession: they are the masters of a science which is
necessary, but which is not very generally known; they serve as
arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of directing the blind
passions of parties in litigation to their purpose inspires them
with a certain contempt for the judgment of the multitude. To this
it may be added that they naturally constitute a body, not by any
previous understanding, or by an agreement which directs them to a
common end; but the analogy of their studies and the uniformity of
their proceedings connect their minds together, as much as a common
interest could combine their endeavors.
A portion of the tastes and of the habits of the aristocracy may
consequently be discovered in the characters of men in the
profession of the law. They participate in the same instinctive love
of order and of formalities; and they entertain the same repugnance
to the actions of the multitude, and the same secret contempt of the
government of the people. I do not mean to say that the natural
propensities of lawyers are sufficiently strong to sway them
irresistibly; for they, like most other men, are governed by their
private interests and the advantages of the moment.
In a state of society in which the members of the legal profession
are prevented from holding that rank in the political world which
they enjoy in private life, we may rest assured that they will be
the foremost agents of revolution. But it must then be inquired
whether the cause which induces them to innovate and to destroy is
accidental, or whether it belongs to some lasting purpose which they
entertain. It is true that lawyers mainly contributed to the
overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789; but it remains to be seen
whether they acted thus because they had studied the laws, or
because they were prohibited from co-operating in the work of
legislation.
Five hundred years ago the English nobles headed the people, and
spoke in its name; at the present time the aristocracy supports the
throne, and defends the royal prerogative. But aristocracy has,
notwithstanding this, its peculiar instincts and propensities. We
must be careful not to confound isolated members of a body with the
body itself. In all free governments, of whatsoever form they may
be, members of the legal profession will be found at the head of all
parties. The same remark is also applicable to the aristocracy; for
almost all the democratic convulsions which have agitated the world
have been directed by nobles.
A privileged body can never satisfy the ambition of all its members;
it has always more talents and more passions to content and to
employ than it can find places; so that a considerable number of
individuals are usually to be met with who are inclined to attack
those very privileges which they find it impossible to turn to their
own account.
I do not, then, assert that all the members of the legal profession
are at all times the friends of order and the opponents of
innovation, but merely that most of them usually are so. In a
community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy, without
opposition, that high station which naturally belongs to them, their
general spirit will be eminently conservative and anti-democratic.
When an aristocracy excludes the leaders of that profession from its
ranks, it excites enemies which are the more formidable to its
security as they are independent of the nobility by their
industrious pursuits; and they feel themselves to be its equal in
point of intelligence, although they enjoy less opulence and less
power. But whenever an aristocracy consents to impart some of its
privileges to these same individuals, the two classes coalesce very
readily, and assume, as it were, the consistency of a single order
of family interests.
I am, in like manner, inclined to believe that a monarch will always
be able to convert legal practitioners into the most serviceable
instruments of his authority. There is a far greater affinity
between this class of individuals and the executive power than there
is between them and the people; just as there is a greater natural
affinity between the nobles and the monarch than between the nobles
and the people, although the higher orders of society have
occasionally resisted the prerogative of the Crown in concert with
the lower classes.
Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other
consideration, and the best security of public order is authority.
It must not be forgotten that, if they prize the free institutions
of their country much, they nevertheless value the legality of those
institutions far more: they are less afraid of tyranny than of
arbitrary power; and provided that the legislature take upon itself
to deprive men of their independence, they are not dissatisfied.
I am therefore convinced that the prince who, in presence of an
encroaching democracy, should endeavor to impair the judicial
authority in his dominions, and to diminish the political influence
of lawyers, would commit a great mistake. He would let slip the
substance of authority to grasp at the shadow. He would act more
wisely in introducing men connected with the law into the
government; and if he entrusted them with the conduct of a despotic
power, bearing some marks of violence, that power would most likely
assume the external features of justice and of legality in their
hands.
The government of democracy is favorable to the political power of
lawyers; for when the wealthy, the noble, and the prince are
excluded from the government, they are sure to occupy the highest
stations, in their own right, as it were, since they are the only
men of information and sagacity, beyond the sphere of the people,
who can be the object of the popular choice. If, then, they are led
by their tastes to combine with the aristocracy and to support the
Crown, they are naturally brought into contact with the people by
their interests. They like the government of democracy, without
participating in its propensities and without imitating its
weaknesses; whence they derive a twofold authority, from it and over
it. The people in democratic states does not mistrust the members of
the legal profession, because it is well known that they are
interested in serving the popular cause; and it listens to them
without irritation, because it does not attribute to them any
sinister designs. The object of lawyers is not, indeed, to overthrow
the institutions of democracy, but they constantly endeavor to give
it an impulse which diverts it from its real tendency, by means
which are foreign to its nature. Lawyers belong to the people by
birth and interest, to the aristocracy by habit and by taste, and
they may be looked upon as the natural bond and connecting link of
the two great classes of society.
The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element which can
be amalgamated without violence with the natural elements of
democracy, and which can be advantageously and permanently combined
with them. I am not unacquainted with the defects which are inherent
in the character of that body of men; but without this admixture of
lawyer-like sobriety with the democratic principle, I question
whether democratic institutions could long be maintained, and I
cannot believe that a republic could subsist at the present time if
the influence of lawyers in public business did not increase in
proportion to the power of the people.
This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to the legal
profession, is much more distinctly marked in the United States and
in England than in any other country. This proceeds not only from
the legal studies of the English and American lawyers, but from the
nature of the legislation, and the position which those persons
occupy in the two countries. The English and the Americans have
retained the law of precedents; that is to say, they continue to
found their legal opinions and the decisions of their courts upon
the opinions and the decisions of their forefathers. In the mind of
an English or American lawyer a taste and a reverence for what is
old is almost always united to a love of regular and lawful
proceedings.
This predisposition has another effect upon the character of the
legal profession and upon the general course of society. The English
and American lawyers investigate what has been done; the French
advocate inquires what should have been done; the former produce
precedents, the latter reasons. A French observer is surprised to
hear how often an English dr an American lawyer quotes the opinions
of others, and how little he alludes to his own; whilst the reverse
occurs in France. There the most trifling litigation is never
conducted without the introduction of an entire system of ideas
peculiar to the counsel employed; and the fundamental principles of
law are discussed in order to obtain a perch of land by the decision
of the court. This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit
deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the
English and American lawyer, this subjection of thought which he is
obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more
sluggish inclinations in England and America than in France.
The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can
be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more
impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon
precedents. The indispensable want of legal assistance which is felt
in England and in the United States, and the high opinion which is
generally entertained of the ability of the legal profession, tend
to separate it more and more from the people, and to place it in a
distinct class. The French lawyer is simply a man extensively
acquainted with the statutes of his country; but the English or
American lawyer resembles the hierophants of Egypt, for, like them,
he is the sole interpreter of an occult science.
The station which lawyers occupy in England and America exercises no
less an influence upon their habits and their opinions. The English
aristocracy, which has taken care to attract to its sphere whatever
is at all analogous to itself, has conferred a high degree of
importance and of authority upon the members of the legal
profession. In English society lawyers do not occupy the first rank,
but they are contented with the station assigned to them; they
constitute, as it were, the younger branch of the English
aristocracy, and they are attached to their elder brothers, although
they do not enjoy all their privileges. The English lawyers
consequently mingle the taste and the ideas of the aristocratic
circles in which they move with the aristocratic interests of their
profession.
And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavoring to
depict is most distinctly to be met with in England: there laws are
esteemed not so much because they are good as because they are old;
and if it be necessary to modify them in any respect, or to adapt
them the changes which time operates in society, recourse is had to
the most inconceivable contrivances in order to uphold the
traditionary fabric, and to maintain that nothing has been done
which does not square with the intentions and complete the labors of
former generations. The very individuals who conduct these changes
disclaim all intention of innovation, and they had rather resort to
absurd expedients than plead guilty to so great a crime. This spirit
appertains more especially to the English lawyers; they seem
indifferent to the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct
all their attention to the letter, seeming inclined to infringe the
rules of common sense and of humanity rather than to swerve one
title from the law. The English legislation may be compared to the
stock of an old tree, upon which lawyers have engrafted the most
various shoots, with the hope that, although their fruits may
differ, their foliage at least will be confounded with the venerable
trunk which supports them all.
In America there are no nobles or men of letters, and the people is
apt to mistrust the wealthy; lawyers consequently form the highest
political class, and the most cultivated circle of society. They
have therefore nothing to gain by innovation, which adds a
conservative interest to their natural taste for public order. If I
were asked where I place the American aristocracy, I should reply
without hesitation that it is not composed of the rich, who are
united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial
bench and the bar.
The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States the
more shall we be persuaded that the lawyers as a body form the most
powerful, if not the only, counterpoise to the democratic element.
In that country we perceive how eminently the legal profession is
qualified by its powers, and even by its defects, to neutralize the
vices which are inherent in popular government. When the American
people is intoxicated by passion, or carried away by the impetuosity
of its ideas, it is checked and stopped by the almost invisible
influence of its legal counsellors, who secretly oppose their
aristocratic propensities to its democratic instincts, their
superstitious attachment to what is antique to its love of novelty,
their narrow views to its immense designs, and their habitual
procrastination to its ardent impatience.
The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the legal
profession is enabled to control the democracy. The judge is a
lawyer, who, independently of the taste for regularity and order
which he has contracted in the study of legislation, derives an
additional love of stability from his own inalienable functions. His
legal attainments have already raised him to a distinguished rank
amongst his fellow-citizens; his political power completes the
distinction of his station, and gives him the inclinations natural
to privileged classes.
Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be unconstitutional,
*a the American magistrate perpetually interferes in political
affairs. He cannot force the people to make laws, but at least he
can oblige it not to disobey its own enactments; or to act
inconsistently with its own principles. I am aware that a secret
tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the United States,
and by most of the constitutions of the several States the
Government can, upon the demand of the two houses of the
legislature, remove the judges from their station. By some other
constitutions the members of the tribunals are elected, and they are
even subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to predict that
these innovations will sooner or later be attended with fatal
consequences, and that it will be found out at some future period
that the attack which is made upon the judicial power has affected
the democratic republic itself.
[Footnote a: See chapter VI. on the "Judicial Power in the United
States."]
It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which I
have been speaking has been confined, in the United States, to the
courts of justice; it extends far beyond them. As the lawyers
constitute the only enlightened class which the people does not
mistrust, they are naturally called upon to occupy most of the
public stations. They fill the legislative assemblies, and they
conduct the administration; they consequently exercise a powerful
influence upon the formation of the law, and upon its execution. The
lawyers are, however, obliged to yield to the current of public
opinion, which is too strong for them to resist it, but it is easy
to find indications of what their conduct would be if they were free
to act as they chose. The Americans, who have made such copious
innovations in their political legislation, have introduced very
sparing alterations in their civil laws, and that with great
difficulty, although those laws are frequently repugnant to their
social condition. The reason of this is, that in matters of civil
law the majority is obliged to defer to the authority of the legal
profession, and that the American lawyers are disinclined to
innovate when they are left to their own choice.
It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different state
of things, to hear the perpetual complaints which are made in the
United States against the stationary propensities of legal men, and
their prejudices in favor of existing institutions.
The influence of the legal habits which are common in America
extends beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely any
question arises in the United States which does not become, sooner
or later, a subject of judicial debate; hence all parties are
obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in
judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most public
men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the
customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs of
the country. The jury extends this habitude to all classes. The
language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue;
the spirit of the law, which is produced in the schools and courts
of justice, gradually penetrates beyond their walls into the bosom
of society, where it descends to the lowest classes, so that the
whole people contracts the habits and the tastes of the magistrate.
The lawyers of the United States form a party which is but little
feared and scarcely perceived, which has no badge peculiar to
itself, which adapts itself with great flexibility to the exigencies
of the time, and accommodates itself to all the movements of the
social body; but this party extends over the whole community, and it
penetrates into all classes of society; it acts upon the country
imperceptibly, but it finally fashions it to suit its purposes.
Chapter XVI: Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States - Part
II
Trial By Jury In The United States Considered As A Political
Institution
Trial by jury, which is one of the instruments of the sovereignty of
the people, deserves to be compared with the other laws which
establish that sovereignty - Composition of the jury in the United
States - Effect of trial by jury upon the national character - It
educates the people - It tends to establish the authority of the
magistrates and to extend a knowledge of law among the people.
Since I have been led by my subject to recur to the administration
of justice in the United States, I will not pass over this point
without adverting to the institution of the jury. Trial by jury may
be considered in two separate points of view, as a judicial and as a
political institution. If it entered into my present purpose to
inquire how far trial by jury (more especially in civil cases)
contributes to insure the best administration of justice, I admit
that its utility might be contested. As the jury was first
introduced at a time when society was in an uncivilized state, and
when courts of justice were merely called upon to decide on the
evidence of facts, it is not an easy task to adapt it to the wants
of a highly civilized community when the mutual relations of men are
multiplied to a surprising extent, and have assumed the enlightened
and intellectual character of the age. *b
[Footnote b: The investigation of trial by jury as a judicial
institution, and the appreciation of its effects in the United
States, together with the advantages the Americans have derived from
it, would suffice to form a book, and a book upon a very useful and
curious subject. The State of Louisiana would in particular afford
the curious phenomenon of a French and English legislation, as well
as a French and English population, which are gradually combining
with each other. See the "Digeste des Lois de la Louisiane," in two
volumes; and the "Traite sur les Regles des Actions civiles,"
printed in French and English at New Orleans in 1830.]
My present object is to consider the jury as a political
institution, and any other course would divert me from my subject.
Of trial by jury, considered as a judicial institution, I shall here
say but very few words. When the English adopted trial by jury they
were a semi-barbarous people; they are become, in course of time,
one of the most enlightened nations of the earth; and their
attachment to this institution seems to have increased with their
increasing cultivation. They soon spread beyond their insular
boundaries to every corner of the habitable globe; some have formed
colonies, others independent states; the mother-country has
maintained its monarchical constitution; many of its offspring have
founded powerful republics; but wherever the English have been they
have boasted of the privilege of trial by jury. *c They have
established it, or hastened to re-establish it, in all their
settlements. A judicial institution which obtains the suffrages of a
great people for so long a series of ages, which is zealously
renewed at every epoch of civilization, in all the climates of the
earth and under every form of human government, cannot be contrary
to the spirit of justice. *d
[Footnote c: All the English and American jurists are unanimous upon
this head. Mr. Story, judge of the Supreme Court of the United
States, speaks, in his "Treatise on the Federal Constitution," of
the advantages of trial by jury in civil cases: - " The inestimable
privilege of a trial by jury in civil cases - a privilege scarcely
inferior to that in criminal cases, which is counted by all persons
to be essential to political and civil liberty. . . ." (Story, book
iii., chap. xxxviii.)]
[Footnote d: If it were our province to point out the utility of the
jury as a judicial institution in this place, much might be said,
and the following arguments might be brought forward amongst others:
-
By introducing the jury into the business of the courts you are
enabled to diminish the number of judges, which is a very great
advantage. When judges are very numerous, death is perpetually
thinning the ranks of the judicial functionaries, and laying places
vacant for newcomers. The ambition of the magistrates is therefore
continually excited, and they are naturally made dependent upon the
will of the majority, or the individual who fills up the vacant
appointments; the officers of the court then rise like the officers
of an army. This state of things is entirely contrary to the sound
administration of justice, and to the intentions of the legislator.
The office of a judge is made inalienable in order that he may
remain independent: but of what advantage is it that his
independence should be protected if he be tempted to sacrifice it of
his own accord? When judges are very numerous many of them must
necessarily be incapable of performing their important duties, for a
great magistrate is a man of no common powers; and I am inclined to
believe that a half-enlightened tribunal is the worst of all
instruments for attaining those objects which it is the purpose of
courts of justice to accomplish. For my own part, I had rather
submit the decision of a case to ignorant jurors directed by a
skilful judge than to judges a majority of whom are imperfectly
acquainted with jurisprudence and with the laws.]
I turn, however, from this part of the subject. To look upon the
jury as a mere judicial institution is to confine our attention to a
very narrow view of it; for however great its influence may be upon
the decisions of the law courts, that influence is very subordinate
to the powerful effects which it produces on the destinies of the
community at large. The jury is above all a political institution,
and it must be regarded in this light in order to be duly
appreciated.
By the jury I mean a certain number of citizens chosen
indiscriminately, and invested with a temporary right of judging.
Trial by jury, as applied to the repression of crime, appears to me
to introduce an eminently republican element into the government
upon the following grounds:-
The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic,
according to the class of society from which the jurors are
selected; but it always preserves its republican character, inasmuch
as it places the real direction of society in the hands of the
governed, or of a portion of the governed, instead of leaving it
under the authority of the Government. Force is never more than a
transient element of success; and after force comes the notion of
right. A government which should only be able to crush its enemies
upon a field of battle would very soon be destroyed. The true
sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation, and
if that sanction be wanting the law will sooner or later lose its
cogency. He who punishes infractions of the law is therefore the
real master of society. Now the institution of the jury raises the
people itself, or at least a class of citizens, to the bench of
judicial authority. The institution of the jury consequently invests
the people, or that class of citizens, with the direction of
society. *e
[Footnote e: An important remark must, however, be made. Trial by
jury does unquestionably invest the people with a general control
over the actions of citizens, but it does not furnish means of
exercising this control in all cases, or with an absolute authority.
When an absolute monarch has the right of trying offences by his
representatives, the fate of the prisoner is, as it were, decided
beforehand. But even if the people were predisposed to convict, the
composition and the non-responsibility of the jury would still
afford some chances favorable to the protection of innocence.]
In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic portion of the
nation; *f the aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws, and
punishes all infractions of the laws; everything is established upon
a consistent footing, and England may with truth be said to
constitute an aristocratic republic. In the United States the same
system is applied to the whole people. Every American citizen is
qualified to be an elector, a juror, and is eligible to office. *g
The system of the jury, as it is understood in America, appears to
me to be as direct and as extreme a consequence of the sovereignty
of the people as universal suffrage. These institutions are two
instruments of equal power, which contribute to the supremacy of the
majority. All the sovereigns who have chosen to govern by their own
authority, and to direct society instead of obeying its directions,
have destroyed or enfeebled the institution of the jury. The
monarchs of the House of Tudor sent to prison jurors who refused to
convict, and Napoleon caused them to be returned by his agents.
[Footnote f: [This may be true to some extent of special juries, but
not of common juries. The author seems not to have been aware that
the qualifications of jurors in England vary exceedingly.]]
[Footnote g: See Appendix, Q.]
However clear most of these truths may seem to be, they do not
command universal assent, and in France, at least, the institution
of trial by jury is still very imperfectly understood. If the
question arises as to the proper qualification of jurors, it is
confined to a discussion of the intelligence and knowledge of the
citizens who may be returned, as if the jury was merely a judicial
institution. This appears to me to be the least part of the subject.
The jury is pre-eminently a political institution; it must be
regarded as one form of the sovereignty of the people; when that
sovereignty is repudiated, it must be rejected, or it must be
adapted to the laws by which that sovereignty is established. The
jury is that portion of the nation to which the execution of the
laws is entrusted, as the Houses of Parliament constitute that part
of the nation which makes the laws; and in order that society may be
governed with consistency and uniformity, the list of citizens
qualified to serve on juries must increase and diminish with the
list of electors. This I hold to be the point of view most worthy of
the attention of the legislator, and all that remains is merely
accessory.
I am so entirely convinced that the jury is pre-eminently a
political institution that I still consider it in this light when it
is applied in civil causes. Laws are always unstable unless they are
founded upon the manners of a nation; manners are the only durable
and resisting power in a people. When the jury is reserved for
criminal offences, the people only witnesses its occasional action
in certain particular cases; the ordinary course of life goes on
without its interference, and it is considered as an instrument, but
not as the only instrument, of obtaining justice. This is true a
fortiori when the jury is only applied to certain criminal causes.
When, on the contrary, the influence of the jury is extended to
civil causes, its application is constantly palpable; it affects all
the interests of the community; everyone co-operates in its work: it
thus penetrates into all the usages of life, it fashions the human
mind to its peculiar forms, and is gradually associated with the
idea of justice itself.
The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is
always in danger, but when once it is introduced into civil
proceedings it defies the aggressions of time and of man. If it had
been as easy to remove the jury from the manners as from the laws of
England, it would have perished under Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, and
the civil jury did in reality, at that period, save the liberties of
the country. In whatever manner the jury be applied, it cannot fail
to exercise a powerful influence upon the national character; but
this influence is prodigiously increased when it is introduced into
civil causes. The jury, and more especially the jury in civil cases,
serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all
the citizens; and this spirit, with the habits which attend it, is
the soundest preparation for free institutions. It imbues all
classes with a respect for the thing judged, and with the notion of
right. If these two elements be removed, the love of independence is
reduced to a mere destructive passion. It teaches men to practice
equity, every man learns to judge his neighbor as he would himself
be judged; and this is especially true of the jury in civil causes,
for, whilst the number of persons who have reason to apprehend a
criminal prosecution is small, every one is liable to have a civil
action brought against him. The jury teaches every man not to recoil
before the responsibility of his own actions, and impresses him with
that manly confidence without which political virtue cannot exist.
It invests each citizen with a kind of magistracy, it makes them all
feel the duties which they are bound to discharge towards society,
and the part which they take in the Government. By obliging men to
turn their attention to affairs which are not exclusively their own,
it rubs off that individual egotism which is the rust of society.
The jury contributes most powerfully to form the judgement and to
increase the natural intelligence of a people, and this is, in my
opinion, its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a gratuitous
public school ever open, in which every juror learns to exercise his
rights, enters into daily communication with the most learned and
enlightened members of the upper classes, and becomes practically
acquainted with the laws of his country, which are brought within
the reach of his capacity by the efforts of the bar, the advice of
the judge, and even by the passions of the parties. I think that the
practical intelligence and political good sense of the Americans are
mainly attributable to the long use which they have made of the jury
in civil causes. I do not know whether the jury is useful to those
who are in litigation; but I am certain it is highly beneficial to
those who decide the litigation; and I look upon it as one of the
most efficacious means for the education of the people which society
can employ.
What I have hitherto said applies to all nations, but the remark I
am now about to make is peculiar to the Americans and to democratic
peoples. I have already observed that in democracies the members of
the legal profession and the magistrates constitute the only
aristocratic body which can check the irregularities of the people.
This aristocracy is invested with no physical power, but it
exercises its conservative influence upon the minds of men, and the
most abundant source of its authority is the institution of the
civil jury. In criminal causes, when society is armed against a
single individual, the jury is apt to look upon the judge as the
passive instrument of social power, and to mistrust his advice.
Moreover, criminal causes are entirely founded upon the evidence of
facts which common sense can readily appreciate; upon this ground
the judge and the jury are equal. Such, however, is not the case in
civil causes; then the judge appears as a disinterested arbiter
between the conflicting passions of the parties. The jurors look up
to him with confidence and listen to him with respect, for in this
instance their intelligence is completely under the control of his
learning. It is the judge who sums up the various arguments with
which their memory has been wearied out, and who guides them through
the devious course of the proceedings; he points their attention to
the exact question of fact which they are called upon to solve, and
he puts the answer to the question of law into their mouths. His
influence upon their verdict is almost unlimited.
If I am called upon to explain why I am but little moved by the
arguments derived from the ignorance of jurors in civil causes, I
reply, that in these proceedings, whenever the question to be solved
is not a mere question of fact, the jury has only the semblance of a
judicial body. The jury sanctions the decision of the judge, they by
the authority of society which they represent, and he by that of
reason and of law. *h
[Footnote h: See Appendix, R.]
In England and in America the judges exercise an influence upon
criminal trials which the French judges have never possessed. The
reason of this difference may easily be discovered; the English and
American magistrates establish their authority in civil causes, and
only transfer it afterwards to tribunals of another kind, where that
authority was not acquired. In some cases (and they are frequently
the most important ones) the American judges have the right of
deciding causes alone. *i Upon these occasions they are accidentally
placed in the position which the French judges habitually occupy,
but they are invested with far more power than the latter; they are
still surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury, and their judgment
has almost as much authority as the voice of the community at large,
represented by that institution. Their influence extends beyond the
limits of the courts; in the recreations of private life as well as
in the turmoil of public business, abroad and in the legislative
assemblies, the American judge is constantly surrounded by men who
are accustomed to regard his intelligence as superior to their own,
and after having exercised his power in the decision of causes, he
continues to influence the habits of thought and the characters of
the individuals who took a part in his judgment.
[Footnote i: The Federal judges decide upon their own authority
almost all the questions most important to the country.]
The jury, then, which seems to restrict the rights of magistracy,
does in reality consolidate its power, and in no country are the
judges so powerful as there, where the people partakes their
privileges. It is more especially by means of the jury in civil
causes that the American magistrates imbue all classes of society
with the spirit of their profession. Thus the jury, which is the
most energetic means of making the people rule, is also the most
efficacious means of teaching it to rule well.
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic -
Part I
Principal Causes Which Tend To Maintain The Democratic Republic In
The United States
A democratic republic subsists in the United States, and the
principal object of this book has been to account for the fact of
its existence. Several of the causes which contribute to maintain
the institutions of America have been involuntarily passed by or
only hinted at as I was borne along by my subject. Others I have
been unable to discuss, and those on which I have dwelt most are, as
it were, buried in the details of the former parts of this work. I
think, therefore, that before I proceed to speak of the future, I
cannot do better than collect within a small compass the reasons
which best explain the present. In this retrospective chapter I
shall be succinct, for I shall take care to remind the reader very
summarily of what he already knows; and I shall only select the most
prominent of those facts which I have not yet pointed out.
All the causes which contribute to the maintenance of the democratic
republic in the United States are reducible to three heads: -
I. The peculiar and accidental situation in which Providence has
placed the Americans.
II. The laws.
III. The manners and customs of the people.
Accidental Or Providential Causes Which Contribute To The
Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic In The United States The
Union has no neighbors - No metropolis - The Americans have had the
chances of birth in their favor - America an empty country - How
this circumstance contributes powerfully to the maintenance of the
democratic republic in America - How the American wilds are peopled
- Avidity of the Anglo-Americans in taking possession of the
solitudes of the New World -Influence of physical prosperity upon
the political opinions of the Americans.
A thousand circumstances, independent of the will of man, concur to
facilitate the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United
States. Some of these peculiarities are known, the others may easily
be pointed out; but I shall confine myself to the most prominent
amongst them.
The Americans have no neighbors, and consequently they have no great
wars, or financial crises, or inroads, or conquest to dread; they
require neither great taxes, nor great armies, nor great generals;
and they have nothing to fear from a scourge which is more
formidable to republics than all these evils combined, namely,
military glory. It is impossible to deny the inconceivable influence
which military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation. General
Jackson, whom the Americans have twice elected to the head of their
Government, is a man of a violent temper and mediocre talents; no
one circumstance in the whole course of his career ever proved that
he is qualified to govern a free people, and indeed the majority of
the enlightened classes of the Union has always been opposed to him.
But he was raised to the Presidency, and has been maintained in that
lofty station, solely by the recollection of a victory which he
gained twenty years ago under the walls of New Orleans, a victory
which was, however, a very ordinary achievement, and which could
only be remembered in a country where battles are rare. Now the
people which is thus carried away by the illusions of glory is
unquestionably the most cold and calculating, the most unmilitary
(if I may use the expression), and the most prosaic of all the
peoples of the earth.
America has no great capital *a city, whose influence is directly or
indirectly felt over the whole extent of the country, which I hold
to be one of the first causes of the maintenance of republican
institutions in the United States. In cities men cannot be prevented
from concerting together, and from awakening a mutual excitement
which prompts sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be
looked upon as large assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are
members; their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the
magistrates, and frequently executes its own wishes without their
intervention.
[Footnote a: The United States have no metropolis, but they already
contain several very large cities. Philadelphia reckoned 161,000
inhabitants and New York 202,000 in the year 1830. The lower orders
which inhabit these cities constitute a rabble even more formidable
than the populace of European towns. They consist of freed blacks in
the first place, who are condemned by the laws and by public opinion
to a hereditary state of misery and degradation. They also contain a
multitude of Europeans who have been driven to the shores of the New
World by their misfortunes or their misconduct; and these men
inoculate the United States with all our vices, without bringing
with them any of those interests which counteract their baneful
influence. As inhabitants of a country where they have no civil
rights, they are ready to turn all the passions which agitate the
community to their own advantage; thus, within the last few months
serious riots have broken out in Philadelphia and in New York.
Disturbances of this kind are unknown in the rest of the country,
which is nowise alarmed by them, because the population of the
cities has hitherto exercised neither power nor influence over the
rural districts. Nevertheless, I look upon the size of certain
American cities, and especially on the nature of their population,
as a real danger which threatens the future security of the
democratic republics of the New World; and I venture to predict that
they will perish from this circumstance unless the government
succeeds in creating an armed force, which, whilst it remains under
the control of the majority of the nation, will be independent of
the town population, and able to repress its excesses.
[The population of the city of New York had risen, in 1870, to
942,292, and that of Philadelphia to 674,022. Brooklyn, which may be
said to form part of New York city, has a population of 396,099, in
addition to that of New York. The frequent disturbances in the great
cities of America, and the excessive corruption of their local
governments - over which there is no effectual control - are amongst
the greatest evils and dangers of the country.]]
To subject the provinces to the metropolis is therefore not only to
place the destiny of the empire in the hands of a portion of the
community, which may be reprobated as unjust, but to place it in the
hands of a populace acting under its own impulses, which must be
avoided as dangerous. The preponderance of capital cities is
therefore a serious blow upon the representative system, and it
exposes modern republics to the same defect as the republics of
antiquity, which all perished from not having been acquainted with
that form of government.
It would be easy for me to adduce a great number of secondary causes
which have contributed to establish, and which concur to maintain,
the democratic republic of the United States. But I discern two
principal circumstances amongst these favorable elements, which I
hasten to point out. I have already observed that the origin of the
American settlements may be looked upon as the first and most
efficacious cause to which the present prosperity of the United
States may be attributed. The Americans had the chances of birth in
their favor, and their forefathers imported that equality of
conditions into the country whence the democratic republic has very
naturally taken its rise. Nor was this all they did; for besides
this republican condition of society, the early settler bequeathed
to their descendants those customs, manners, and opinions which
contribute most to the success of a republican form of government.
When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary circumstance,
methinks I see the destiny of America embodied in the first Puritan
who landed on those shores, just as the human race was represented
by the first man.
The chief circumstance which has favored the establishment and the
maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States is the
nature of the territory which the American inhabit. Their ancestors
gave them the love of equality and of freedom, but God himself gave
them the means of remaining equal and free, by placing them upon a
boundless continent, which is open to their exertions. General
prosperity is favorable to the stability of all governments, but
more particularly of a democratic constitution, which depends upon
the dispositions of the majority, and more particularly of that
portion of the community which is most exposed to feel the pressure
of want. When the people rules, it must be rendered happy, or it
will overturn the State, and misery is apt to stimulate it to those
excesses to which ambition rouses kings. The physical causes,
independent of the laws, which contribute to promote general
prosperity, are more numerous in America than they have ever been in
any other country in the world, at any other period of history. In
the United States not only is legislation democratic, but nature
herself favors the cause of the people.
In what part of human tradition can be found anything at all similar
to that which is occurring under our eyes in North America? The
celebrated communities of antiquity were all founded in the midst of
hostile nations, which they were obliged to subjugate before they
could flourish in their place. Even the moderns have found, in some
parts of South America, vast regions inhabited by a people of
inferior civilization, but which occupied and cultivated the soil.
To found their new states it was necessary to extirpate or to subdue
a numerous population, until civilization has been made to blush for
their success. But North America was only inhabited by wandering
tribes, who took no thought of the natural riches of the soil, and
that vast country was still, properly speaking, an empty continent,
a desert land awaiting its inhabitants.
Everything is extraordinary in America, the social condition of the
inhabitants, as well as the laws; but the soil upon which these
institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all the rest.
When man was first placed upon the earth by the Creator, the earth
was inexhaustible in its youth, but man was weak and ignorant; and
when he had learned to explore the treasures which it contained,
hosts of his fellow creatures covered its surface, and he was
obliged to earn an asylum for repose and for freedom by the sword.
At that same period North America was discovered, as if it had been
kept in reserve by the Deity, and had just risen from beneath the
waters of the deluge.
That continent still presents, as it did in the primeval time,
rivers which rise from never-failing sources, green and moist
solitudes, and fields which the ploughshare of the husbandman has
never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in the
barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages, but to a being
who is already in possession of the most potent secrets of the
natural world, who is united to his fellow-men, and instructed by
the Experience of fifty centuries. At this very time thirteen
millions of civilized Europeans are peaceably spreading over those
fertile plains, with whose resources and whose extent they are not
yet themselves accurately acquainted. Three or four thousand
soldiers drive the wandering races of the aborigines before them;
these are followed by the pioneers, who pierce the woods, scare off
the beasts of prey, explore the courses of the inland streams, and
make ready the triumphal procession of civilization across the
waste.
The favorable influence of the temporal prosperity of America upon
the institutions of that country has been so often described by
others, and adverted to by myself, that I shall not enlarge upon it
beyond the addition of a few facts. An erroneous notion is generally
entertained that the deserts of America are peopled by European
emigrants, who annually disembark upon the coasts of the New World,
whilst the American population increases and multiplies upon the
soil which its forefathers tilled. The European settler, however,
usually arrives in the United States without friends, and sometimes
without resources; in order to subsist he is obliged to work for
hire, and he rarely proceeds beyond that belt of industrious
population which adjoins the ocean. The desert cannot be explored
without capital or credit; and the body must be accustomed to the
rigors of a new climate before it can be exposed to the chances of
forest life. It is the Americans themselves who daily quit the spots
which gave them birth to acquire extensive domains in a remote
country. Thus the European leaves his cottage for the trans-Atlantic
shores; and the American, who is born on that very coast, plunges in
his turn into the wilds of Central America. This double emigration
is incessant; it begins in the remotest parts of Europe, it crosses
the Atlantic Ocean, and it advances over the solitudes of the New
World. Millions of men are marching at once towards the same
horizon; their language, their religion, their manners differ, their
object is the same. The gifts of fortune are promised in the West,
and to the West they bend their course. *b
[Footnote b: [The number of foreign immigrants into the United
States in the last fifty years (from 1820 to 1871) is stated to be
7,556,007. Of these, 4,104,553 spoke English - that is, they came
from Great Britain, Ireland, or the British colonies; 2,643,069 came
from Germany or northern Europe; and about half a million from the
south of Europe.]]
No event can be compared with this continuous removal of the human
race, except perhaps those irruptions which preceded the fall of the
Roman Empire. Then, as well as now, generations of men were impelled
forwards in the same direction to meet and struggle on the same
spot; but the designs of Providence were not the same; then, every
newcomer was the harbinger of destruction and of death; now, every
adventurer brings with him the elements of prosperity and of life.
The future still conceals from us the ulterior consequences of this
emigration of the Americans towards the West; but we can readily
apprehend its more immediate results. As a portion of the
inhabitants annually leave the States in which they were born, the
population of these States increases very slowly, although they have
long been established: thus in Connecticut, which only contains
fifty-nine inhabitants to the square mile, the population has not
increased by more than one-quarter in forty years, whilst that of
England has been augmented by one-third in the lapse of the same
period. The European emigrant always lands, therefore, in a country
which is but half full, and where hands are in request: he becomes a
workman in easy circumstances; his son goes to seek his fortune in
unpeopled regions, and he becomes a rich landowner. The former
amasses the capital which the latter invests, and the stranger as
well as the native is unacquainted with want.
The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to the
division of property; but a cause which is more powerful than the
laws prevents property from being divided to excess. *c This is very
perceptible in the States which are beginning to be thickly peopled;
Massachusetts is the most populous part of the Union, but it
contains only eighty inhabitants to the square mile, which is must
less than in France, where 162 are reckoned to the same extent of
country. But in Massachusetts estates are very rarely divided; the
eldest son takes the land, and the others go to seek their fortune
in the desert. The law has abolished the rights of primogeniture,
but circumstances have concurred to re-establish it under a form of
which none can complain, and by which no just rights are impaired.
[Footnote c: In New England the estates are exceedingly small, but
they are rarely subjected to further division.]
A single fact will suffice to show the prodigious number of
individuals who leave New England, in this manner, to settle
themselves in the wilds. We were assured in 1830 that thirty-six of
the members of Congress were born in the little State of
Connecticut. The population of Connecticut, which constitutes only
one forty-third part of that of the United States, thus furnished
one-eighth of the whole body of representatives. The States of
Connecticut, however, only sends five delegates to Congress; and the
thirty-one others sit for the new Western States. If these
thirty-one individuals had remained in Connecticut, it is probable
that instead of becoming rich landowners they would have remained
humble laborers, that they would have lived in obscurity without
being able to rise into public life, and that, far from becoming
useful members of the legislature, they might have been unruly
citizens.
These reflections do not escape the observation of the Americans any
more than of ourselves. "It cannot be doubted," says Chancellor Kent
in his "Treatise on American Law," "that the division of landed
estates must produce great evils when it is carried to such excess
as that each parcel of land is insufficient to support a family; but
these disadvantages have never been felt in the United States, and
many generations must elapse before they can be felt. The extent of
our inhabited territory, the abundance of adjacent land, and the
continual stream of emigration flowing from the shores of the
Atlantic towards the interior of the country, suffice as yet, and
will long suffice, to prevent the parcelling out of estates."
It is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the American
rushes forward to secure the immense booty which fortune proffers to
him. In the pursuit he fearlessly braves the arrow of the Indian and
the distempers of the forest; he is unimpressed by the silence of
the woods; the approach of beasts of prey does not disturb him; for
he is goaded onwards by a passion more intense than the love of
life. Before him lies a boundless continent, and he urges onwards as
if time pressed, and he was afraid of finding no room for his
exertions. I have spoken of the emigration from the older States,
but how shall I describe that which takes place from the more recent
ones? Fifty years have scarcely elapsed since that of Ohio was
founded; the greater part of its inhabitants were not born within
its confines; its capital has only been built thirty years, and its
territory is still covered by an immense extent of uncultivated
fields; nevertheless the population of Ohio is already proceeding
westward, and most of the settlers who descend to the fertile
savannahs of Illinois are citizens of Ohio. These men left their
first country to improve their condition; they quit their
resting-place to ameliorate it still more; fortune awaits them
everywhere, but happiness they cannot attain. The desire of
prosperity is become an ardent and restless passion in their minds
which grows by what it gains. They early broke the ties which bound
them to their natal earth, and they have contracted no fresh ones on
their way. Emigration was at first necessary to them as a means of
subsistence; and it soon becomes a sort of game of chance, which
they pursue for the emotions it excites as much as for the gain it
procures.
Sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert reappears
behind him. The woods stoop to give him a passage, and spring up
again when he has passed. It is not uncommon in crossing the new
States of the West to meet with deserted dwellings in the midst of
the wilds; the traveller frequently discovers the vestiges of a log
house in the most solitary retreats, which bear witness to the
power, and no less to the inconstancy of man. In these abandoned
fields, and over these ruins of a day, the primeval forest soon
scatters a fresh vegetation, the beasts resume the haunts which were
once their own, and Nature covers the traces of man's path with
branches and with flowers, which obliterate his evanescent track.
I remember that, in crossing one of the woodland districts which
still cover the State of New York, I reached the shores of a lake
embosomed in forests coeval with the world. A small island, covered
with woods whose thick foliage concealed its banks, rose from the
centre of the waters. Upon the shores of the lake no object attested
the presence of man except a column of smoke which might be seen on
the horizon rising from the tops of the trees to the clouds, and
seeming to hang from heaven rather than to be mounting to the sky.
An Indian shallop was hauled up on the sand, which tempted me to
visit the islet that had first attracted my attention, and in a few
minutes I set foot upon its banks. The whole island formed one of
those delicious solitudes of the New World which almost lead
civilized man to regret the haunts of the savage. A luxuriant
vegetation bore witness to the incomparable fruitfulness of the
soil. The deep silence which is common to the wilds of North America
was only broken by the hoarse cooing of the wood-pigeon, and the
tapping of the woodpecker upon the bark of trees. I was far from
supposing that this spot had ever been inhabited, so completely did
Nature seem to be left to her own caprices; but when I reached the
centre of the isle I thought that I discovered some traces of man. I
then proceeded to examine the surrounding objects with care, and I
soon perceived that a European had undoubtedly been led to seek a
refuge in this retreat. Yet what changes had taken place in the
scene of his labors! The logs which he had hastily hewn to build
himself a shed had sprouted afresh; the very props were intertwined
with living verdure, and his cabin was transformed into a bower. In
the midst of these shrubs a few stones were to be seen, blackened
with fire and sprinkled with thin ashes; here the hearth had no
doubt been, and the chimney in falling had covered it with rubbish.
I stood for some time in silent admiration of the exuberance of
Nature and the littleness of man: and when I was obliged to leave
that enchanting solitude, I exclaimed with melancholy, "Are ruins,
then, already here?"
In Europe we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, an
unbounded desire of riches, and an excessive love of independence,
as propensities very formidable to society. Yet these are the very
elements which ensure a long and peaceful duration to the republics
of America. Without these unquiet passions the population would
collect in certain spots, and would soon be subject to wants like
those of the Old World, which it is difficult to satisfy; for such
is the present good fortune of the New World, that the vices of its
inhabitants are scarcely less favorable to society than their
virtues. These circumstances exercise a great influence on the
estimation in which human actions are held in the two hemispheres.
The Americans frequently term what we should call cupidity a
laudable industry; and they blame as faint-heartedness what we
consider to be the virtue of moderate desires.
In France, simple tastes, orderly manners, domestic affections, and
the attachments which men feel to the place of their birth, are
looked upon as great guarantees of the tranquillity and happiness of
the State. But in America nothing seems to be more prejudicial to
society than these virtues. The French Canadians, who have
faithfully preserved the traditions of their pristine manners, are
already embarrassed for room upon their small territory; and this
little community, which has so recently begun to exist, will shortly
be a prey to the calamities incident to old nations. In Canada, the
most enlightened, patriotic, and humane inhabitants make
extraordinary efforts to render the people dissatisfied with those
simple enjoyments which still content it. There, the seductions of
wealth are vaunted with as much zeal as the charms of an honest but
limited income in the Old World, and more exertions are made to
excite the passions of the citizens there than to calm them
elsewhere. If we listen to their eulogies, we shall hear that
nothing is more praiseworthy than to exchange the pure and homely
pleasures which even the poor man tastes in his own country for the
dull delights of prosperity under a foreign sky; to leave the
patrimonial hearth and the turf beneath which his forefathers sleep;
in short, to abandon the living and the dead in quest of fortune.
At the present time America presents a field for human effort far
more extensive than any sum of labor which can be applied to work
it. In America too much knowledge cannot be diffused; for all
knowledge, whilst it may serve him who possesses it, turns also to
the advantage of those who are without it. New wants are not to be
feared, since they can be satisfied without difficulty; the growth
of human passions need not be dreaded, since all passions may find
an easy and a legitimate object; nor can men be put in possession of
too much freedom, since they are scarcely ever tempted to misuse
their liberties.
The American republics of the present day are like companies of
adventurers formed to explore in common the waste lands of the New
World, and busied in a flourishing trade. The passions which agitate
the Americans most deeply are not their political but their
commercial passions; or, to speak more correctly, they introduce the
habits they contract in business into their political life. They
love order, without which affairs do not prosper; and they set an
especial value upon a regular conduct, which is the foundation of a
solid business; they prefer the good sense which amasses large
fortunes to that enterprising spirit which frequently dissipates
them; general ideas alarm their minds, which are accustomed to
positive calculations, and they hold practice in more honor than
theory.
It is in America that one learns to understand the influence which
physical prosperity exercises over political actions, and even over
opinions which ought to acknowledge no sway but that of reason; and
it is more especially amongst strangers that this truth is
perceptible. Most of the European emigrants to the New World carry
with them that wild love of independence and of change which our
calamities are so apt to engender. I sometimes met with Europeans in
the United States who had been obliged to leave their own country on
account of their political opinions. They all astonished me by the
language they held, but one of them surprised me more than all the
rest. As I was crossing one of the most remote districts of
Pennsylvania I was benighted, and obliged to beg for hospitality at
the gate of a wealthy planter, who was a Frenchman by birth. He bade
me sit down beside his fire, and we began to talk with that freedom
which befits persons who meet in the backwoods, two thousand leagues
from their native country. I was aware that my host had been a great
leveller and an ardent demagogue forty years ago, and that his name
was not unknown to fame. I was, therefore, not a little surprised to
hear him discuss the rights of property as an economist or a
landowner might have done: he spoke of the necessary gradations
which fortune establishes among men, of obedience to established
laws, of the influence of good morals in commonwealths, and of the
support which religious opinions give to order and to freedom; he
even went to far as to quote an evangelical authority in
corroboration of one of his political tenets.
I listened, and marvelled at the feebleness of human reason. A
proposition is true or false, but no art can prove it to be one or
the other, in the midst of the uncertainties of science and the
conflicting lessons of Experience, until a new incident disperses
the clouds of doubt; I was poor, I become rich, and I am not to
expect that prosperity will act upon my conduct, and leave my
judgment free; my opinions change with my fortune, and the happy
circumstances which I turn to my advantage furnish me with that
decisive argument which was before wanting. The influence of
prosperity acts still more freely upon the American than upon
strangers. The American has always seen the connection of public
order and public prosperity, intimately united as they are, go on
before his eyes; he does not conceive that one can subsist without
the other; he has therefore nothing to forget; nor has he, like so
many Europeans, to unlearn the lessons of his early education.
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic -
Part II
Influence Of The Laws Upon The Maintenance Of The Democratic
Republic In The United States
Three principal causes of the maintenance of the democratic republic
- Federal Constitutions - Municipal institutions - Judicial power.
The principal aim of this book has been to make known the laws of
the United States; if this purpose has been accomplished, the reader
is already enabled to judge for himself which are the laws that
really tend to maintain the democratic republic, and which endanger
its existence. If I have not succeeded in explaining this in the
whole course of my work, I cannot hope to do so within the limits of
a single chapter. It is not my intention to retrace the path I have
already pursued, and a very few lines will suffice to recapitulate
what I have previously explained.
Three circumstances seem to me to contribute most powerfully to the
maintenance of the democratic republic in the United States.
The first is that Federal form of Government which the Americans
have adopted, and which enables the Union to combine the power of a
great empire with the security of a small State.
The second consists in those municipal institutions which limit the
despotism of the majority, and at the same time impart a taste for
freedom and a knowledge of the art of being free to the people.
The third is to be met with in the constitution of the judicial
power. I have shown in what manner the courts of justice serve to
repress the excesses of democracy, and how they check and direct the
impulses of the majority without stopping its activity.
Influence Of Manners Upon The Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic
In The United States
I have previously remarked that the manners of the people may be
considered as one of the general causes to which the maintenance of
a democratic republic in the United States is attributable. I here
used the word manners with the meaning which the ancients attached
to the word mores, for I apply it not only to manners in their
proper sense of what constitutes the character of social
intercourse, but I extend it to the various notions and opinions
current among men, and to the mass of those ideas which constitute
their character of mind. I comprise, therefore, under this term the
whole moral and intellectual condition of a people. My intention is
not to draw a picture of American manners, but simply to point out
such features of them as are favorable to the maintenance of
political institutions.
Religion Considered As A Political Institution, Which Powerfully
Contributes To The Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic Amongst
The Americans
North America peopled by men who professed a democratic and
republican Christianity - Arrival of the Catholics - For what reason
the Catholics form the most democratic and the most republican class
at the present time.
Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political
opinion which is connected with it by affinity. If the human mind be
left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the temporal and
spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform principle; and
man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to harmonize the
state in which he lives upon earth with the state which he believes
to await him in heaven. The greatest part of British America was
peopled by men who, after having shaken off the authority of the
Pope, acknowledged no other religious supremacy; they brought with
them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better
describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion.
This sect contributed powerfully to the establishment of a democracy
and a republic, and from the earliest settlement of the emigrants
politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been
dissolved.
About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a Catholic population
into the United States; on the other hand, the Catholics of America
made proselytes, and at the present moment more than a million of
Christians professing the truths of the Church of Rome are to be met
with in the Union. *d The Catholics are faithful to the observances
of their religion; they are fervent and zealous in the support and
belief of their doctrines. Nevertheless they constitute the most
republican and the most democratic class of citizens which exists in
the United States; and although this fact may surprise the observer
at first, the causes by which it is occasioned may easily be
discovered upon reflection.
[Footnote d: [It is difficult to ascertain with accuracy the amount
of the Roman Catholic population of the United States, but in 1868
an able writer in the "Edinburgh Review" (vol. cxxvii. p. 521)
affirmed that the whole Catholic population of the United States was
then about 4,000,000, divided into 43 dioceses, with 3,795 churches,
under the care of 45 bishops and 2,317 clergymen. But this rapid
increase is mainly supported by immigration from the Catholic
countries of Europe.]]
I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon
as the natural enemy of democracy. Amongst the various sects of
Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be one of
those which are most favorable to the equality of conditions. In the
Catholic Church, the religious community is composed of only two
elements, the priest and the people. The priest alone rises above
the rank of his flock, and all below him are equal.
On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human capacities
upon the same level; it subjects the wise and ignorant, the man of
genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed; it
imposes the same observances upon the rich and needy, it inflicts
the same austerities upon the strong and the weak, it listens to no
compromise with mortal man, but, reducing all the human race to the
same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society at the
foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of
God. If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to obedience, it
certainly does not prepare them for inequality; but the contrary may
be said of Protestantism, which generally tends to make men
independent, more than to render them equal.
Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy; if the sovereign be
removed, all the other classes of society are more equal than they
are in republics. It has not unfrequently occurred that the Catholic
priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the governing
powers of society, and to take his place amongst the civil
gradations of men. This religious influence has sometimes been used
to secure the interests of that political state of things to which
he belonged. At other times Catholics have taken the side of
aristocracy from a spirit of religion.
But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the
government, as is the case in the United States, than is found that
no class of men are more naturally disposed than the Catholics to
transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions into the
political world. If, then, the Catholic citizens of the United
States are not forcibly led by the nature of their tenets to adopt
democratic and republican principles, at least they are not
necessarily opposed to them; and their social position, as well as
their limited number, obliges them to adopt these opinions. Most of
the Catholics are poor, and they have no chance of taking a part in
the government unless it be open to all the citizens. They
constitute a minority, and all rights must be respected in order to
insure to them the free exercise of their own privileges. These two
causes induce them, unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines,
which they would perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich
and preponderant.
The Catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to
oppose this political tendency, but it seeks rather to justify its
results. The priests in America have divided the intellectual world
into two parts: in the one they place the doctrines of revealed
religion, which command their assent; in the other they leave those
truths which they believe to have been freely left open to the
researches of political inquiry. Thus the Catholics of the United
States are at the same time the most faithful believers and the most
zealous citizens.
It may be asserted that in the United States no religious doctrine
displays the slightest hostility to democratic and republican
institutions. The clergy of all the different sects hold the same
language, their opinions are consonant to the laws, and the human
intellect flows onwards in one sole current.
I happened to be staying in one of the largest towns in the Union,
when I was invited to attend a public meeting which had been called
for the purpose of assisting the Poles, and of sending them supplies
of arms and money. I found two or three thousand persons collected
in a vast hall which had been prepared to receive them. In a short
time a priest in his ecclesiastical robes advanced to the front of
the hustings: the spectators rose, and stood uncovered, whilst he
spoke in the following terms: -
"Almighty God! the God of Armies! Thou who didst strengthen the
hearts and guide the arms of our fathers when they were fighting for
the sacred rights of national independence; Thou who didst make them
triumph over a hateful oppression, and hast granted to our people
the benefits of liberty and peace; Turn, O Lord, a favorable eye
upon the other hemisphere; pitifully look down upon that heroic
nation which is even now struggling as we did in the former time,
and for the same rights which we defended with our blood. Thou, who
didst create Man in the likeness of the same image, let not tyranny
mar Thy work, and establish inequality upon the earth. Almighty God!
do Thou watch over the destiny of the Poles, and render them worthy
to be free. May Thy wisdom direct their councils, and may Thy
strength sustain their arms! Shed forth Thy terror over their
enemies, scatter the powers which take counsel against them; and
vouchsafe that the injustice which the world has witnessed for fifty
years, be not consummated in our time. O Lord, who holdest alike the
hearts of nations and of men in Thy powerful hand; raise up allies
to the sacred cause of right; arouse the French nation from the
apathy in which its rulers retain it, that it go forth again to
fight for the liberties of the world.
"Lord, turn not Thou Thy face from us, and grant that we may always
be the most religious as well as the freest people of the earth.
Almighty God, hear our supplications this day. Save the Poles, we
beseech Thee, in the name of Thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died upon the cross for the salvation of men. Amen."
The whole meeting responded "Amen!" with devotion.
Indirect Influence Of Religious Opinions Upon Political Society In
The United States
Christian morality common to all sects - Influence of religion upon
the manners of the Americans - Respect for the marriage tie - In
what manner religion confines the imagination of the Americans
within certain limits, and checks the passion of innovation -
Opinion of the Americans on the political utility of religion -
Their exertions to extend and secure its predominance.
I have just shown what the direct influence of religion upon
politics is in the United States, but its indirect influence appears
to me to be still more considerable, and it never instructs the
Americans more fully in the art of being free than when it says
nothing of freedom.
The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all
differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his
Creator, but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due
from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar
manner, but all the sects preach the same moral law in the name of
God. If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual,
that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the
same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and
provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of
that religion are of very little importance to its interests.
Moreover, almost all the sects of the United States are comprised
within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is
everywhere the same.
It may be believed without unfairness that a certain number of
Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit more than
from conviction. In the United States the sovereign authority is
religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is
no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion
retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America;
and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its
conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most
powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the
earth.
I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in general,
without even excepting those who do not admit religious liberty, are
all in favor of civil freedom; but they do not support any
particular political system. They keep aloof from parties and from
public affairs. In the United States religion exercises but little
influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion, but
it directs the manners of the community, and by regulating domestic
life it regulates the State.
I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is
observable in the United States, arises, in the first instance, from
religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man from the
numberless temptations of fortune; nor can it check that passion for
gain which every incident of his life contributes to arouse, but its
influence over the mind of woman is supreme, and women are the
protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world
where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America, or
where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated. In
Europe almost all the disturbances of society arise from the
irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and
legitimate pleasures of home, is to contract a taste for excesses, a
restlessness of heart, and the evil of fluctuating desires. Agitated
by the tumultuous passions which frequently disturb his dwelling,
the European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers
of the State exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil
of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image
of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple and natural,
his joys are innocent and calm; and as he finds that an orderly life
is the surest path to happiness, he accustoms himself without
difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as his tastes. Whilst
the European endeavors to forget his domestic troubles by agitating
society, the American derives from his own home that love of order
which he afterwards carries with him into public affairs.
In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to
the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people.
Amongst the Anglo-Americans, there are some who profess the
doctrines of Christianity from a sincere belief in them, and others
who do the same because they are afraid to be suspected of unbelief.
Christianity, therefore, reigns without any obstacle, by universal
consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every
principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate, although the
political world is abandoned to the debates and the experiments of
men. Thus the human mind is never left to wander across a boundless
field; and, whatever may be its pretensions, it is checked from time
to time by barriers which it cannot surmount. Before it can
perpetrate innovation, certain primal and immutable principles are
laid down, and the boldest conceptions of human device are subjected
to certain forms which retard and stop their completion.
The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights, is
circumspect and undecided; its impulses are checked, and its works
unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political society,
and are singularly favorable both to the tranquillity of the people
and to the durability of the institutions it has established. Nature
and circumstances concurred to make the inhabitants of the United
States bold men, as is sufficiently attested by the enterprising
spirit with which they seek for fortune. If the mind of the
Americans were free from all trammels, they would very shortly
become the most daring innovators and the most implacable disputants
in the world. But the revolutionists of America are obliged to
profess an ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity,
which does not easily permit them to violate the laws that oppose
their designs; nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples
of their partisans, even if they were able to get over their own.
Hitherto no one in the United States has dared to advance the maxim,
that everything is permissible with a view to the interests of
society; an impious adage which seems to have been invented in an
age of freedom to shelter all the tyrants of future ages. Thus
whilst the law permits the Americans to do what they please,
religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit,
what is rash or unjust.
Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of
society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the
political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a
taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions.
Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the
United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know
whether all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion,
for who can search the human heart? but I am certain that they hold
it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican
institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or
to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation, and to every rank of
society.
In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this
may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect from supporting
him; but if he attacks all the sects together, everyone abandons
him, and he remains alone.
Whilst I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the
assizes of the county of Chester (State of New York), declared that
he did not believe in the existence of God, or in the immortality of
the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground
that the witness had destroyed beforehand all the confidence of the
Court in what he was about to say. *e The newspapers related the
fact without any further comment.
[Footnote e: The New York "Spectator" of August 23, 1831, relates
the fact in the following terms: - "The Court of Common Pleas of
Chester county (New York) a few days since rejected a witness who
declared his disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge
remarked that he had not before been aware that there was a man
living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief
constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice, and
that he knew of no cause in a Christian country where a witness had
been permitted to testify without such belief."]
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them
conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction
does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to
vegetate in the soul rather than to live.
I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send out
ministers of the Gospel into the new Western States to found schools
and churches there, lest religion should be suffered to die away in
those remote settlements, and the rising States be less fitted to
enjoy free institutions than the people from which they emanated. I
met with wealthy New Englanders who abandoned the country in which
they were born in order to lay the foundations of Christianity and
of freedom on the banks of the Missouri, or in the prairies of
Illinois. Thus religious zeal is perpetually stimulated in the
United States by the duties of patriotism. These men do not act from
an exclusive consideration of the promises of a future life;
eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause; and if
you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you
will be surprised to find how much value they set upon the goods of
this world, and that you meet with a politician where you expected
to find a priest. They will tell you that "all the American
republics are collectively involved with each other; if the
republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered
by a despot, the republican institutions which now flourish upon the
shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril. It is,
therefore, our interest that the new States should be religious, in
order to maintain our liberties."
Such are the opinions of the Americans, and if any hold that the
religious spirit which I admire is the very thing most amiss in
America, and that the only element wanting to the freedom and
happiness of the human race is to believe in some blind cosmogony,
or to assert with Cabanis the secretion of thought by the brain, I
can only reply that those who hold this language have never been in
America, and that they have never seen a religious or a free nation.
When they return from their expedition, we shall hear what they have
to say.
There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions as
a temporary means of power, of wealth, and distinction; men who are
the condottieri of liberty, and who fight for their own advantage,
whatever be the colors they wear: it is not to these that I address
myself. But there are others who look forward to the republican form
of government as a tranquil and lasting state, towards which modern
society is daily impelled by the ideas and manners of the time, and
who sincerely desire to prepare men to be free. When these men
attack religious opinions, they obey the dictates of their passions
to the prejudice of their interests. Despotism may govern without
faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the
republic which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy
which they attack; and it is more needed in democratic republics
than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape
destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as
the political tie is relaxed? and what can be done with a people
which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic -
Part III
Principal Causes Which Render Religion Powerful In America Care
taken by the Americans to separate the Church from the State - The
laws, public opinion, and even the exertions of the clergy concur to
promote this end - Influence of religion upon the mind in the United
States attributable to this cause - Reason of this - What is the
natural state of men with regard to religion at the present time -
What are the peculiar and incidental causes which prevent men, in
certain countries, from arriving at this state.
The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained the gradual
decay of religious faith in a very simple manner. Religious zeal,
said they, must necessarily fail, the more generally liberty is
established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately, facts are by no
means in accordance with their theory. There are certain populations
in Europe whose unbelief is only equalled by their ignorance and
their debasement, whilst in America one of the freest and most
enlightened nations in the world fulfils all the outward duties of
religious fervor.
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the
country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer
I stayed there the more did I perceive the great political
consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was
unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of
religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically
opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were
intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same
country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon
increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the
members of all the different sects; and I more especially sought the
society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different
persuasions, and who are more especially interested in their
duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church I was more
particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with
whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I
expressed my astonishment and I explained my doubts; I found that
they differed upon matters of detail alone; and that they mainly
attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the
separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to affirm that
during my stay in America I did not meet with a single individual,
of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of the same opinion upon
this point.
This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done,
the station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I
learned with surprise that they filled no public appointments; *f
not one of them is to be met with in the administration, and they
are not even represented in the legislative assemblies. In several
States *g the law excludes them from political life, public opinion
in all. And when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of the
clergy I found that most of its members seemed to retire of their
own accord from the exercise of power, and that they made it the
pride of their profession to abstain from politics.
[Footnote f: Unless this term be applied to the functions which many
of them fill in the schools. Almost all education is entrusted to
the clergy.]
[Footnote g: See the Constitution of New York, art. 7, Section 4: -
"And whereas the ministers of the gospel are, by their profession,
dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls, and ought not
to be diverted from the great duties of their functions: therefore
no minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever,
shall at any time hereafter, under any pretence or description
whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding, any civil or
military office or place within this State."
See also the constitutions of North Carolina, art. 31; Virginia;
South Carolina, art. I, Section 23; Kentucky, art. 2, Section 26;
Tennessee, art. 8, Section I; Louisiana, art. 2, Section 22.]
I heard them inveigh against ambition and deceit, under whatever
political opinions these vices might chance to lurk; but I learned
from their discourses that men are not guilty in the eye of God for
any opinions concerning political government which they may profess
with sincerity, any more than they are for their mistakes in
building a house or in driving a furrow. I perceived that these
ministers of the gospel eschewed all parties with the anxiety
attendant upon personal interest. These facts convinced me that what
I had been told was true; and it then became my object to
investigate their causes, and to inquire how it happened that the
real authority of religion was increased by a state of things which
diminished its apparent force: these causes did not long escape my
researches.
The short space of threescore years can never content the
imagination of man; nor can the imperfect joys of this world satisfy
his heart. Man alone, of all created beings, displays a natural
contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist; he
scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These different feelings
incessantly urge his soul to the contemplation of a future state,
and religion directs his musings thither. Religion, then, is simply
another form of hope; and it is no less natural to the human heart
than hope itself. Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a
kind of aberration of intellect, and a sort of violent distortion of
their true natures; but they are invincibly brought back to more
pious sentiments; for unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only
permanent state of mankind. If we only consider religious
institutions in a purely human point of view, they may be said to
derive an inexhaustible element of strength from man himself, since
they belong to one of the constituent principles of human nature.
I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this
influence, which originates in itself, by the artificial power of
the laws, and by the support of those temporal institutions which
direct society. Religions, intimately united to the governments of
the earth, have been known to exercise a sovereign authority derived
from the twofold source of terror and of faith; but when a religion
contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm
that it commits the same error as a man who should sacrifice his
future to his present welfare; and in obtaining a power to which it
has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own.
When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality
which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to universal
dominion; but when it connects itself with a government, it must
necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain
nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power,
religion augments its authority over a few, and forfeits the hope of
reigning over all.
As long as a religion rests upon those sentiments which are the
consolation of all affliction, it may attract the affections of
mankind. But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of the
world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its interests,
and not the principle of love, have given to it; or to repel as
antagonists men who are still attached to its own spirit, however
opposed they may be to the powers to which it is allied. The Church
cannot share the temporal power of the State without being the
object of a portion of that animosity which the latter excites.
The political powers which seem to be most firmly established have
frequently no better guarantee for their duration than the opinions
of a generation, the interests of the time, or the life of an
individual. A law may modify the social condition which seems to be
most fixed and determinate; and with the social condition everything
else must change. The powers of society are more or less fugitive,
like the years which we spend upon the earth; they succeed each
other with rapidity, like the fleeting cares of life; and no
government has ever yet been founded upon an invariable disposition
of the human heart, or upon an imperishable interest.
As long as a religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities,
and passions which are found to occur under the same forms, at all
the different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of time;
or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion. But when
religion clings to the interests of the world, it becomes almost as
fragile a thing as the powers of earth. It is the only one of them
all which can hope for immortality; but if it be connected with
their ephemeral authority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall
with those transient passions which supported them for a day. The
alliance which religion contracts with political powers must needs
be onerous to itself; since it does not require their assistance to
live, and by giving them its assistance to live, and by giving them
its assistance it may be exposed to decay.
The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, but it is
not always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be
imperishable; in others, the existence of society appears to be more
precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge the
citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to
feverish excitement. When governments appear to be so strong, and
laws so stable, men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue
from a union of Church and State. When governments display so much
weakness, and laws so much inconstancy, the danger is self-evident,
but it is no longer possible to avoid it; to be effectual, measures
must be taken to discover its approach.
In proportion as a nation assumes a democratic condition of society,
and as communities display democratic propensities, it becomes more
and more dangerous to connect religion with political institutions;
for the time is coming when authority will be bandied from hand to
hand, when political theories will succeed each other, and when men,
laws, and constitutions will disappear, or be modified from day to
day, and this, not for a season only, but unceasingly. Agitation and
mutability are inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just
as stagnation and inertness are the law of absolute monarchies.
If the Americans, who change the head of the Government once in four
years, who elect new legislators every two years, and renew the
provincial officers every twelvemonth; if the Americans, who have
abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not
placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide in the ebb
and flow of human opinions? where would that respect which belongs
to it be paid, amidst the struggles of faction? and what would
become of its immortality, in the midst of perpetual decay? The
American clergy were the first to perceive this truth, and to act in
conformity with it. They saw that they must renounce their religious
influence, if they were to strive for political power; and they
chose to give up the support of the State, rather than to share its
vicissitudes.
In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at
certain periods in the history of certain peoples; but its influence
is more lasting. It restricts itself to its own resources, but of
those none can deprive it: its circle is limited to certain
principles, but those principles are entirely its own, and under its
undisputed control.
On every side in Europe we hear voices complaining of the absence of
religious faith, and inquiring the means of restoring to religion
some remnant of its pristine authority. It seems to me that we must
first attentively consider what ought to be the natural state of men
with regard to religion at the present time; and when we know what
we have to hope and to fear, we may discern the end to which our
efforts ought to be directed.
The two great dangers which threaten the existence of religions are
schism and indifference. In ages of fervent devotion, men sometimes
abandon their religion, but they only shake it off in order to adopt
another. Their faith changes the objects to which it is directed,
but it suffers no decline. The old religion then excites
enthusiastic attachment or bitter enmity in either party; some leave
it with anger, others cling to it with increased devotedness, and
although persuasions differ, irreligion is unknown. Such, however,
is not the case when a religious belief is secretly undermined by
doctrines which may be termed negative, since they deny the truth of
one religion without affirming that of any other. Progidious
revolutions then take place in the human mind, without the apparent
co-operation of the passions of man, and almost without his
knowledge. Men lose the objects of their fondest hopes, as if
through forgetfulness. They are carried away by an imperceptible
current which they have not the courage to stem, but which they
follow with regret, since it bears them from a faith they love, to a
scepticism that plunges them into despair.
In ages which answer to this description, men desert their religious
opinions from lukewarmness rather than from dislike; they do not
reject them, but the sentiments by which they were once fostered
disappear. But if the unbeliever does not admit religion to be true,
he still considers it useful. Regarding religious institutions in a
human point of view, he acknowledges their influence upon manners
and legislation. He admits that they may serve to make men live in
peace with one another, and to prepare them gently for the hour of
death. He regrets the faith which he has lost; and as he is deprived
of a treasure which he has learned to estimate at its full value, he
scruples to take it from those who still possess it.
On the other hand, those who continue to believe are not afraid
openly to avow their faith. They look upon those who do not share
their persuasion as more worthy of pity than of opposition; and they
are aware that to acquire the esteem of the unbelieving, they are
not obliged to follow their example. They are hostile to no one in
the world; and as they do not consider the society in which they
live as an arena in which religion is bound to face its thousand
deadly foes, they love their contemporaries, whilst they condemn
their weaknesses and lament their errors.
As those who do not believe, conceal their incredulity; and as those
who believe, display their faith, public opinion pronounces itself
in favor of religion: love, support, and honor are bestowed upon it,
and it is only by searching the human soul that we can detect the
wounds which it has received. The mass of mankind, who are never
without the feeling of religion, do not perceive anything at
variance with the established faith. The instinctive desire of a
future life brings the crowd about the altar, and opens the hearts
of men to the precepts and consolations of religion.
But this picture is not applicable to us: for there are men amongst
us who have ceased to believe in Christianity, without adopting any
other religion; others who are in the perplexities of doubt, and who
already affect not to believe; and others, again, who are afraid to
avow that Christian faith which they still cherish in secret.
Amidst these lukewarm partisans and ardent antagonists a small
number of believers exist, who are ready to brave all obstacles and
to scorn all dangers in defence of their faith. They have done
violence to human weakness, in order to rise superior to public
opinion. Excited by the effort they have made, they scarcely knew
where to stop; and as they know that the first use which the French
made of independence was to attack religion, they look upon their
contemporaries with dread, and they recoil in alarm from the liberty
which their fellow-citizens are seeking to obtain. As unbelief
appears to them to be a novelty, they comprise all that is new in
one indiscriminate animosity. They are at war with their age and
country, and they look upon every opinion which is put forth there
as the necessary enemy of the faith.
Such is not the natural state of men with regard to religion at the
present day; and some extraordinary or incidental cause must be at
work in France to prevent the human mind from following its original
propensities and to drive it beyond the limits at which it ought
naturally to stop. I am intimately convinced that this extraordinary
and incidental cause is the close connection of politics and
religion. The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their
political opponents, rather than as their religious adversaries;
they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party, much
more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less
because they are the representatives of the Divinity than because
they are the allies of authority.
In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of
the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were,
buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound
down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity: cut but the bonds
which restrain it, and that which is alive will rise once more. I
know not what could restore the Christian Church of Europe to the
energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to God alone; but it
may be the effect of human policy to leave the faith in the full
exercise of the strength which it still retains.
How The Instruction, The Habits, And The Practical Experience Of The
Americans Promote The Success Of Their Democratic Institutions
What is to be understood by the instruction of the American people -
The human mind more superficially instructed in the United States
than in Europe - No one completely uninstructed - Reason of this -
Rapidity with which opinions are diffused even in the uncultivated
States of the West - Practical Experience more serviceable to the
Americans than book-learning.
I have but little to add to what I have already said concerning the
influence which the instruction and the habits of the Americans
exercise upon the maintenance of their political institutions.
America has hitherto produced very few writers of distinction; it
possesses no great historians, and not a single eminent poet. The
inhabitants of that country look upon what are properly styled
literary pursuits with a kind of disapprobation; and there are towns
of very second-rate importance in Europe in which more literary
works are annually published than in the twenty-four States of the
Union put together. The spirit of the Americans is averse to general
ideas; and it does not seek theoretical discoveries. Neither
politics nor manufactures direct them to these occupations; and
although new laws are perpetually enacted in the United States, no
great writers have hitherto inquired into the general principles of
their legislation. The Americans have lawyers and commentators, but
no jurists; *h and they furnish examples rather than lessons to the
world. The same observation applies to the mechanical arts. In
America, the inventions of Europe are adopted with sagacity; they
are perfected, and adapted with admirable skill to the wants of the
country. Manufactures exist, but the science of manufacture is not
cultivated; and they have good workmen, but very few inventors.
Fulton was obliged to proffer his services to foreign nations for a
long time before he was able to devote them to his own country.
[Footnote h: [This cannot be said with truth of the country of Kent,
Story, and Wheaton.]]
The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state of
instruction amongst the Anglo-Americans must consider the same
object from two different points of view. If he only singles out the
learned, he will be astonished to find how rare they are; but if he
counts the ignorant, the American people will appear to be the most
enlightened community in the world. The whole population, as I
observed in another place, is situated between these two extremes.
In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of
human knowledge; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the
evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the
leading features of its Constitution. In the States of Connecticut
and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly
acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of
them is a sort of phenomenon.
When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American
States; the manuscript libraries of the former, and their rude
population, with the innumerable journals and the enlightened people
of the latter; when I remember all the attempts which are made to
judge the modern republics by the assistance of those of antiquity,
and to infer what will happen in our time from what took place two
thousand years ago, I am tempted to burn my books, in order to apply
none but novel ideas to so novel a condition of society.
What I have said of New England must not, however, be applied
indistinctly to the whole Union; as we advance towards the West or
the South, the instruction of the people diminishes. In the States
which are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a certain number of
individuals may be found, as in our own countries, who are devoid of
the rudiments of instruction. But there is not a single district in
the United States sunk in complete ignorance; and for a very simple
reason: the peoples of Europe started from the darkness of a
barbarous condition, to advance toward the light of civilization;
their progress has been unequal; some of them have improved apace,
whilst others have loitered in their course, and some have stopped,
and are still sleeping upon the way. *i
[Footnote i: [In the Northern States the number of persons destitute
of instruction is inconsiderable, the largest number being 241,152
in the State of New York (according to Spaulding's "Handbook of
American Statistics" for 1874); but in the South no less than
1,516,339 whites and 2,671,396 colored persons are returned as
"illiterate."]]
Such has not been the case in the United States. The Anglo-
Americans settled in a state of civilization, upon that territory
which their descendants occupy; they had not to begin to learn, and
it was sufficient for them not to forget. Now the children of these
same Americans are the persons who, year by year, transport their
dwellings into the wilds; and with their dwellings their acquired
information and their esteem for knowledge. Education has taught
them the utility of instruction, and has enabled them to transmit
that instruction to their posterity. In the United States society
has no infancy, but it is born in man's estate.
The Americans never use the word "peasant," because they have no
idea of the peculiar class which that term denotes; the ignorance of
more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of
the villager have not been preserved amongst them; and they are
alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits,
and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization. At the
extreme borders of the Confederate States, upon the confines of
society and of the wilderness, a population of bold adventurers have
taken up their abode, who pierce the solitudes of the American
woods, and seek a country there, in order to escape that poverty
which awaited them in their native provinces. As soon as the pioneer
arrives upon the spot which is to serve him for a retreat, he fells
a few trees and builds a loghouse. Nothing can offer a more
miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings. The traveller who
approaches one of them towards nightfall, sees the flicker of the
hearth-flame through the chinks in the walls; and at night, if the
wind rises, he hears the roof of boughs shake to and fro in the
midst of the great forest trees. Who would not suppose that this
poor hut is the asylum of rudeness and ignorance? Yet no sort of
comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling which
shelters him. Everything about him is primitive and unformed, but he
is himself the result of the labor and the Experience of eighteen
centuries. He wears the dress, and he speaks the language of cities;
he is acquainted with the past, curious of the future, and ready for
argument upon the present; he is, in short, a highly civilized
being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit the backwoods, and who
penetrates into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe,
and a file of newspapers.
It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which public
opinion circulates in the midst of these deserts. *j I do not think
that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the most
enlightened and populous districts of France. *k It cannot be
doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the people
powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic republic; and
such must always be the case, I believe, where instruction which
awakens the understanding is not separated from moral education
which amends the heart. But I by no means exaggerate this benefit,
and I am still further from thinking, as so many people do think in
Europe, that men can be instantaneously made citizens by teaching
them to read and write. True information is mainly derived from
Experience; and if the Americans had not been gradually accustomed
to govern themselves, their book-learning would not assist them much
at the present day.
[Footnote j: I travelled along a portion of the frontier of the
United States in a sort of cart which was termed the mail. We
passed, day and night, with great rapidity along the roads which
were scarcely marked out, through immense forests; when the gloom of
the woods became impenetrable the coachman lighted branches of fir,
and we journeyed along by the light they cast. From time to time we
came to a hut in the midst of the forest, which was a post- office.
The mail dropped an enormous bundle of letters at the door of this
isolated dwelling, and we pursued our way at full gallop, leaving
the inhabitants of the neighboring log houses to send for their
share of the treasure.
[When the author visited America the locomotive and the railroad
were scarcely invented, and not yet introduced in the United States.
It is superfluous to point out the immense effect of those
inventions in extending civilization and developing the resources of
that vast continent. In 1831 there were 51 miles of railway in the
United States; in 1872 there were 60,000 miles of railway.]]
[Footnote k: In 1832 each inhabitant of Michigan paid a sum
equivalent to 1 fr. 22 cent. (French money) to the post-office
revenue, and each inhabitant of the Floridas paid 1 fr. 5 cent. (See
"National Calendar," 1833, p. 244.) In the same year each inhabitant
of the Departement du Nord paid 1 fr. 4 cent. to the revenue of the
French post-office. (See the "Compte rendu de l'administration des
Finances," 1833, p. 623.) Now the State of Michigan only contained
at that time 7 inhabitants per square league and Florida only 5: the
public instruction and the commercial activity of these districts is
inferior to that of most of the States in the Union, whilst the
Departement du Nord, which contains 3,400 inhabitants per square
league, is one of the most enlightened and manufacturing parts of
France.]
I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States, and
I cannot express how much I admire their Experience and their good
sense. An American should never be allowed to speak of Europe; for
he will then probably display a vast deal of presumption and very
foolish pride. He will take up with those crude and vague notions
which are so useful to the ignorant all over the world. But if you
question him respecting his own country, the cloud which dimmed his
intelligence will immediately disperse; his language will become as
clear and as precise as his thoughts. He will inform you what his
rights are, and by what means he exercises them; he will be able to
point out the customs which obtain in the political world. You will
find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the
administration, and that he is familiar with the mechanism of the
laws. The citizen of the United States does not acquire his
practical science and his positive notions from books; the
instruction he has acquired may have prepared him for receiving
those ideas, but it did not furnish them. The American learns to
know the laws by participating in the act of legislation; and he
takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing. The great
work of society is ever going on beneath his eyes, and, as it were,
under his hands.
In the United States politics are the end and aim of education; in
Europe its principal object is to fit men for private life. The
interference of the citizens in public affairs is too rare an
occurrence for it to be anticipated beforehand. Upon casting a
glance over society in the two hemispheres, these differences are
indicated even by its external aspect.
In Europe we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits of
private life into public affairs; and as we pass at once from the
domestic circle to the government of the State, we may frequently be
heard to discuss the great interests of society in the same manner
in which we converse with our friends. The Americans, on the other
hand, transfuse the habits of public life into their manners in
private; and in their country the jury is introduced into the games
of schoolboys, and parliamentary forms are observed in the order of
a feast.
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic -
Part IV
The Laws Contribute More To The Maintenance Of The Democratic
Republic In The United States Than The Physical Circumstances Of The
Country, And The Manners More Than The Laws
All the nations of America have a democratic state of society - Yet
democratic institutions only subsist amongst the Anglo-Americans -
The Spaniards of South America, equally favored by physical causes
as the Anglo-Americans, unable to maintain a democratic republic -
Mexico, which has adopted the Constitution of the United States, in
the same predicament - The Anglo-Americans of the West less able to
maintain it than those of the East - Reason of these different
results.
I have remarked that the maintenance of democratic institutions in
the United States is attributable to the circumstances, the laws,
and the manners of that country. *l Most Europeans are only
acquainted with the first of these three causes, and they are apt to
give it a preponderating importance which it does not really
possess.
[Footnote l: I remind the reader of the general signification which
I give to the word "manners," namely, the moral and intellectual
characteristics of social man taken collectively.]
It is true that the Anglo-Saxons settled in the New World in a state
of social equality; the low-born and the noble were not to be found
amongst them; and professional prejudices were always as entirely
unknown as the prejudices of birth. Thus, as the condition of
society was democratic, the empire of democracy was established
without difficulty. But this circumstance is by no means peculiar to
the United States; almost all the trans-Atlantic colonies were
founded by men equal amongst themselves, or who became so by
inhabiting them. In no one part of the New World have Europeans been
able to create an aristocracy. Nevertheless, democratic institutions
prosper nowhere but in the United States.
The American Union has no enemies to contend with; it stands in the
wilds like an island in the ocean. But the Spaniards of South
America were no less isolated by nature; yet their position has not
relieved them from the charge of standing armies. They make war upon
each other when they have no foreign enemies to oppose; and the
Anglo-American democracy is the only one which has hitherto been
able to maintain itself in peace. *m
[Footnote m: [A remark which, since the great Civil War of 1861-65,
ceases to be applicable.]]
The territory of the Union presents a boundless field to human
activity, and inexhaustible materials for industry and labor. The
passion of wealth takes the place of ambition, and the warmth of
faction is mitigated by a sense of prosperity. But in what portion
of the globe shall we meet with more fertile plains, with mightier
rivers, or with more unexplored and inexhaustible riches than in
South America?
Nevertheless, South America has been unable to maintain democratic
institutions. If the welfare of nations depended on their being
placed in a remote position, with an unbounded space of habitable
territory before them, the Spaniards of South America would have no
reason to complain of their fate. And although they might enjoy less
prosperity than the inhabitants of the United States, their lot
might still be such as to excite the envy of some nations in Europe.
There are, however, no nations upon the face of the earth more
miserable than those of South America.
Thus, not only are physical causes inadequate to produce results
analogous to those which occur in North America, but they are unable
to raise the population of South America above the level of European
States, where they act in a contrary direction. Physical causes do
not, therefore, affect the destiny of nations so much as has been
supposed.
I have met with men in New England who were on the point of leaving
a country, where they might have remained in easy circumstances, to
go to seek their fortune in the wilds. Not far from that district I
found a French population in Canada, which was closely crowded on a
narrow territory, although the same wilds were at hand; and whilst
the emigrant from the United States purchased an extensive estate
with the earnings of a short term of labor, the Canadian paid as
much for land as he would have done in France. Nature offers the
solitudes of the New World to Europeans; but they are not always
acquainted with the means of turning her gifts to account. Other
peoples of America have the same physical conditions of prosperity
as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws and their manners;
and these peoples are wretched. The laws and manners of the
Anglo-Americans are therefore that efficient cause of their
greatness which is the object of my inquiry.
I am far from supposing that the American laws are preeminently good
in themselves; I do not hold them to be applicable to all democratic
peoples; and several of them seem to be dangerous, even in the
United States. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the American
legislation, taken collectively, is extremely well adapted to the
genius of the people and the nature of the country which it is
intended to govern. The American laws are therefore good, and to
them must be attributed a large portion of the success which attends
the government of democracy in America: but I do not believe them to
be the principal cause of that success; and if they seem to me to
have more influence upon the social happiness of the Americans than
the nature of the country, on the other hand there is reason to
believe that their effect is still inferior to that produced by the
manners of the people.
The Federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important part of
the legislation of the United States. Mexico, which is not less
fortunately situated than the Anglo-American Union, has adopted the
same laws, but is unable to accustom itself to the government of
democracy. Some other cause is therefore at work, independently of
those physical circumstances and peculiar laws which enable the
democracy to rule in the United States.
Another still more striking proof may be adduced. Almost all the
inhabitants of the territory of the Union are the descendants of a
common stock; they speak the same language, they worship God in the
same manner, they are affected by the same physical causes, and they
obey the same laws. Whence, then, do their characteristic
differences arise? Why, in the Eastern States of the Union, does the
republican government display vigor and regularity, and proceed with
mature deliberation? Whence does it derive the wisdom and the
durability which mark its acts, whilst in the Western States, on the
contrary, society seems to be ruled by the powers of chance? There,
public business is conducted with an irregularity and a passionate
and feverish excitement, which does not announce a long or sure
duration.
I am no longer comparing the Anglo-American States to foreign
nations; but I am contrasting them with each other, and endeavoring
to discover why they are so unlike. The arguments which are derived
from the nature of the country and the difference of legislation are
here all set aside. Recourse must be had to some other cause; and
what other cause can there be except the manners of the people?
It is in the Eastern States that the Anglo-Americans have been
longest accustomed to the government of democracy, and that they
have adopted the habits and conceived the notions most favorable to
its maintenance. Democracy has gradually penetrated into their
customs, their opinions, and the forms of social intercourse; it is
to be found in all the details of daily life equally as in the laws.
In the Eastern States the instruction and practical education of the
people have been most perfected, and religion has been most
thoroughly amalgamated with liberty. Now these habits, opinions,
customs, and convictions are precisely the constituent elements of
that which I have denominated manners.
In the Western States, on the contrary, a portion of the same
advantages is still wanting. Many of the Americans of the West were
born in the woods, and they mix the ideas and the customs of savage
life with the civilization of their parents. Their passions are more
intense; their religious morality less authoritative; and their
convictions less secure. The inhabitants exercise no sort of control
over their fellow-citizens, for they are scarcely acquainted with
each other. The nations of the West display, to a certain extent,
the inExperience and the rude habits of a people in its infancy; for
although they are composed of old elements, their assemblage is of
recent date.
The manners of the Americans of the United States are, then, the
real cause which renders that people the only one of the American
nations that is able to support a democratic government; and it is
the influence of manners which produces the different degrees of
order and of prosperity that may be distinguished in the several
Anglo-American democracies. Thus the effect which the geographical
position of a country may have upon the duration of democratic
institutions is exaggerated in Europe. Too much importance is
attributed to legislation, too little to manners. These three great
causes serve, no doubt, to regulate and direct the American
democracy; but if they were to be classed in their proper order, I
should say that the physical circumstances are less efficient than
the laws, and the laws very subordinate to the manners of the
people. I am convinced that the most advantageous situation and the
best possible laws cannot maintain a constitution in spite of the
manners of a country; whilst the latter may turn the most
unfavorable positions and the worst laws to some advantage. The
importance of manners is a common truth to which study and
Experience incessantly direct our attention. It may be regarded as a
central point in the range of human observation, and the common
termination of all inquiry. So seriously do I insist upon this head,
that if I have hitherto failed in making the reader feel the
important influence which I attribute to the practical Experience,
the habits, the opinions, in short, to the manners of the Americans,
upon the maintenance of their institutions, I have failed in the
principal object of my work.
Whether Laws And Manners Are Sufficient To Maintain Democratic
Institutions In Other Countries Besides America
The Anglo-Americans, if transported into Europe, would be obliged to
modify their laws - Distinction to be made between democratic
institutions and American institutions - Democratic laws may be
conceived better than, or at least different from, those which the
American democracy has adopted - The example of America only proves
that it is possible to regulate democracy by the assistance of
manners and legislation.
I have asserted that the success of democratic institutions in the
United States is more intimately connected with the laws themselves,
and the manners of the people, than with the nature of the country.
But does it follow that the same causes would of themselves produce
the same results, if they were put into operation elsewhere; and if
the country is no adequate substitute for laws and manners, can laws
and manners in their turn prove a substitute for the country? It
will readily be understood that the necessary elements of a reply to
this question are wanting: other peoples are to be found in the New
World besides the Anglo- Americans, and as these people are affected
by the same physical circumstances as the latter, they may fairly be
compared together. But there are no nations out of America which
have adopted the same laws and manners, being destitute of the
physical advantages peculiar to the Anglo-Americans. No standard of
comparison therefore exists, and we can only hazard an opinion upon
this subject.
It appears to me, in the first place, that a careful distinction
must be made between the institutions of the United States and
democratic institutions in general. When I reflect upon the state of
Europe, its mighty nations, its populous cities, its formidable
armies, and the complex nature of its politics, I cannot suppose
that even the Anglo-Americans, if they were transported to our
hemisphere, with their ideas, their religion, and their manners,
could exist without considerably altering their laws. But a
democratic nation may be imagined, organized differently from the
American people. It is not impossible to conceive a government
really established upon the will of the majority; but in which the
majority, repressing its natural propensity to equality, should
consent, with a view to the order and the stability of the State, to
invest a family or an individual with all the prerogatives of the
executive. A democratic society might exist, in which the forces of
the nation would be more centralized than they are in the United
States; the people would exercise a less direct and less
irresistible influence upon public affairs, and yet every citizen
invested with certain rights would participate, within his sphere,
in the conduct of the government. The observations I made amongst
the Anglo-Americans induce me to believe that democratic
institutions of this kind, prudently introduced into society, so as
gradually to mix with the habits and to be interfused with the
opinions of the people, might subsist in other countries besides
America. If the laws of the United States were the only imaginable
democratic laws, or the most perfect which it is possible to
conceive, I should admit that the success of those institutions
affords no proof of the success of democratic institutions in
general, in a country less favored by natural circumstances. But as
the laws of America appear to me to be defective in several
respects, and as I can readily imagine others of the same general
nature, the peculiar advantages of that country do not prove that
democratic institutions cannot succeed in a nation less favored by
circumstances, if ruled by better laws.
If human nature were different in America from what it is elsewhere;
or if the social condition of the Americans engendered habits and
opinions amongst them different from those which originate in the
same social condition in the Old World, the American democracies
would afford no means of predicting what may occur in other
democracies. If the Americans displayed the same propensities as all
other democratic nations, and if their legislators had relied upon
the nature of the country and the favor of circumstances to restrain
those propensities within due limits, the prosperity of the United
States would be exclusively attributable to physical causes, and it
would afford no encouragement to a people inclined to imitate their
example, without sharing their natural advantages. But neither of
these suppositions is borne out by facts.
In America the same passions are to be met with as in Europe; some
originating in human nature, others in the democratic condition of
society. Thus in the United States I found that restlessness of
heart which is natural to men, when all ranks are nearly equal and
the chances of elevation are the same to all. I found the democratic
feeling of envy expressed under a thousand different forms. I
remarked that the people frequently displayed, in the conduct of
affairs, a consummate mixture of ignorance and presumption; and I
inferred that in America, men are liable to the same failings and
the same absurdities as amongst ourselves. But upon examining the
state of society more attentively, I speedily discovered that the
Americans had made great and successful efforts to counteract these
imperfections of human nature, and to correct the natural defects of
democracy. Their divers municipal laws appeared to me to be a means
of restraining the ambition of the citizens within a narrow sphere,
and of turning those same passions which might have worked havoc in
the State, to the good of the township or the parish. The American
legislators have succeeded to a certain extent in opposing the
notion of rights to the feelings of envy; the permanence of the
religious world to the continual shifting of politics; the
Experience of the people to its theoretical ignorance; and its
practical knowledge of business to the impatience of its desires.
The Americans, then, have not relied upon the nature of their
country to counterpoise those dangers which originate in their
Constitution and in their political laws. To evils which are common
to all democratic peoples they have applied remedies which none but
themselves had ever thought of before; and although they were the
first to make the experiment, they have succeeded in it.
The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only ones which
may suit a democratic people; but the Americans have shown that it
would be wrong to despair of regulating democracy by the aid of
manners and of laws. If other nations should borrow this general and
pregnant idea from the Americans, without however intending to
imitate them in the peculiar application which they have made of it;
if they should attempt to fit themselves for that social condition,
which it seems to be the will of Providence to impose upon the
generations of this age, and so to escape from the despotism or the
anarchy which threatens them; what reason is there to suppose that
their efforts would not be crowned with success? The organization
and the establishment of democracy in Christendom is the great
political problem of the time. The Americans, unquestionably, have
not resolved this problem, but they furnish useful data to those who
undertake the task.
Importance Of What Precedes With Respect To The State Of Europe
It may readily be discovered with what intention I undertook the
foregoing inquiries. The question here discussed is interesting not
only to the United States, but to the whole world; it concerns, not
a nation, but all mankind. If those nations whose social condition
is democratic could only remain free as long as they are inhabitants
of the wilds, we could not but despair of the future destiny of the
human race; for democracy is rapidly acquiring a more extended sway,
and the wilds are gradually peopled with men. If it were true that
laws and manners are insufficient to maintain democratic
institutions, what refuge would remain open to the nations, except
the despotism of a single individual? I am aware that there are many
worthy persons at the present time who are not alarmed at this
latter alternative, and who are so tired of liberty as to be glad of
repose, far from those storms by which it is attended. But these
individuals are ill acquainted with the haven towards which they are
bound. They are so deluded by their recollections, as to judge the
tendency of absolute power by what it was formerly, and not by what
it might become at the present time.
If absolute power were re-established amongst the democratic nations
of Europe, I am persuaded that it would assume a new form, and
appear under features unknown to our forefathers. There was a time
in Europe when the laws and the consent of the people had invested
princes with almost unlimited authority; but they scarcely ever
availed themselves of it. I do not speak of the prerogatives of the
nobility, of the authority of supreme courts of justice, of
corporations and their chartered rights, or of provincial
privileges, which served to break the blows of the sovereign
authority, and to maintain a spirit of resistance in the nation.
Independently of these political institutions - which, however
opposed they might be to personal liberty, served to keep alive the
love of freedom in the mind of the public, and which may be esteemed
to have been useful in this respect - the manners and opinions of
the nation confined the royal authority within barriers which were
not less powerful, although they were less conspicuous. Religion,
the affections of the people, the benevolence of the prince, the
sense of honor, family pride, provincial prejudices, custom, and
public opinion limited the power of kings, and restrained their
authority within an invisible circle. The constitution of nations
was despotic at that time, but their manners were free. Princes had
the right, but they had neither the means nor the desire, of doing
whatever they pleased.
But what now remains of those barriers which formerly arrested the
aggressions of tyranny? Since religion has lost its empire over the
souls of men, the most prominent boundary which divided good from
evil is overthrown; the very elements of the moral world are
indeterminate; the princes and the peoples of the earth are guided
by chance, and none can define the natural limits of despotism and
the bounds of license. Long revolutions have forever destroyed the
respect which surrounded the rulers of the State; and since they
have been relieved from the burden of public esteem, princes may
henceforward surrender themselves without fear to the seductions of
arbitrary power.
When kings find that the hearts of their subjects are turned towards
them, they are clement, because they are conscious of their
strength, and they are chary of the affection of their people,
because the affection of their people is the bulwark of the throne.
A mutual interchange of good-will then takes place between the
prince and the people, which resembles the gracious intercourse of
domestic society. The subjects may murmur at the sovereign's decree,
but they are grieved to displease him; and the sovereign chastises
his subjects with the light hand of parental affection.
But when once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult of
revolution; when successive monarchs have crossed the throne, so as
alternately to display to the people the weakness of their right and
the harshness of their power, the sovereign is no longer regarded by
any as the Father of the State, and he is feared by all as its
master. If he be weak, he is despised; if he be strong, he is
detested. He himself is full of animosity and alarm; he finds that
he is as a stranger in his own country, and he treats his subjects
like conquered enemies.
When the provinces and the towns formed so many different nations in
the midst of their common country, each of them had a will of its
own, which was opposed to the general spirit of subjection; but now
that all the parts of the same empire, after having lost their
immunities, their customs, their prejudices, their traditions, and
their names, are subjected and accustomed to the same laws, it is
not more difficult to oppress them collectively than it was formerly
to oppress them singly.
Whilst the nobles enjoyed their power, and indeed long after that
power was lost, the honor of aristocracy conferred an extraordinary
degree of force upon their personal opposition. They afford
instances of men who, notwithstanding their weakness, still
entertained a high opinion of their personal value, and dared to
cope single-handed with the efforts of the public authority. But at
the present day, when all ranks are more and more confounded, when
the individual disappears in the throng, and is easily lost in the
midst of a common obscurity, when the honor of monarchy has almost
lost its empire without being succeeded by public virtue, and when
nothing can enable man to rise above himself, who shall say at what
point the exigencies of power and the servility of weakness will
stop?
As long as family feeling was kept alive, the antagonist of
oppression was never alone; he looked about him, and found his
clients, his hereditary friends, and his kinsfolk. If this support
was wanting, he was sustained by his ancestors and animated by his
posterity. But when patrimonial estates are divided, and when a few
years suffice to confound the distinctions of a race, where can
family feeling be found? What force can there be in the customs of a
country which has changed and is still perpetually changing, its
aspect; in which every act of tyranny has a precedent, and every
crime an example; in which there is nothing so old that its
antiquity can save it from destruction, and nothing so unparalleled
that its novelty can prevent it from being done? What resistance can
be offered by manners of so pliant a make that they have already
often yielded? What strength can even public opinion have retained,
when no twenty persons are connected by a common tie; when not a
man, nor a family, nor chartered corporation, nor class, nor free
institution, has the power of representing or exerting that opinion;
and when every citizen - being equally weak, equally poor, and
equally dependent - has only his personal impotence to oppose to the
organized force of the government?
The annals of France furnish nothing analogous to the condition in
which that country might then be thrown. But it may more aptly be
assimilated to the times of old, and to those hideous eras of Roman
oppression, when the manners of the people were corrupted, their
traditions obliterated, their habits destroyed, their opinions
shaken, and freedom, expelled from the laws, could find no refuge in
the land; when nothing protected the citizens, and the citizens no
longer protected themselves; when human nature was the sport of man,
and princes wearied out the clemency of Heaven before they exhausted
the patience of their subjects. Those who hope to revive the
monarchy of Henry IV or of Louis XIV, appear to me to be afflicted
with mental blindness; and when I consider the present condition of
several European nations - a condition to which all the others tend
- I am led to believe that they will soon be left with no other
alternative than democratic liberty, or the tyranny of the Caesars.
*n
[Footnote n: [This prediction of the return of France to imperial
despotism, and of the true character of that despotic power, was
written in 1832, and realized to the letter in 1852.]]
And indeed it is deserving of consideration, whether men are to be
entirely emancipated or entirely enslaved; whether their rights are
to be made equal, or wholly taken away from them. If the rulers of
society were reduced either gradually to raise the crowd to their
own level, or to sink the citizens below that of humanity, would not
the doubts of many be resolved, the consciences of many be healed,
and the community prepared to make great sacrifices with little
difficulty? In that case, the gradual growth of democratic manners
and institutions should be regarded, not as the best, but as the
only means of preserving freedom; and without liking the government
of democracy, it might be adopted as the most applicable and the
fairest remedy for the present ills of society.
It is difficult to associate a people in the work of government; but
it is still more difficult to supply it with Experience, and to
inspire it with the feelings which it requires in order to govern
well. I grant that the caprices of democracy are perpetual; its
instruments are rude; its laws imperfect. But if it were true that
soon no just medium would exist between the empire of democracy and
the dominion of a single arm, should we not rather incline towards
the former than submit voluntarily to the latter? And if complete
equality be our fate, is it not better to be levelled by free
institutions than by despotic power?
Those who, after having read this book, should imagine that my
intention in writing it has been to propose the laws and manners of
the Anglo-Americans for the imitation of all democratic peoples,
would commit a very great mistake; they must have paid more
attention to the form than to the substance of my ideas. My aim has
been to show, by the example of America, that laws, and especially
manners, may exist which will allow a democratic people to remain
free. But I am very far from thinking that we ought to follow the
example of the American democracy, and copy the means which it has
employed to attain its ends; for I am well aware of the influence
which the nature of a country and its political precedents exercise
upon a constitution; and I should regard it as a great misfortune
for mankind if liberty were to exist all over the world under the
same forms.
But I am of opinion that if we do not succeed in gradually
introducing democratic institutions into France, and if we despair
of imparting to the citizens those ideas and sentiments which first
prepare them for freedom, and afterwards allow them to enjoy it,
there will be no independence at all, either for the middling
classes or the nobility, for the poor or for the rich, but an equal
tyranny over all; and I foresee that if the peaceable empire of the
majority be not founded amongst us in time, we shall sooner or later
arrive at the unlimited authority of a single despot.
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races In The United States
- Part I
The Present And Probable Future Condition Of The Three Races Which
Inhabit The Territory Of The United States
The principal part of the task which I had imposed upon myself is
now performed. I have shown, as far as I was able, the laws and the
manners of the American democracy. Here I might stop; but the reader
would perhaps feel that I had not satisfied his expectations.
The absolute supremacy of democracy is not all that we meet with in
America; the inhabitants of the New World may be considered from
more than one point of view. In the course of this work my subject
has often led me to speak of the Indians and the Negroes; but I have
never been able to stop in order to show what place these two races
occupy in the midst of the democratic people whom I was engaged in
describing. I have mentioned in what spirit, and according to what
laws, the Anglo-American Union was formed; but I could only glance
at the dangers which menace that confederation, whilst it was
equally impossible for me to give a detailed account of its chances
of duration, independently of its laws and manners. When speaking of
the united republican States, I hazarded no conjectures upon the
permanence of republican forms in the New World, and when making
frequent allusion to the commercial activity which reigns in the
Union, I was unable to inquire into the future condition of the
Americans as a commercial people.
These topics are collaterally connected with my subject without
forming a part of it; they are American without being democratic;
and to portray democracy has been my principal aim. It was therefore
necessary to postpone these questions, which I now take up as the
proper termination of my work.
The territory now occupied or claimed by the American Union spreads
from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific Ocean. On
the east and west its limits are those of the continent itself. On
the south it advances nearly to the tropic, and it extends upwards
to the icy regions of the North. The human beings who are scattered
over this space do not form, as in Europe, so many branches of the
same stock. Three races, naturally distinct, and, I might almost
say, hostile to each other, are discoverable amongst them at the
first glance. Almost insurmountable barriers had been raised between
them by education and by law, as well as by their origin and outward
characteristics; but fortune has brought them together on the same
soil, where, although they are mixed, they do not amalgamate, and
each race fulfils its destiny apart.
Amongst these widely differing families of men, the first which
attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power and in
enjoyment, is the white or European, the man pre-eminent; and in
subordinate grades, the negro and the Indian. These two unhappy
races have nothing in common; neither birth, nor features, nor
language, nor habits. Their only resemblance lies in their
misfortunes. Both of them occupy an inferior rank in the country
they inhabit; both suffer from tyranny; and if their wrongs are not
the same, they originate, at any rate, with the same authors.
If we reasoned from what passes in the world, we should almost say
that the European is to the other races of mankind, what man is to
the lower animals; - he makes them subservient to his use; and when
he cannot subdue, he destroys them. Oppression has, at one stroke,
deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the
privileges of humanity. The negro of the United States has lost all
remembrance of his country; the language which his forefathers spoke
is never heard around him; he abjured their religion and forgot
their customs when he ceased to belong to Africa, without acquiring
any claim to European privileges. But he remains half way between
the two communities; sold by the one, repulsed by the other; finding
not a spot in the universe to call by the name of country, except
the faint image of a home which the shelter of his master's roof
affords.
The negro has no family; woman is merely the temporary companion of
his pleasures, and his children are upon an equality with himself
from the moment of their birth. Am I to call it a proof of God's
mercy or a visitation of his wrath, that man in certain states
appears to be insensible to his extreme wretchedness, and almost
affects, with a depraved taste, the cause of his misfortunes? The
negro, who is plunged in this abyss of evils, scarcely feels his own
calamitous situation. Violence made him a slave, and the habit of
servitude gives him the thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires
his tyrants more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride
in the servile imitation of those who oppress him: his understanding
is degraded to the level of his soul.
The negro enters upon slavery as soon as he is born: nay, he may
have been purchased in the womb, and have begun his slavery before
he began his existence. Equally devoid of wants and of enjoyment,
and useless to himself, he learns, with his first notions of
existence, that he is the property of another, who has an interest
in preserving his life, and that the care of it does not devolve
upon himself; even the power of thought appears to him a useless
gift of Providence, and he quietly enjoys the privileges of his
debasement. If he becomes free, independence is often felt by him to
be a heavier burden than slavery; for having learned, in the course
of his life, to submit to everything except reason, he is too much
unacquainted with her dictates to obey them. A thousand new desires
beset him, and he is destitute of the knowledge and energy necessary
to resist them: these are masters which it is necessary to contend
with, and he has learnt only to submit and obey. In short, he sinks
to such a depth of wretchedness, that while servitude brutalizes,
liberty destroys him.
Oppression has been no less fatal to the Indian than to the negro
race, but its effects are different. Before the arrival of white men
in the New World, the inhabitants of North America lived quietly in
their woods, enduring the vicissitudes and practising the virtues
and vices common to savage nations. The Europeans, having dispersed
the Indian tribes and driven them into the deserts, condemned them
to a wandering life full of inexpressible sufferings.
Savage nations are only controlled by opinion and by custom. When
the North American Indians had lost the sentiment of attachment to
their country; when their families were dispersed, their traditions
obscured, and the chain of their recollections broken; when all
their habits were changed, and their wants increased beyond measure,
European tyranny rendered them more disorderly and less civilized
than they were before. The moral and physical condition of these
tribes continually grew worse, and they became more barbarous as
they became more wretched. Nevertheless, the Europeans have not been
able to metamorphose the character of the Indians; and though they
have had power to destroy them, they have never been able to make
them submit to the rules of civilized society.
The lot of the negro is placed on the extreme limit of servitude,
while that of the Indian lies on the uttermost verge of liberty; and
slavery does not produce more fatal effects upon the first, than
independence upon the second. The negro has lost all property in his
own person, and he cannot dispose of his existence without
committing a sort of fraud: but the savage is his own master as soon
as he is able to act; parental authority is scarcely known to him;
he has never bent his will to that of any of his kind, nor learned
the difference between voluntary obedience and a shameful
subjection; and the very name of law is unknown to him. To be free,
with him, signifies to escape from all the shackles of society. As
he delights in this barbarous independence, and would rather perish
than sacrifice the least part of it, civilization has little power
over him.
The negro makes a thousand fruitless efforts to insinuate himself
amongst men who repulse him; he conforms to the tastes of his
oppressors, adopts their opinions, and hopes by imitating them to
form a part of their community. Having been told from infancy that
his race is naturally inferior to that of the whites, he assents to
the proposition and is ashamed of his own nature. In each of his
features he discovers a trace of slavery, and, if it were in his
power, he would willingly rid himself of everything that makes him
what he is.
The Indian, on the contrary, has his imagination inflated with the
pretended nobility of his origin, and lives and dies in the midst of
these dreams of pride. Far from desiring to conform his habits to
ours, he loves his savage life as the distinguishing mark of his
race, and he repels every advance to civilization, less perhaps from
the hatred which he entertains for it, than from a dread of
resembling the Europeans. *a While he has nothing to oppose to our
perfection in the arts but the resources of the desert, to our
tactics nothing but undisciplined courage; whilst our well-digested
plans are met by the spontaneous instincts of savage life, who can
wonder if he fails in this unequal contest?
[Footnote a: The native of North America retains his opinions and
the most insignificant of his habits with a degree of tenacity which
has no parallel in history. For more than two hundred years the
wandering tribes of North America have had daily intercourse with
the whites, and they have never derived from them either a custom or
an idea. Yet the Europeans have exercised a powerful influence over
the savages: they have made them more licentious, but not more
European. In the summer of 1831 I happened to be beyond Lake
Michigan, at a place called Green Bay, which serves as the extreme
frontier between the United States and the Indians on the
north-western side. Here I became acquainted with an American
officer, Major H., who, after talking to me at length on the
inflexibility of the Indian character, related the following fact: -
"I formerly knew a young Indian," said he, "who had been educated at
a college in New England, where he had greatly distinguished
himself, and had acquired the external appearance of a member of
civilized society. When the war broke out between ourselves and the
English in 1810, I saw this young man again; he was serving in our
army, at the head of the warriors of his tribe, for the Indians were
admitted amongst the ranks of the Americans, upon condition that
they would abstain from their horrible custom of scalping their
victims. On the evening of the battle of . . ., C. came and sat
himself down by the fire of our bivouac. I asked him what had been
his fortune that day: he related his exploits; and growing warm and
animated by the recollection of them, he concluded by suddenly
opening the breast of his coat, saying, 'You must not betray me -
see here!' And I actually beheld," said the Major, "between his body
and his shirt, the skin and hair of an English head, still dripping
with gore."]
The negro, who earnestly desires to mingle his race with that of the
European, cannot effect if; while the Indian, who might succeed to a
certain extent, disdains to make the attempt. The servility of the
one dooms him to slavery, the pride of the other to death.
I remember that while I was travelling through the forests which
still cover the State of Alabama, I arrived one day at the log house
of a pioneer. I did not wish to penetrate into the dwelling of the
American, but retired to rest myself for a while on the margin of a
spring, which was not far off, in the woods. While I was in this
place (which was in the neighborhood of the Creek territory), an
Indian woman appeared, followed by a negress, and holding by the
hand a little white girl of five or six years old, whom I took to be
the daughter of the pioneer. A sort of barbarous luxury set off the
costume of the Indian; rings of metal were hanging from her nostrils
and ears; her hair, which was adorned with glass beads, fell loosely
upon her shoulders; and I saw that she was not married, for she
still wore that necklace of shells which the bride always deposits
on the nuptial couch. The negress was clad in squalid European
garments. They all three came and seated themselves upon the banks
of the fountain; and the young Indian, taking the child in her arms,
lavished upon her such fond caresses as mothers give; while the
negress endeavored by various little artifices to attract the
attention of the young Creole.
The child displayed in her slightest gestures a consciousness of
superiority which formed a strange contrast with her infantine
weakness; as if she received the attentions of her companions with a
sort of condescension. The negress was seated on the ground before
her mistress, watching her smallest desires, and apparently divided
between strong affection for the child and servile fear; whilst the
savage displayed, in the midst of her tenderness, an air of freedom
and of pride which was almost ferocious. I had approached the group,
and I contemplated them in silence; but my curiosity was probably
displeasing to the Indian woman, for she suddenly rose, pushed the
child roughly from her, and giving me an angry look plunged into the
thicket. I had often chanced to see individuals met together in the
same place, who belonged to the three races of men which people
North America. I had perceived from many different results the
preponderance of the whites. But in the picture which I have just
been describing there was something peculiarly touching; a bond of
affection here united the oppressors with the oppressed, and the
effort of nature to bring them together rendered still more striking
the immense distance placed between them by prejudice and by law.
The Present And Probable Future Condition Of The Indian Tribes Which
Inhabit The Territory Possessed By The Union
Gradual disappearance of the native tribes - Manner in which it
takes place -Miseries accompanying the forced migrations of the
Indians - The savages of North America had only two ways of escaping
destruction; war or civilization -They are no longer able to make
war - Reasons why they refused to become civilized when it was in
their power, and why they cannot become so now that they desire it -
Instance of the Creeks and Cherokees - Policy of the particular
States towards these Indians - Policy of the Federal Government.
None of the Indian tribes which formerly inhabited the territory of
New England - the Naragansetts, the Mohicans, the Pecots - have any
existence but in the recollection of man. The Lenapes, who received
William Penn, a hundred and fifty years ago, upon the banks of the
Delaware, have disappeared; and I myself met with the last of the
Iroquois, who were begging alms. The nations I have mentioned
formerly covered the country to the sea-coast; but a traveller at
the present day must penetrate more than a hundred leagues into the
interior of the continent to find an Indian. Not only have these
wild tribes receded, but they are destroyed; *b and as they give way
or perish, an immense and increasing people fills their place. There
is no instance upon record of so prodigious a growth, or so rapid a
destruction: the manner in which the latter change takes place is
not difficult to describe.
[Footnote b: In the thirteen original States there are only 6,273
Indians remaining. (See Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No.
117, p. 90.) [The decrease in now far greater, and is verging on
extinction. See page 360 of this volume.]]
When the Indians were the sole inhabitants of the wilds from whence
they have since been expelled, their wants were few. Their arms were
of their own manufacture, their only drink was the water of the
brook, and their clothes consisted of the skins of animals, whose
flesh furnished them with food.
The Europeans introduced amongst the savages of North America
fire-arms, ardent spirits, and iron: they taught them to exchange
for manufactured stuffs, the rough garments which had previously
satisfied their untutored simplicity. Having acquired new tastes,
without the arts by which they could be gratified, the Indians were
obliged to have recourse to the workmanship of the whites; but in
return for their productions the savage had nothing to offer except
the rich furs which still abounded in his woods. Hence the chase
became necessary, not merely to provide for his subsistence, but in
order to procure the only objects of barter which he could furnish
to Europe. *c Whilst the wants of the natives were thus increasing,
their resources continued to diminish.
[Footnote c: Messrs. Clarke and Cass, in their Report to Congress on
February 4, 1829, p. 23, expressed themselves thus: - "The time when
the Indians generally could supply themselves with food and
clothing, without any of the articles of civilized life, has long
since passed away. The more remote tribes, beyond the Mississippi,
who live where immense herds of buffalo are yet to be found and who
follow those animals in their periodical migrations, could more
easily than any others recur to the habits of their ancestors, and
live without the white man or any of his manufactures. But the
buffalo is constantly receding. The smaller animals, the bear, the
deer, the beaver, the otter, the muskrat, etc., principally minister
to the comfort and support of the Indians; and these cannot be taken
without guns, ammunition, and traps. Among the Northwestern Indians
particularly, the labor of supplying a family with food is
excessive. Day after day is spent by the hunter without success, and
during this interval his family must subsist upon bark or roots, or
perish. Want and misery are around them and among them. Many die
every winter from actual starvation."
The Indians will not live as Europeans live, and yet they can
neither subsist without them, nor exactly after the fashion of their
fathers. This is demonstrated by a fact which I likewise give upon
official authority. Some Indians of a tribe on the banks of Lake
Superior had killed a European; the American government interdicted
all traffic with the tribe to which the guilty parties belonged,
until they were delivered up to justice. This measure had the
desired effect.]
From the moment when a European settlement is formed in the
neighborhood of the territory occupied by the Indians, the beasts of
chase take the alarm. *d Thousands of savages, wandering in the
forests and destitute of any fixed dwelling, did not disturb them;
but as soon as the continuous sounds of European labor are heard in
their neighborhood, they begin to flee away, and retire to the West,
where their instinct teaches them that they will find deserts of
immeasurable extent. "The buffalo is constantly receding," say
Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their Report of the year 1829; "a few
years since they approached the base of the Alleghany; and a few
years hence they may even be rare upon the immense plains which
extend to the base of the Rocky Mountains." I have been assured that
this effect of the approach of the whites is often felt at two
hundred leagues' distance from their frontier. Their influence is
thus exerted over tribes whose name is unknown to them; and who
suffer the evils of usurpation long before they are acquainted with
the authors of their distress. *e
[Footnote d: "Five years ago," (says Volney in his "Tableau des
Etats-Unis," p. 370) "in going from Vincennes to Kaskaskia, a
territory which now forms part of the State of Illinois, but which
at the time I mention was completely wild (1797), you could not
cross a prairie without seeing herds of from four to five hundred
buffaloes. There are now none remaining; they swam across the
Mississippi to escape from the hunters, and more particularly from
the bells of the American cows."]
[Footnote e: The truth of what I here advance may be easily proved
by consulting the tabular statement of Indian tribes inhabiting the
United States and their territories. (Legislative Documents, 20th
Congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.) It is there shown that the tribes in
the centre of America are rapidly decreasing, although the Europeans
are still at a considerable distance from them.]
Bold adventurers soon penetrate into the country the Indians have
deserted, and when they have advanced about fifteen or twenty
leagues from the extreme frontiers of the whites, they begin to
build habitations for civilized beings in the midst of the
wilderness. This is done without difficulty, as the territory of a
hunting-nation is ill-defined; it is the common property of the
tribe, and belongs to no one in particular, so that individual
interests are not concerned in the protection of any part of it.
A few European families, settled in different situations at a
considerable distance from each other, soon drive away the wild
animals which remain between their places of abode. The Indians, who
had previously lived in a sort of abundance, then find it difficult
to subsist, and still more difficult to procure the articles of
barter which they stand in need of.
To drive away their game is to deprive them of the means of
existence, as effectually as if the fields of our agriculturists
were stricken with barrenness; and they are reduced, like famished
wolves, to prowl through the forsaken woods in quest of prey. Their
instinctive love of their country attaches them to the soil which
gave them birth, *f even after it has ceased to yield anything but
misery and death. At length they are compelled to acquiesce, and to
depart: they follow the traces of the elk, the buffalo, and the
beaver, and are guided by these wild animals in the choice of their
future country. Properly speaking, therefore, it is not the
Europeans who drive away the native inhabitants of America; it is
famine which compels them to recede; a happy distinction which had
escaped the casuists of former times, and for which we are indebted
to modern discovery!
[Footnote f: "The Indians," say Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their
Report to Congress, p. 15, "are attached to their country by the
same feelings which bind us to ours; and, besides, there are certain
superstitious notions connected with the alienation of what the
Great Spirit gave to their ancestors, which operate strongly upon
the tribes who have made few or no cessions, but which are gradually
weakened as our intercourse with them is extended. 'We will not sell
the spot which contains the bones of our fathers,' is almost always
the first answer to a proposition for a sale."]
It is impossible to conceive the extent of the sufferings which
attend these forced emigrations. They are undertaken by a people
already exhausted and reduced; and the countries to which the
newcomers betake themselves are inhabited by other tribes which
receive them with jealous hostility. Hunger is in the rear; war
awaits them, and misery besets them on all sides. In the hope of
escaping from such a host of enemies, they separate, and each
individual endeavors to procure the means of supporting his
existence in solitude and secrecy, living in the immensity of the
desert like an outcast in civilized society. The social tie, which
distress had long since weakened, is then dissolved; they have lost
their country, and their people soon desert them: their very
families are obliterated; the names they bore in common are
forgotten, their language perishes, and all traces of their origin
disappear. Their nation has ceased to exist, except in the
recollection of the antiquaries of America and a few of the learned
of Europe.
I should be sorry to have my reader suppose that I am coloring the
picture too highly; I saw with my own eyes several of the cases of
misery which I have been describing; and I was the witness of
sufferings which I have not the power to portray.
At the end of the year 1831, whilst I was on the left bank of the
Mississippi at a place named by Europeans, Memphis, there arrived a
numerous band of Choctaws (or Chactas, as they are called by the
French in Louisiana). These savages had left their country, and were
endeavoring to gain the right bank of the Mississippi, where they
hoped to find an asylum which had been promised them by the American
government. It was then the middle of winter, and the cold was
unusually severe; the snow had frozen hard upon the ground, and the
river was drifting huge masses of ice. The Indians had their
families with them; and they brought in their train the wounded and
sick, with children newly born, and old men upon the verge of death.
They possessed neither tents nor wagons, but only their arms and
some provisions. I saw them embark to pass the mighty river, and
never will that solemn spectacle fade from my remembrance. No cry,
no sob was heard amongst the assembled crowd; all were silent. Their
calamities were of ancient date, and they knew them to be
irremediable. The Indians had all stepped into the bark which was to
carry them across, but their dogs remained upon the bank. As soon as
these animals perceived that their masters were finally leaving the
shore, they set up a dismal howl, and, plunging all together into
the icy waters of the Mississippi, they swam after the boat.
The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place at the present
day, in a regular, and, as it were, a legal manner. When the
European population begins to approach the limit of the desert
inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United States
usually dispatches envoys to them, who assemble the Indians in a
large plain, and having first eaten and drunk with them, accost them
in the following manner: "What have you to do in the land of your
fathers? Before long, you must dig up their bones in order to live.
In what respect is the country you inhabit better than another? Are
there no woods, marshes, or prairies, except where you dwell? And
can you live nowhere but under your own sun? Beyond those mountains
which you see at the horizon, beyond the lake which bounds your
territory on the west, there lie vast countries where beasts of
chase are found in great abundance; sell your lands to us, and go to
live happily in those solitudes." After holding this language, they
spread before the eyes of the Indians firearms, woollen garments,
kegs of brandy, glass necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, earrings, and
looking-glasses. *g If, when they have beheld all these riches, they
still hesitate, it is insinuated that they have not the means of
refusing their required consent, and that the government itself will
not long have the power of protecting them in their rights. What are
they to do? Half convinced, and half compelled, they go to inhabit
new deserts, where the importunate whites will not let them remain
ten years in tranquillity. In this manner do the Americans obtain,
at a very low price, whole provinces, which the richest sovereigns
of Europe could not purchase. *h
[Footnote g: See, in the Legislative Documents of Congress (Doc.
117), the narrative of what takes place on these occasions. This
curious passage is from the above-mentioned report, made to Congress
by Messrs. Clarke and Cass in February, 1829. Mr. Cass is now the
Secretary of War.
"The Indians," says the report, "reach the treaty-ground poor and
almost naked. Large quantities of goods are taken there by the
traders, and are seen and examined by the Indians. The women and
children become importunate to have their wants supplied, and their
influence is soon exerted to induce a sale. Their improvidence is
habitual and unconquerable. The gratification of his immediate wants
and desires is the ruling passion of an Indian. The expectation of
future advantages seldom produces much effect. The Experience of the
past is lost, and the prospects of the future disregarded. It would
be utterly hopeless to demand a cession of land, unless the means
were at hand of gratifying their immediate wants; and when their
condition and circumstances are fairly considered, it ought not to
surprise us that they are so anxious to relieve themselves."]
[Footnote h: On May 19, 1830, Mr. Edward Everett affirmed before the
House of Representatives, that the Americans had already acquired by
treaty, to the east and west of the Mississippi, 230,000,000 of
acres. In 1808 the Osages gave up 48,000,000 acres for an annual
payment of $1,000. In 1818 the Quapaws yielded up 29,000,000 acres
for $4,000. They reserved for themselves a territory of 1,000,000
acres for a hunting-ground. A solemn oath was taken that it should
be respected: but before long it was invaded like the rest. Mr.
Bell, in his Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs, February 24,
1830, has these words: - "To pay an Indian tribe what their ancient
hunting-grounds are worth to them, after the game is fled or
destroyed, as a mode of appropriating wild lands claimed by Indians,
has been found more convenient, and certainly it is more agreeable
to the forms of justice, as well as more merciful, than to assert
the possession of them by the sword. Thus the practice of buying
Indian titles is but the substitute which humanity and expediency
have imposed, in place of the sword, in arriving at the actual
enjoyment of property claimed by the right of discovery, and
sanctioned by the natural superiority allowed to the claims of
civilized communities over those of savage tribes. Up to the present
time so invariable has been the operation of certain causes, first
in diminishing the value of forest lands to the Indians, and
secondly in disposing them to sell readily, that the plan of buying
their right of occupancy has never threatened to retard, in any
perceptible degree, the prosperity of any of the States."
(Legislative Documents, 21st Congress, No. 227, p. 6.)]
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part II
These are great evils; and it must be added that they appear to me
to be irremediable. I believe that the Indian nations of North
America are doomed to perish; and that whenever the Europeans shall
be established on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, that race of men
will be no more. *i The Indians had only the two alternatives of war
or civilization; in other words, they must either have destroyed the
Europeans or become their equals.
[Footnote i: This seems, indeed, to be the opinion of almost all
American statesmen. "Judging of the future by the past," says Mr.
Cass, "we cannot err in anticipating a progressive diminution of
their numbers, and their eventual extinction, unless our border
should become stationary, and they be removed beyond it, or unless
some radical change should take place in the principles of our
intercourse with them, which it is easier to hope for than to
expect."]
At the first settlement of the colonies they might have found it
possible, by uniting their forces, to deliver themselves from the
small bodies of strangers who landed on their continent. *j They
several times attempted to do it, and were on the point of
succeeding; but the disproportion of their resources, at the present
day, when compared with those of the whites, is too great to allow
such an enterprise to be thought of. Nevertheless, there do arise
from time to time among the Indians men of penetration, who foresee
the final destiny which awaits the native population, and who exert
themselves to unite all the tribes in common hostility to the
Europeans; but their efforts are unavailing. Those tribes which are
in the neighborhood of the whites, are too much weakened to offer an
effectual resistance; whilst the others, giving way to that childish
carelessness of the morrow which characterizes savage life, wait for
the near approach of danger before they prepare to meet it; some are
unable, the others are unwilling, to exert themselves.
[Footnote j: Amongst other warlike enterprises, there was one of the
Wampanaogs, and other confederate tribes, under Metacom in 1675,
against the colonists of New England; the English were also engaged
in war in Virginia in 1622.]
It is easy to foresee that the Indians will never conform to
civilization; or that it will be too late, whenever they may be
inclined to make the experiment.
Civilization is the result of a long social process which takes
place in the same spot, and is handed down from one generation to
another, each one profiting by the Experience of the last. Of all
nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which
habitually live by the chase. Pastoral tribes, indeed, often change
their place of abode; but they follow a regular order in their
migrations, and often return again to their old stations, whilst the
dwelling of the hunter varies with that of the animals he pursues.
Several attempts have been made to diffuse knowledge amongst the
Indians, without controlling their wandering propensities; by the
Jesuits in Canada, and by the Puritans in New England; *k but none
of these endeavors were crowned by any lasting success. Civilization
began in the cabin, but it soon retired to expire in the woods. The
great error of these legislators of the Indians was their not
understanding that, in order to succeed in civilizing a people, it
is first necessary to fix it; which cannot be done without inducing
it to cultivate the soil; the Indians ought in the first place to
have been accustomed to agriculture. But not only are they destitute
of this indispensable preliminary to civilization, they would even
have great difficulty in acquiring it. Men who have once abandoned
themselves to the restless and adventurous life of the hunter, feel
an insurmountable disgust for the constant and regular labor which
tillage requires. We see this proved in the bosom of our own
society; but it is far more visible among peoples whose partiality
for the chase is a part of their national character.
[Footnote k: See the "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," by
Charlevoix, and the work entitled "Lettres edifiantes."]
Independently of this general difficulty, there is another, which
applies peculiarly to the Indians; they consider labor not merely as
an evil, but as a disgrace; so that their pride prevents them from
becoming civilized, as much as their indolence. *l
[Footnote l: "In all the tribes," says Volney, in his "Tableau des
Etats-Unis," p. 423, "there still exists a generation of old
warriors, who cannot forbear, when they see their countrymen using
the hoe, from exclaiming against the degradation of ancient manners,
and asserting that the savages owe their decline to these
innovations; adding, that they have only to return to their
primitive habits in order to recover their power and their glory."]
There is no Indian so wretched as not to retain under his hut of
bark a lofty idea of his personal worth; he considers the cares of
industry and labor as degrading occupations; he compares the
husbandman to the ox which traces the furrow; and even in our most
ingenious handicraft, he can see nothing but the labor of slaves.
Not that he is devoid of admiration for the power and intellectual
greatness of the whites; but although the result of our efforts
surprises him, he contemns the means by which we obtain it; and
while he acknowledges our ascendancy, he still believes in his
superiority. War and hunting are the only pursuits which appear to
him worthy to be the occupations of a man. *m The Indian, in the
dreary solitude of his woods, cherishes the same ideas, the same
opinions as the noble of the Middle ages in his castle, and he only
requires to become a conqueror to complete the resemblance; thus,
however strange it may seem, it is in the forests of the New World,
and not amongst the Europeans who people its coasts, that the
ancient prejudices of Europe are still in existence.
[Footnote m: The following description occurs in an official
document: "Until a young man has been engaged with an enemy, and has
performed some acts of valor, he gains no consideration, but is
regarded nearly as a woman. In their great war-dances all the
warriors in succession strike the post, as it is called, and recount
their exploits. On these occasions their auditory consists of the
kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the narrator. The profound
impression which his discourse produces on them is manifested by the
silent attention it receives, and by the loud shouts which hail its
termination. The young man who finds himself at such a meeting
without anything to recount is very unhappy; and instances have
sometimes occurred of young warriors, whose passions had been thus
inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly, and going off alone to
seek for trophies which they might exhibit, and adventures which
they might be allowed to relate."]
More than once, in the course of this work, I have endeavored to
explain the prodigious influence which the social condition appears
to exercise upon the laws and the manners of men; and I beg to add a
few words on the same subject.
When I perceive the resemblance which exists between the political
institutions of our ancestors, the Germans, and of the wandering
tribes of North America; between the customs described by Tacitus,
and those of which I have sometimes been a witness, I cannot help
thinking that the same cause has brought about the same results in
both hemispheres; and that in the midst of the apparent diversity of
human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may be discovered,
from which all the others are derived. In what we usually call the
German institutions, then, I am inclined only to perceive barbarian
habits; and the opinions of savages in what we style feudal
principles.
However strongly the vices and prejudices of the North American
Indians may be opposed to their becoming agricultural and civilized,
necessity sometimes obliges them to it. Several of the Southern
nations, and amongst others the Cherokees and the Creeks, *n were
surrounded by Europeans, who had landed on the shores of the
Atlantic; and who, either descending the Ohio or proceeding up the
Mississippi, arrived simultaneously upon their borders. These tribes
have not been driven from place to place, like their Northern
brethren; but they have been gradually enclosed within narrow
limits, like the game within the thicket, before the huntsmen plunge
into the interior. The Indians who were thus placed between
civilization and death, found themselves obliged to live by
ignominious labor like the whites. They took to agriculture, and
without entirely forsaking their old habits or manners, sacrificed
only as much as was necessary to their existence.
[Footnote n: These nations are now swallowed up in the States of
Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. There were formerly in
the South four great nations (remnants of which still exist), the
Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the Cherokees. The
remnants of these four nations amounted, in 1830, to about 75,000
individuals. It is computed that there are now remaining in the
territory occupied or claimed by the Anglo-American Union about
300,000 Indians. (See Proceedings of the Indian Board in the City of
New York.) The official documents supplied to Congress make the
number amount to 313,130. The reader who is curious to know the
names and numerical strength of all the tribes which inhabit the
Anglo-American territory should consult the documents I refer to.
(Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.) [In the
Census of 1870 it is stated that the Indian population of the United
States is only 25,731, of whom 7,241 are in California.]]
The Cherokees went further; they created a written language;
established a permanent form of government; and as everything
proceeds rapidly in the New World, before they had all of them
clothes, they set up a newspaper. *o
[Footnote o: I brought back with me to France one or two copies of
this singular publication.]
The growth of European habits has been remarkably accelerated among
these Indians by the mixed race which has sprung up. *p Deriving
intelligence from their father's side, without entirely losing the
savage customs of the mother, the half-blood forms the natural link
between civilization and barbarism. Wherever this race has
multiplied the savage state has become modified, and a great change
has taken place in the manners of the people. *q
[Footnote p: See in the Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs,
21st Congress, No. 227, p. 23, the reasons for the multiplication of
Indians of mixed blood among the Cherokees. The principal cause
dates from the War of Independence. Many Anglo-Americans of Georgia,
having taken the side of England, were obliged to retreat among the
Indians, where they married.]
[Footnote q: Unhappily the mixed race has been less numerous and
less influential in North America than in any other country. The
American continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe, the
French and the English. The former were not slow in connecting
themselves with the daughters of the natives, but there was an
unfortunate affinity between the Indian character and their own:
instead of giving the tastes and habits of civilized life to the
savages, the French too often grew passionately fond of the state of
wild freedom they found them in. They became the most dangerous of
the inhabitants of the desert, and won the friendship of the Indian
by exaggerating his vices and his virtues. M. de Senonville, the
governor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis XIV in 1685: "It has long
been believed that in order to civilize the savages we ought to draw
them nearer to us. But there is every reason to suppose we have been
mistaken. Those which have been brought into contact with us have
not become French, and the French who have lived among them are
changed into savages, affecting to dress and live like them."
("History of New France," by Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345.) The
Englishman, on the contrary, continuing obstinately attached to the
customs and the most insignificant habits of his forefathers, has
remained in the midst of the American solitudes just what he was in
the bosom of European cities; he would not allow of any
communication with savages whom he despised, and avoided with care
the union of his race with theirs. Thus while the French exercised
no salutary influence over the Indians, the English have always
remained alien from them.]
The success of the Cherokees proves that the Indians are capable of
civilization, but it does not prove that they will succeed in it.
This difficulty which the Indians find in submitting to civilization
proceeds from the influence of a general cause, which it is almost
impossible for them to escape. An attentive survey of history
demonstrates that, in general, barbarous nations have raised
themselves to civilization by degrees, and by their own efforts.
Whenever they derive knowledge from a foreign people, they stood
towards it in the relation of conquerors, and not of a conquered
nation. When the conquered nation is enlightened, and the conquerors
are half savage, as in the case of the invasion of Rome by the
Northern nations or that of China by the Mongols, the power which
victory bestows upon the barbarian is sufficient to keep up his
importance among civilized men, and permit him to rank as their
equal, until he becomes their rival: the one has might on his side,
the other has intelligence; the former admires the knowledge and the
arts of the conquered, the latter envies the power of the
conquerors. The barbarians at length admit civilized man into their
palaces, and he in turn opens his schools to the barbarians. But
when the side on which the physical force lies, also possesses an
intellectual preponderance, the conquered party seldom become
civilized; it retreats, or is destroyed. It may therefore be said,
in a general way, that savages go forth in arms to seek knowledge,
but that they do not receive it when it comes to them.
If the Indian tribes which now inhabit the heart of the continent
could summon up energy enough to attempt to civilize themselves,
they might possibly succeed. Superior already to the barbarous
nations which surround them, they would gradually gain strength and
Experience, and when the Europeans should appear upon their borders,
they would be in a state, if not to maintain their independence, at
least to assert their right to the soil, and to incorporate
themselves with the conquerors. But it is the misfortune of Indians
to be brought into contact with a civilized people, which is also
(it must be owned) the most avaricious nation on the globe, whilst
they are still semi-barbarian: to find despots in their instructors,
and to receive knowledge from the hand of oppression. Living in the
freedom of the woods, the North American Indian was destitute, but
he had no feeling of inferiority towards anyone; as soon, however,
as he desires to penetrate into the social scale of the whites, he
takes the lowest rank in society, for he enters, ignorant and poor,
within the pale of science and wealth. After having led a life of
agitation, beset with evils and dangers, but at the same time filled
with proud emotions, *r he is obliged to submit to a wearisome,
obscure, and degraded state; and to gain the bread which nourishes
him by hard and ignoble labor; such are in his eyes the only results
of which civilization can boast: and even this much he is not sure
to obtain.
[Footnote r: There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a
certain irresistible charm, which seizes the heart of man and
carries him away in spite of reason and Experience. This is plainly
shown by the memoirs of Tanner. Tanner is a European who was carried
away at the age of six by the Indians, and has remained thirty years
with them in the woods. Nothing can be conceived more appalling that
the miseries which he describes. He tells us of tribes without a
chief, families without a nation to call their own, men in a state
of isolation, wrecks of powerful tribes wandering at random amid the
ice and snow and desolate solitudes of Canada. Hunger and cold
pursue them; every day their life is in jeopardy. Amongst these men,
manners have lost their empire, traditions are without power. They
become more and more savage. Tanner shared in all these miseries; he
was aware of his European origin; he was not kept away from the
whites by force; on the contrary, he came every year to trade with
them, entered their dwellings, and witnessed their enjoyments; he
knew that whenever he chose to return to civilized life he was
perfectly able to do so - and he remained thirty years in the
deserts. When he came into civilized society he declared that the
rude existence which he described, had a secret charm for him which
he was unable to define: he returned to it again and again: at
length he abandoned it with poignant regret; and when he was at
length fixed among the whites, several of his children refused to
share his tranquil and easy situation. I saw Tanner myself at the
lower end of Lake Superior; he seemed to me to be more like a savage
than a civilized being. His book is written without either taste or
order; but he gives, even unconsciously, a lively picture of the
prejudices, the passions, the vices, and, above all, of the
destitution in which he lived.]
When the Indians undertake to imitate their European neighbors, and
to till the earth like the settlers, they are immediately exposed to
a very formidable competition. The white man is skilled in the craft
of agriculture; the Indian is a rough beginner in an art with which
he is unacquainted. The former reaps abundant crops without
difficulty, the latter meets with a thousand obstacles in raising
the fruits of the earth.
The European is placed amongst a population whose wants he knows and
partakes. The savage is isolated in the midst of a hostile people,
with whose manners, language, and laws he is imperfectly acquainted,
but without whose assistance he cannot live. He can only procure the
materials of comfort by bartering his commodities against the goods
of the European, for the assistance of his countrymen is wholly
insufficient to supply his wants. When the Indian wishes to sell the
produce of his labor, he cannot always meet with a purchaser, whilst
the European readily finds a market; and the former can only produce
at a considerable cost that which the latter vends at a very low
rate. Thus the Indian has no sooner escaped those evils to which
barbarous nations are exposed, than he is subjected to the still
greater miseries of civilized communities; and he finds is scarcely
less difficult to live in the midst of our abundance, than in the
depth of his own wilderness.
He has not yet lost the habits of his erratic life; the traditions
of his fathers and his passion for the chase are still alive within
him. The wild enjoyments which formerly animated him in the woods,
painfully excite his troubled imagination; and his former privations
appear to be less keen, his former perils less appalling. He
contrasts the independence which he possessed amongst his equals
with the servile position which he occupies in civilized society. On
the other hand, the solitudes which were so long his free home are
still at hand; a few hours' march will bring him back to them once
more. The whites offer him a sum, which seems to him to be
considerable, for the ground which he has begun to clear. This money
of the Europeans may possibly furnish him with the means of a happy
and peaceful subsistence in remoter regions; and he quits the
plough, resumes his native arms, and returns to the wilderness
forever. *s The condition of the Creeks and Cherokees, to which I
have already alluded, sufficiently corroborates the truth of this
deplorable picture.
[Footnote s: The destructive influence of highly civilized nations
upon others which are less so, has been exemplified by the Europeans
themselves. About a century ago the French founded the town of
Vincennes up on the Wabash, in the middle of the desert; and they
lived there in great plenty until the arrival of the American
settlers, who first ruined the previous inhabitants by their
competition, and afterwards purchased their lands at a very low
rate. At the time when M. de Volney, from whom I borrow these
details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the French was
reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass
over to Louisiana or to Canada. These French settlers were worthy
people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the
habits of savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors,
in a moral point of view, were immeasurably superior to them in
intelligence: they were industrious, well informed, rich, and
accustomed to govern their own community.
I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between
the two races is less striking, that the English are the masters of
commerce and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they spread
on all sides, and confine the French within limits which scarcely
suffice to contain them. In like manner, in Louisiana, almost all
activity in commerce and manufacture centres in the hands of the
Anglo-Americans.
But the case of Texas is still more striking: the State of Texas is
a part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier between that country
and the United States. In the course of the last few years the
Anglo-Americans have penetrated into this province, which is still
thinly peopled; they purchase land, they produce the commodities of
the country, and supplant the original population. It may easily be
foreseen that if Mexico takes no steps to check this change, the
province of Texas will very shortly cease to belong to that
government.
If the different degrees - comparatively so slight - which exist in
European civilization produce results of such magnitude, the
consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect
European civilization with Indian savages may readily be conceived.]
The Indians, in the little which they have done, have unquestionably
displayed as much natural genius as the peoples of Europe in their
most important designs; but nations as well as men require time to
learn, whatever may be their intelligence and their zeal. Whilst the
savages were engaged in the work of civilization, the Europeans
continued to surround them on every side, and to confine them within
narrower limits; the two races gradually met, and they are now in
immediate juxtaposition to each other. The Indian is already
superior to his barbarous parent, but he is still very far below his
white neighbor. With their resources and acquired knowledge, the
Europeans soon appropriated to themselves most of the advantages
which the natives might have derived from the possession of the
soil; they have settled in the country, they have purchased land at
a very low rate or have occupied it by force, and the Indians have
been ruined by a competition which they had not the means of
resisting. They were isolated in their own country, and their race
only constituted a colony of troublesome aliens in the midst of a
numerous and domineering people. *t
[Footnote t: See in the Legislative Documents (21st Congress, No.
89) instances of excesses of every kind committed by the whites upon
the territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part
of their lands, until compelled to retire by the troops of Congress,
or carrying off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down
their corn, and doing violence to their persons. It appears,
nevertheless, from all these documents that the claims of the
natives are constantly protected by the government from the abuse of
force. The Union has a representative agent continually employed to
reside among the Indians; and the report of the Cherokee agent,
which is among the documents I have referred to, is almost always
favorable to the Indians. "The intrusion of whites," he says, "upon
the lands of the Cherokees would cause ruin to the poor, helpless,
and inoffensive inhabitants." And he further remarks upon the
attempt of the State of Georgia to establish a division line for the
purpose of limiting the boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line
drawn having been made by the whites, and entirely upon ex parte
evidence of their several rights, was of no validity whatever.]
Washington said in one of his messages to Congress, "We are more
enlightened and more powerful than the Indian nations, we are
therefore bound in honor to treat them with kindness and even with
generosity." But this virtuous and high-minded policy has not been
followed. The rapacity of the settlers is usually backed by the
tyranny of the government. Although the Cherokees and the Creeks are
established upon the territory which they inhabited before the
settlement of the Europeans, and although the Americans have
frequently treated with them as with foreign nations, the
surrounding States have not consented to acknowledge them as
independent peoples, and attempts have been made to subject these
children of the woods to Anglo-American magistrates, laws, and
customs. *u Destitution had driven these unfortunate Indians to
civilization, and oppression now drives them back to their former
condition: many of them abandon the soil which they had begun to
clear, and return to their savage course of life.
[Footnote u: In 1829 the State of Alabama divided the Creek
territory into counties, and subjected the Indian population to the
power of European magistrates.
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part III
In 1830 the State of Mississippi assimilated the Choctaws and
Chickasaws to the white population, and declared that any of them
that should take the title of chief would be punished by a fine of
$1,000 and a year's imprisonment. When these laws were enforced upon
the Choctaws, who inhabited that district, the tribe assembled,
their chief communicated to them the intentions of the whites, and
read to them some of the laws to which it was intended that they
should submit; and they unanimously declared that it was better at
once to retreat again into the wilds.]
If we consider the tyrannical measures which have been adopted by
the legislatures of the Southern States, the conduct of their
Governors, and the decrees of their courts of justice, we shall be
convinced that the entire expulsion of the Indians is the final
result to which the efforts of their policy are directed. The
Americans of that part of the Union look with jealousy upon the
aborigines, *v they are aware that these tribes have not yet lost
the traditions of savage life, and before civilization has
permanently fixed them to the soil, it is intended to force them to
recede by reducing them to despair. The Creeks and Cherokees,
oppressed by the several States, have appealed to the central
government, which is by no means insensible to their misfortunes,
and is sincerely desirous of saving the remnant of the natives, and
of maintaining them in the free possession of that territory, which
the Union is pledged to respect. *w But the several States oppose so
formidable a resistance to the execution of this design, that the
government is obliged to consent to the extirpation of a few
barbarous tribes in order not to endanger the safety of the American
Union.
[Footnote v: The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity
of the Indians, inhabit a territory which does not at present
contain more than seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France
there are one hundred and sixty-two inhabitants to the same extent
of country.]
[Footnote w: In 1818 Congress appointed commissioners to visit the
Arkansas Territory, accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws,
and Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly,
M'Coy, Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the
commissioners, and their journal, in the Documents of Congress, No.
87, House of Representatives.]
But the federal government, which is not able to protect the
Indians, would fain mitigate the hardships of their lot; and, with
this intention, proposals have been made to transport them into more
remote regions at the public cost.
Between the thirty-third and thirty-seventh degrees of north
latitude, a vast tract of country lies, which has taken the name of
Arkansas, from the principal river that waters its extent. It is
bounded on the one side by the confines of Mexico, on the other by
the Mississippi. Numberless streams cross it in every direction; the
climate is mild, and the soil productive, but it is only inhabited
by a few wandering hordes of savages. The government of the Union
wishes to transport the broken remnants of the indigenous population
of the South to the portion of this country which is nearest to
Mexico, and at a great distance from the American settlements.
We were assured, towards the end of the year 1831, that 10,000
Indians had already gone down to the shores of the Arkansas; and
fresh detachments were constantly following them; but Congress has
been unable to excite a unanimous determination in those whom it is
disposed to protect. Some, indeed, are willing to quit the seat of
oppression, but the most enlightened members of the community refuse
to abandon their recent dwellings and their springing crops; they
are of opinion that the work of civilization, once interrupted, will
never be resumed; they fear that those domestic habits which have
been so recently contracted, may be irrevocably lost in the midst of
a country which is still barbarous, and where nothing is prepared
for the subsistence of an agricultural people; they know that their
entrance into those wilds will be opposed by inimical hordes, and
that they have lost the energy of barbarians, without acquiring the
resources of civilization to resist their attacks. Moreover, the
Indians readily discover that the settlement which is proposed to
them is merely a temporary expedient. Who can assure them that they
will at length be allowed to dwell in peace in their new retreat?
The United States pledge themselves to the observance of the
obligation; but the territory which they at present occupy was
formerly secured to them by the most solemn oaths of Anglo-American
faith. *x The American government does not indeed rob them of their
lands, but it allows perpetual incursions to be made on them. In a
few years the same white population which now flocks around them,
will track them to the solitudes of the Arkansas; they will then be
exposed to the same evils without the same remedies, and as the
limits of the earth will at last fail them, their only refuge is the
grave.
[Footnote x: The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in
August, 1790, is in the following words: - "The United States
solemnly guarantee to the Creek nation all their land within the
limits of the United States."
The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the
Cherokees says: - "The United States solemnly guarantee to the
Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded." The following
article declared that if any citizen of the United States or other
settler not of the Indian race should establish himself upon the
territory of the Cherokees, the United States would withdraw their
protection from that individual, and give him up to be punished as
the Cherokee nation should think fit.]
The Union treats the Indians with less cupidity and rigor than the
policy of the several States, but the two governments are alike
destitute of good faith. The States extend what they are pleased to
term the benefits of their laws to the Indians, with a belief that
the tribes will recede rather than submit; and the central
government, which promises a permanent refuge to these unhappy
beings is well aware of its inability to secure it to them. *y
[Footnote y: This does not prevent them from promising in the most
solemn manner to do so. See the letter of the President addressed to
the Creek Indians, March 23, 1829 (Proceedings of the Indian Board,
in the city of New York, p. 5): "Beyond the great river Mississippi,
where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a
country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to
it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have
no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your
children, as long as the grass grows, or the water runs, in peace
and plenty. It will be yours forever."
The Secretary of War, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April
18, 1829, (see the same work, p. 6), declares to them that they
cannot expect to retain possession of the lands at that time
occupied by them, but gives them the most positive assurance of
uninterrupted peace if they would remove beyond the Mississippi: as
if the power which could not grant them protection then, would be
able to afford it them hereafter!]
Thus the tyranny of the States obliges the savages to retire, the
Union, by its promises and resources, facilitates their retreat; and
these measures tend to precisely the same end. *z "By the will of
our Father in Heaven, the Governor of the whole world," said the
Cherokees in their petition to Congress, *a "the red man of America
has become small, and the white man great and renowned. When the
ancestors of the people of these United States first came to the
shores of America they found the red man strong: though he was
ignorant and savage, yet he received them kindly, and gave them dry
land to rest their weary feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in
token of friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the
Indian, the latter willingly gave. At that time the Indian was the
lord, and the white man the suppliant. But now the scene has
changed. The strength of the red man has become weakness. As his
neighbors increased in numbers his power became less and less, and
now, of the many and powerful tribes who once covered these United
States, only a few are to be seen - a few whom a sweeping pestilence
has left. The northern tribes, who were once so numerous and
powerful, are now nearly extinct. Thus it has happened to the red
man of America. Shall we, who are remnants, share the same fate?
[Footnote z: To obtain a correct idea of the policy pursued by the
several States and the Union with respect to the Indians, it is
necessary to consult, 1st, "The Laws of the Colonial and State
Governments relating to the Indian Inhabitants." (See the
Legislative Documents, 21st Congress, No. 319.) 2d, The Laws of the
Union on the same subject, and especially that of March 30, 1802.
(See Story's "Laws of the United States.") 3d, The Report of Mr.
Cass, Secretary of War, relative to Indian Affairs, November 29,
1823.]
[Footnote a: December 18, 1829.]
"The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from
our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from
our common Father in Heaven. They bequeathed it to us as their
children, and we have sacredly kept it, as containing the remains of
our beloved men. This right of inheritance we have never ceded nor
ever forfeited. Permit us to ask what better right can the people
have to a country than the right of inheritance and immemorial
peaceable possession? We know it is said of late by the State of
Georgia and by the Executive of the United States, that we have
forfeited this right; but we think this is said gratuitously. At
what time have we made the forfeit? What great crime have we
committed, whereby we must forever be divested of our country and
rights? Was it when we were hostile to the United States, and took
part with the King of Great Britain, during the struggle for
independence? If so, why was not this forfeiture declared in the
first treaty of peace between the United States and our beloved men?
Why was not such an article as the following inserted in the treaty:
- 'The United States give peace to the Cherokees, but, for the part
they took in the late war, declare them to be but tenants at will,
to be removed when the convenience of the States, within whose
chartered limits they live, shall require it'? That was the proper
time to assume such a possession. But it was not thought of, nor
would our forefathers have agreed to any treaty whose tendency was
to deprive them of their rights and their country."
Such is the language of the Indians: their assertions are true,
their forebodings inevitable. From whichever side we consider the
destinies of the aborigines of North America, their calamities
appear to be irremediable: if they continue barbarous, they are
forced to retire; if they attempt to civilize their manners, the
contact of a more civilized community subjects them to oppression
and destitution. They perish if they continue to wander from waste
to waste, and if they attempt to settle they still must perish; the
assistance of Europeans is necessary to instruct them, but the
approach of Europeans corrupts and repels them into savage life;
they refuse to change their habits as long as their solitudes are
their own, and it is too late to change them when they are
constrained to submit.
The Spaniards pursued the Indians with bloodhounds, like wild
beasts; they sacked the New World with no more temper or compassion
than a city taken by storm; but destruction must cease, and frenzy
be stayed; the remnant of the Indian population which had escaped
the massacre mixed with its conquerors, and adopted in the end their
religion and their manners. *b The conduct of the Americans of the
United States towards the aborigines is characterized, on the other
hand, by a singular attachment to the formalities of law. Provided
that the Indians retain their barbarous condition, the Americans
take no part in their affairs; they treat them as independent
nations, and do not possess themselves of their hunting grounds
without a treaty of purchase; and if an Indian nation happens to be
so encroached upon as to be unable to subsist upon its territory,
they afford it brotherly assistance in transporting it to a grave
sufficiently remote from the land of its fathers.
[Footnote b: The honor of this result is, however, by no means due
to the Spaniards. If the Indian tribes had not been tillers of the
ground at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they would
unquestionably have been destroyed in South as well as in North
America.]
The Spaniards were unable to exterminate the Indian race by those
unparalleled atrocities which brand them with indelible shame, nor
did they even succeed in wholly depriving it of its rights; but the
Americans of the United States have accomplished this twofold
purpose with singular felicity; tranquilly, legally,
philanthropically, without shedding blood, and without violating a
single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. *c It
is impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of
humanity.
[Footnote c: See, amongst other documents, the report made by Mr.
Bell in the name of the Committee on Indian Affairs, February 24,
1830, in which is most logically established and most learnedly
proved, that "the fundamental principle that the Indians had no
right by virtue of their ancient possession either of will or
sovereignty, has never been abandoned either expressly or by
implication." In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up
by an Experienced hand, one is astonished at the facility with which
the author gets rid of all arguments founded upon reason and natural
right, which he designates as abstract and theoretical principles.
The more I contemplate the difference between civilized and
uncivilized man with regard to the principles of justice, the more I
observe that the former contests the justice of those rights which
the latter simply violates.]
[I leave this chapter wholly unchanged, for it has always appeared
to me to be one of the most eloquent and touching parts of this
book. But it has ceased to be prophetic; the destruction of the
Indian race in the United States is already consummated. In 1870
there remained but 25,731 Indians in the whole territory of the
Union, and of these by far the largest part exist in California,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Dakota, and New Mexico and Nevada. In New
England, Pennsylvania, and New York the race is extinct; and the
predictions of M. de Tocqueville are fulfilled. - Translator's
Note.]
Situation Of The Black Population In The United States, And Dangers
With Which Its Presence Threatens The Whites
Why it is more difficult to abolish slavery, and to efface all
vestiges of it amongst the moderns than it was amongst the ancients
- In the United States the prejudices of the Whites against the
Blacks seem to increase in proportion as slavery is abolished -
Situation of the Negroes in the Northern and Southern States - Why
the Americans abolish slavery - Servitude, which debases the slave,
impoverishes the master - Contrast between the left and the right
bank of the Ohio - To what attributable - The Black race, as well as
slavery, recedes towards the South - Explanation of this fact -
Difficulties attendant upon the abolition of slavery in the South -
Dangers to come - General anxiety - Foundation of a Black colony in
Africa - Why the Americans of the South increase the hardships of
slavery, whilst they are distressed at its continuance.
The Indians will perish in the same isolated condition in which they
have lived; but the destiny of the negroes is in some measure
interwoven with that of the Europeans. These two races are attached
to each other without intermingling, and they are alike unable
entirely to separate or to combine. The most formidable of all the
ills which threaten the future existence of the Union arises from
the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in
contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments or of the
future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led
to consider this as a primary fact.
The permanent evils to which mankind is subjected are usually
produced by the vehement or the increasing efforts of men; but there
is one calamity which penetrated furtively into the world, and which
was at first scarcely distinguishable amidst the ordinary abuses of
power; it originated with an individual whose name history has not
preserved; it was wafted like some accursed germ upon a portion of
the soil, but it afterwards nurtured itself, grew without effort,
and spreads naturally with the society to which it belongs. I need
scarcely add that this calamity is slavery. Christianity suppressed
slavery, but the Christians of the sixteenth century re-established
it - as an exception, indeed, to their social system, and restricted
to one of the races of mankind; but the wound thus inflicted upon
humanity, though less extensive, was at the same time rendered far
more difficult of cure.
It is important to make an accurate distinction between slavery
itself and its consequences. The immediate evils which are produced
by slavery were very nearly the same in antiquity as they are
amongst the moderns; but the consequences of these evils were
different. The slave, amongst the ancients, belonged to the same
race as his master, and he was often the superior of the two in
education *d and instruction. Freedom was the only distinction
between them; and when freedom was conferred they were easily
confounded together. The ancients, then, had a very simple means of
avoiding slavery and its evil consequences, which was that of
affranchisement; and they succeeded as soon as they adopted this
measure generally. Not but, in ancient States, the vestiges of
servitude subsisted for some time after servitude itself was
abolished. There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise
whomsoever has been their inferior long after he is become their
equal; and the real inequality which is produced by fortune or by
law is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality which is
implanted in the manners of the people. Nevertheless, this secondary
consequence of slavery was limited to a certain term amongst the
ancients, for the freedman bore so entire a resemblance to those
born free, that it soon became impossible to distinguish him from
amongst them.
[Footnote d: It is well known that several of the most distinguished
authors of antiquity, and amongst them Aesop and Terence, were, or
had been slaves. Slaves were not always taken from barbarous
nations, and the chances of war reduced highly civilized men to
servitude.]
The greatest difficulty in antiquity was that of altering the law;
amongst the moderns it is that of altering the manners; and, as far
as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where those of the
ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that, amongst
the moderns, the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally
united to the physical and permanent fact of color. The tradition of
slavery dishonors the race, and the peculiarity of the race
perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has ever
voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World; whence it must
be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found in that
hemisphere are either slaves or freedmen. Thus the negro transmits
the eternal mark of his ignominy to all his descendants; and
although the law may abolish slavery, God alone can obliterate the
traces of its existence.
The modern slave differs from his master not only in his condition,
but in his origin. You may set the negro free, but you cannot make
him otherwise than an alien to the European. Nor is this all; we
scarcely acknowledge the common features of mankind in this child of
debasement whom slavery has brought amongst us. His physiognomy is
to our eyes hideous, his understanding weak, his tastes low; and we
are almost inclined to look upon him as a being intermediate between
man and the brutes. *e The moderns, then, after they have abolished
slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less
easy to attack and far less easy to conquer than the mere fact of
servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the race,
and the prejudice of color.
[Footnote e: To induce the whites to abandon the opinion they have
conceived of the moral and intellectual inferiority of their former
slaves, the negroes must change; but as long as this opinion
subsists, to change is impossible.]
It is difficult for us, who have had the good fortune to be born
amongst men like ourselves by nature, and equal to ourselves by law,
to conceive the irreconcilable differences which separate the negro
from the European in America. But we may derive some faint notion of
them from analogy. France was formerly a country in which numerous
distinctions of rank existed, that had been created by the
legislation. Nothing can be more fictitious than a purely legal
inferiority; nothing more contrary to the instinct of mankind than
these permanent divisions which had been established between beings
evidently similar. Nevertheless these divisions subsisted for ages;
they still subsist in many places; and on all sides they have left
imaginary vestiges, which time alone can efface. If it be so
difficult to root out an inequality which solely originates in the
law, how are those distinctions to be destroyed which seem to be
based upon the immutable laws of Nature herself? When I remember the
extreme difficulty with which aristocratic bodies, of whatever
nature they may be, are commingled with the mass of the people; and
the exceeding care which they take to preserve the ideal boundaries
of their caste inviolate, I despair of seeing an aristocracy
disappear which is founded upon visible and indelible signs. Those
who hope that the Europeans will ever mix with the negroes, appear
to me to delude themselves; and I am not led to any such conclusion
by my own reason, or by the evidence of facts.
Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the most powerful, they have
maintained the blacks in a subordinate or a servile position;
wherever the negroes have been strongest they have destroyed the
whites; such has been the only retribution which has ever taken
place between the two races.
I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United
States at the present day, the legal barrier which separated the two
races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in the
manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which
it has given birth remains stationary. Whosoever has inhabited the
United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union
in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise
drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the
race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished
slavery, than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so
intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.
It is true, that in the North of the Union, marriages may be legally
contracted between negroes and whites; but public opinion would
stigmatize a man who should connect himself with a negress as
infamous, and it would be difficult to meet with a single instance
of such a union. The electoral franchise has been conferred upon the
negroes in almost all the States in which slavery has been
abolished; but if they come forward to vote, their lives are in
danger. If oppressed, they may bring an action at law, but they will
find none but whites amongst their judges; and although they may
legally serve as jurors, prejudice repulses them from that office.
The same schools do not receive the child of the black and of the
European. In the theatres, gold cannot procure a seat for the
servile race beside their former masters; in the hospitals they lie
apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same Divinity as
the whites, it must be at a different altar, and in their own
churches, with their own clergy. The gates of Heaven are not closed
against these unhappy beings; but their inferiority is continued to
the very confines of the other world; when the negro is defunct, his
bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condition prevails even
in the equality of death. The negro is free, but he can share
neither the rights, nor the pleasures, nor the labor, nor the
afflictions, nor the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared to
be; and he cannot meet him upon fair terms in life or in death.
In the South, where slavery still exists, the negroes are less
carefully kept apart; they sometimes share the labor and the
recreations of the whites; the whites consent to intermix with them
to a certain extent, and although the legislation treats them more
harshly, the habits of the people are more tolerant and
compassionate. In the South the master is not afraid to raise his
slave to his own standing, because he knows that he can in a moment
reduce him to the dust at pleasure. In the North the white no longer
distinctly perceives the barrier which separates him from the
degraded race, and he shuns the negro with the more pertinacity,
since he fears lest they should some day be confounded together.
Amongst the Americans of the South, nature sometimes reasserts her
rights, and restores a transient equality between the blacks and the
whites; but in the North pride restrains the most imperious of human
passions. The American of the Northern States would perhaps allow
the negress to share his licentious pleasures, if the laws of his
country did not declare that she may aspire to be the legitimate
partner of his bed; but he recoils with horror from her who might
become his wife.
Thus it is, in the United States, that the prejudice which repels
the negroes seems to increase in proportion as they are emancipated,
and inequality is sanctioned by the manners whilst it is effaced
from the laws of the country. But if the relative position of the
two races which inhabit the United States is such as I have
described, it may be asked why the Americans have abolished slavery
in the North of the Union, why they maintain it in the South, and
why they aggravate its hardships there? The answer is easily given.
It is not for the good of the negroes, but for that of the whites,
that measures are taken to abolish slavery in the United States.
The first negroes were imported into Virginia about the year 1621.
*f In America, therefore, as well as in the rest of the globe,
slavery originated in the South. Thence it spread from one
settlement to another; but the number of slaves diminished towards
the Northern States, and the negro population was always very
limited in New England. *g
[Footnote f: See Beverley's "History of Virginia." See also in
Jefferson's "Memoirs" some curious details concerning the
introduction of negroes into Virginia, and the first Act which
prohibited the importation of them in 1778.]
[Footnote g: The number of slaves was less considerable in the
North, but the advantages resulting from slavery were not more
contested there than in the South. In 1740, the Legislature of the
State of New York declared that the direct importation of slaves
ought to be encouraged as much as possible, and smuggling severely
punished in order not to discourage the fair trader. (Kent's
"Commentaries," vol. ii. p. 206.) Curious researches, by Belknap,
upon slavery in New England, are to be found in the "Historical
Collection of Massachusetts," vol. iv. p. 193. It appears that
negroes were introduced there in 1630, but that the legislation and
manners of the people were opposed to slavery from the first; see
also, in the same work, the manner in which public opinion, and
afterwards the laws, finally put an end to slavery.]
A century had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the colonies,
when the attention of the planters was struck by the extraordinary
fact, that the provinces which were comparatively destitute of
slaves, increased in population, in wealth, and in prosperity more
rapidly than those which contained the greatest number of negroes.
In the former, however, the inhabitants were obliged to cultivate
the soil themselves, or by hired laborers; in the latter they were
furnished with hands for which they paid no wages; yet although
labor and expenses were on the one side, and ease with economy on
the other, the former were in possession of the most advantageous
system. This consequence seemed to be the more difficult to explain,
since the settlers, who all belonged to the same European race, had
the same habits, the same civilization, the same laws, and their
shades of difference were extremely slight.
Time, however, continued to advance, and the Anglo-Americans,
spreading beyond the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, penetrated
farther and farther into the solitudes of the West; they met with a
new soil and an unwonted climate; the obstacles which opposed them
were of the most various character; their races intermingled, the
inhabitants of the South went up towards the North, those of the
North descended to the South; but in the midst of all these causes,
the same result occurred at every step, and in general, the colonies
in which there were no slaves became more populous and more rich
than those in which slavery flourished. The more progress was made,
the more was it shown that slavery, which is so cruel to the slave,
is prejudicial to the master.
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part IV
But this truth was most satisfactorily demonstrated when
civilization reached the banks of the Ohio. The stream which the
Indians had distinguished by the name of Ohio, or Beautiful River,
waters one of the most magnificent valleys that has ever been made
the abode of man. Undulating lands extend upon both shores of the
Ohio, whose soil affords inexhaustible treasures to the laborer; on
either bank the air is wholesome and the climate mild, and each of
them forms the extreme frontier of a vast State: That which follows
the numerous windings of the Ohio upon the left is called Kentucky,
that upon the right bears the name of the river. These two States
only differ in a single respect; Kentucky has admitted slavery, but
the State of Ohio has prohibited the existence of slaves within its
borders. *h
[Footnote h: Not only is slavery prohibited in Ohio, but no free
negroes are allowed to enter the territory of that State, or to hold
property in it. See the Statutes of Ohio.]
Thus the traveller who floats down the current of the Ohio to the
spot where that river falls into the Mississippi, may be said to
sail between liberty and servitude; and a transient inspection of
the surrounding objects will convince him as to which of the two is
most favorable to mankind. Upon the left bank of the stream the
population is rare; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves
loitering in the half-desert fields; the primaeval forest recurs at
every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature
alone offers a scene of activity and of life. From the right bank,
on the contrary, a confused hum is heard which proclaims the
presence of industry; the fields are covered with abundant harvests,
the elegance of the dwellings announces the taste and activity of
the laborer, and man appears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth
and contentment which is the reward of labor. *i
[Footnote i: The activity of Ohio is not confined to individuals,
but the undertakings of the State are surprisingly great; a canal
has been established between Lake Erie and the Ohio, by means of
which the valley of the Mississippi communicates with the river of
the North, and the European commodities which arrive at New York may
be forwarded by water to New Orleans across five hundred leagues of
continent.]
The State of Kentucky was founded in 1775, the State of Ohio only
twelve years later; but twelve years are more in America than half a
century in Europe, and, at the present day, the population of Ohio
exceeds that of Kentucky by two hundred and fifty thousand souls. *j
These opposite consequences of slavery and freedom may readily be
understood, and they suffice to explain many of the differences
which we remark between the civilization of antiquity and that of
our own time.
[Footnote j: The exact numbers given by the census of 1830 were:
Kentucky, 688,-844; Ohio, 937,679. [In 1890 the population of Ohio
was 3,672,316, that of Kentucky, 1,858,635.]]
Upon the left bank of the Ohio labor is confounded with the idea of
slavery, upon the right bank it is identified with that of
prosperity and improvement; on the one side it is degraded, on the
other it is honored; on the former territory no white laborers can
be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating themselves to the
negroes; on the latter no one is idle, for the white population
extends its activity and its intelligence to every kind of
employment. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate the rich soil
of Kentucky are ignorant and lukewarm; whilst those who are active
and enlightened either do nothing or pass over into the State of
Ohio, where they may work without dishonor.
It is true that in Kentucky the planters are not obliged to pay
wages to the slaves whom they employ; but they derive small profits
from their labor, whilst the wages paid to free workmen would be
returned with interest in the value of their services. The free
workman is paid, but he does his work quicker than the slave, and
rapidity of execution is one of the great elements of economy. The
white sells his services, but they are only purchased at the times
at which they may be useful; the black can claim no remuneration for
his toil, but the expense of his maintenance is perpetual; he must
be supported in his old age as well as in the prime of manhood, in
his profitless infancy as well as in the productive years of youth.
Payment must equally be made in order to obtain the services of
either class of men: the free workman receives his wages in money,
the slave in education, in food, in care, and in clothing. The money
which a master spends in the maintenance of his slaves goes
gradually and in detail, so that it is scarcely perceived; the
salary of the free workman is paid in a round sum, which appears
only to enrich the individual who receives it, but in the end the
slave has cost more than the free servant, and his labor is less
productive. *k
[Footnote k: Independently of these causes, which, wherever free
workmen abound, render their labor more productive and more
economical than that of slaves, another cause may be pointed out
which is peculiar to the United States: the sugar-cane has hitherto
been cultivated with success only upon the banks of the Mississippi,
near the mouth of that river in the Gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana the
cultivation of the sugar-cane is exceedingly lucrative, and nowhere
does a laborer earn so much by his work, and, as there is always a
certain relation between the cost of production and the value of the
produce, the price of slaves is very high in Louisiana. But
Louisiana is one of the confederated States, and slaves may be
carried thither from all parts of the Union; the price given for
slaves in New Orleans consequently raises the value of slaves in all
the other markets. Theconsequence of this is, that in the countries
where the land is less productive, the cost of slave labor is still
very considerable, which gives an additional advantage to the
competition of free labor.]
The influence of slavery extends still further; it affects the
character of the master, and imparts a peculiar tendency to his
ideas and his tastes. Upon both banks of the Ohio, the character of
the inhabitants is enterprising and energetic; but this vigor is
very differently exercised in the two States. The white inhabitant
of Ohio, who is obliged to subsist by his own exertions, regards
temporal prosperity as the principal aim of his existence; and as
the country which he occupies presents inexhaustible resources to
his industry and ever-varying lures to his activity, his acquisitive
ardor surpasses the ordinary limits of human cupidity: he is
tormented by the desire of wealth, and he boldly enters upon every
path which fortune opens to him; he becomes a sailor, a pioneer, an
artisan, or a laborer with the same indifference, and he supports,
with equal constancy, the fatigues and the dangers incidental to
these various professions; the resources of his intelligence are
astonishing, and his avidity in the pursuit of gain amounts to a
species of heroism.
But the Kentuckian scorns not only labor, but all the undertakings
which labor promotes; as he lives in an idle independence, his
tastes are those of an idle man; money loses a portion of its value
in his eyes; he covets wealth much less than pleasure and
excitement; and the energy which his neighbor devotes to gain, turns
with him to a passionate love of field sports and military
exercises; he delights in violent bodily exertion, he is familiar
with the use of arms, and is accustomed from a very early age to
expose his life in single combat. Thus slavery not only prevents the
whites from becoming opulent, but even from desiring to become so.
As the same causes have been continually producing opposite effects
for the last two centuries in the British colonies of North America,
they have established a very striking difference between the
commercial capacity of the inhabitants of the South and those of the
North. At the present day it is only the Northern States which are
in possession of shipping, manufactures, railroads, and canals. This
difference is perceptible not only in comparing the North with the
South, but in comparing the several Southern States. Almost all the
individuals who carry on commercial operations, or who endeavor to
turn slave labor to account in the most Southern districts of the
Union, have emigrated from the North. The natives of the Northern
States are constantly spreading over that portion of the American
territory where they have less to fear from competition; they
discover resources there which escaped the notice of the
inhabitants; and, as they comply with a system which they do not
approve, they succeed in turning it to better advantage than those
who first founded and who still maintain it.
Were I inclined to continue this parallel, I could easily prove that
almost all the differences which may be remarked between the
characters of the Americans in the Southern and in the Northern
States have originated in slavery; but this would divert me from my
subject, and my present intention is not to point out all the
consequences of servitude, but those effects which it has produced
upon the prosperity of the countries which have admitted it.
The influence of slavery upon the production of wealth must have
been very imperfectly known in antiquity, as slavery then obtained
throughout the civilized world; and the nations which were
unacquainted with it were barbarous. And indeed Christianity only
abolished slavery by advocating the claims of the slave; at the
present time it may be attacked in the name of the master, and, upon
this point, interest is reconciled with morality.
As these truths became apparent in the United States, slavery
receded before the progress of Experience. Servitude had begun in
the South, and had thence spread towards the North; but it now
retires again. Freedom, which started from the North, now descends
uninterruptedly towards the South. Amongst the great States,
Pennsylvania now constitutes the extreme limit of slavery to the
North: but even within those limits the slave system is shaken:
Maryland, which is immediately below Pennsylvania, is preparing for
its abolition; and Virginia, which comes next to Maryland, is
already discussing its utility and its dangers. *l
[Footnote l: A peculiar reason contributes to detach the two last-
mentioned States from the cause of slavery. The former wealth of
this part of the Union was principally derived from the cultivation
of tobacco. This cultivation is specially carried on by slaves; but
within the last few years the market-price of tobacco has
diminished, whilst the value of the slaves remains the same. Thus
the ratio between the cost of production and the value of the
produce is changed. The natives of Maryland and Virginia are
therefore more disposed than they were thirty years ago, to give up
slave labor in the cultivation of tobacco, or to give up slavery and
tobacco at the same time.]
No great change takes place in human institutions without involving
amongst its causes the law of inheritance. When the law of
primogeniture obtained in the South, each family was represented by
a wealthy individual, who was neither compelled nor induced to
labor; and he was surrounded, as by parasitic plants, by the other
members of his family who were then excluded by law from sharing the
common inheritance, and who led the same kind of life as himself.
The very same thing then occurred in all the families of the South
as still happens in the wealthy families of some countries in
Europe, namely, that the younger sons remain in the same state of
idleness as their elder brother, without being as rich as he is.
This identical result seems to be produced in Europe and in America
by wholly analogous causes. In the South of the United States the
whole race of whites formed an aristocratic body, which was headed
by a certain number of privileged individuals, whose wealth was
permanent, and whose leisure was hereditary. These leaders of the
American nobility kept alive the traditional prejudices of the white
race in the body of which they were the representatives, and
maintained the honor of inactive life. This aristocracy contained
many who were poor, but none who would work; its members preferred
want to labor, consequently no competition was set on foot against
negro laborers and slaves, and, whatever opinion might be
entertained as to the utility of their efforts, it was indispensable
to employ them, since there was no one else to work.
No sooner was the law of primogeniture abolished than fortunes began
to diminish, and all the families of the country were simultaneously
reduced to a state in which labor became necessary to procure the
means of subsistence: several of them have since entirely
disappeared, and all of them learned to look forward to the time at
which it would be necessary for everyone to provide for his own
wants. Wealthy individuals are still to be met with, but they no
longer constitute a compact and hereditary body, nor have they been
able to adopt a line of conduct in which they could persevere, and
which they could infuse into all ranks of society. The prejudice
which stigmatized labor was in the first place abandoned by common
consent; the number of needy men was increased, and the needy were
allowed to gain a laborious subsistence without blushing for their
exertions. Thus one of the most immediate consequences of the
partible quality of estates has been to create a class of free
laborers. As soon as a competition was set on foot between the free
laborer and the slave, the inferiority of the latter became
manifest, and slavery was attacked in its fundamental principle,
which is the interest of the master.
As slavery recedes, the black population follows its retrograde
course, and returns with it towards those tropical regions from
which it originally came. However singular this fact may at first
appear to be, it may readily be explained. Although the Americans
abolish the principle of slavery, they do not set their slaves free.
To illustrate this remark, I will quote the example of the State of
New York. In 1788, the State of New York prohibited the sale of
slaves within its limits, which was an indirect method of
prohibiting the importation of blacks. Thenceforward the number of
negroes could only increase according to the ratio of the natural
increase of population. But eight years later a more decisive
measure was taken, and it was enacted that all children born of
slave parents after July 4, 1799, should be free. No increase could
then take place, and although slaves still existed, slavery might be
said to be abolished.
From the time at which a Northern State prohibited the importation
of slaves, no slaves were brought from the South to be sold in its
markets. On the other hand, as the sale of slaves was forbidden in
that State, an owner was no longer able to get rid of his slave (who
thus became a burdensome possession) otherwise than by transporting
him to the South. But when a Northern State declared that the son of
the slave should be born free, the slave lost a large portion of his
market value, since his posterity was no longer included in the
bargain, and the owner had then a strong interest in transporting
him to the South. Thus the same law prevents the slaves of the South
from coming to the Northern States, and drives those of the North to
the South.
The want of free hands is felt in a State in proportion as the
number of slaves decreases. But in proportion as labor is performed
by free hands, slave labor becomes less productive; and the slave is
then a useless or onerous possession, whom it is important to export
to those Southern States where the same competition is not to be
feared. Thus the abolition of slavery does not set the slave free,
but it merely transfers him from one master to another, and from the
North to the South.
The emancipated negroes, and those born after the abolition of
slavery, do not, indeed, migrate from the North to the South; but
their situation with regard to the Europeans is not unlike that of
the aborigines of America; they remain half civilized, and deprived
of their rights in the midst of a population which is far superior
to them in wealth and in knowledge; where they are exposed to the
tyranny of the laws *m and the intolerance of the people. On some
accounts they are still more to be pitied than the Indians, since
they are haunted by the reminiscence of slavery, and they cannot
claim possession of a single portion of the soil: many of them
perish miserably, *n and the rest congregate in the great towns,
where they perform the meanest offices, and lead a wretched and
precarious existence.
[Footnote m: The States in which slavery is abolished usually do
what they can to render their territory disagreeable to the negroes
as a place of residence; and as a kind of emulation exists between
the different States in this respect, the unhappy blacks can only
choose the least of the evils which beset them.]
[Footnote n: There is a very great difference between the mortality
of the blacks and of the whites in the States in which slavery is
abolished; from 1820 to 1831 only one out of forty-two individuals
of the white population died in Philadelphia; but one negro out of
twenty-one individuals of the black population died in the same
space of time. The mortality is by no means so great amongst the
negroes who are still slaves. (See Emmerson's "Medical Statistics,"
p. 28.)]
But even if the number of negroes continued to increase as rapidly
as when they were still in a state of slavery, as the number of
whites augments with twofold rapidity since the abolition of
slavery, the blacks would soon be, as it were, lost in the midst of
a strange population.
A district which is cultivated by slaves is in general more scantily
peopled than a district cultivated by free labor: moreover, America
is still a new country, and a State is therefore not half peopled at
the time when it abolishes slavery. No sooner is an end put to
slavery than the want of free labor is felt, and a crowd of
enterprising adventurers immediately arrive from all parts of the
country, who hasten to profit by the fresh resources which are then
opened to industry. The soil is soon divided amongst them, and a
family of white settlers takes possession of each tract of country.
Besides which, European emigration is exclusively directed to the
free States; for what would be the fate of a poor emigrant who
crosses the Atlantic in search of ease and happiness if he were to
land in a country where labor is stigmatized as degrading?
Thus the white population grows by its natural increase, and at the
same time by the immense influx of emigrants; whilst the black
population receives no emigrants, and is upon its decline. The
proportion which existed between the two races is soon inverted. The
negroes constitute a scanty remnant, a poor tribe of vagrants, which
is lost in the midst of an immense people in full possession of the
land; and the presence of the blacks is only marked by the injustice
and the hardships of which they are the unhappy victims.
In several of the Western States the negro race never made its
appearance, and in all the Northern States it is rapidly declining.
Thus the great question of its future condition is confined within a
narrow circle, where it becomes less formidable, though not more
easy of solution.
The more we descend towards the South, the more difficult does it
become to abolish slavery with advantage: and this arises from
several physical causes which it is important to point out.
The first of these causes is the climate; it is well known that in
proportion as Europeans approach the tropics they suffer more from
labor. Many of the Americans even assert that within a certain
latitude the exertions which a negro can make without danger are
fatal to them; *o but I do not think that this opinion, which is so
favorable to the indolence of the inhabitants of southern regions,
is confirmed by Experience. The southern parts of the Union are not
hotter than the South of Italy and of Spain; *p and it may be asked
why the European cannot work as well there as in the two latter
countries. If slavery has been abolished in Italy and in Spain
without causing the destruction of the masters, why should not the
same thing take place in the Union? I cannot believe that nature has
prohibited the Europeans in Georgia and the Floridas, under pain of
death, from raising the means of subsistence from the soil, but
their labor would unquestionably be more irksome and less productive
to them than to the inhabitants of New England. As the free workman
thus loses a portion of his superiority over the slave in the
Southern States, there are fewer inducements to abolish slavery.
[Footnote o: This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated;
rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are
particularly dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the
beams of a tropical sun. Europeans would not find it easy to
cultivate the soil in that part of the New World if it must be
necessarily be made to produce rice; but may they not subsist
without rice-grounds?]
[Footnote p: These States are nearer to the equator than Italy and
Spain, but the temperature of the continent of America is very much
lower than that of Europe.
The Spanish Government formerly caused a certain number of peasants
from the Acores to be transported into a district of Louisiana
called Attakapas, by way of experiment. These settlers still
cultivate the soil without the assistance of slaves, but their
industry is so languid as scarcely to supply their most necessary
wants.]
All the plants of Europe grow in the northern parts of the Union;
the South has special productions of its own. It has been observed
that slave labor is a very expensive method of cultivating corn. The
farmer of corn land in a country where slavery is unknown habitually
retains a small number of laborers in his service, and at seed-time
and harvest he hires several additional hands, who only live at his
cost for a short period. But the agriculturist in a slave State is
obliged to keep a large number of slaves the whole year round, in
order to sow his fields and to gather in his crops, although their
services are only required for a few weeks; but slaves are unable to
wait till they are hired, and to subsist by their own labor in the
mean time like free laborers; in order to have their services they
must be bought. Slavery, independently of its general disadvantages,
is therefore still more inapplicable to countries in which corn is
cultivated than to those which produce crops of a different kind.
The cultivation of tobacco, of cotton, and especially of the
sugar-cane, demands, on the other hand, unremitting attention: and
women and children are employed in it, whose services are of but
little use in the cultivation of wheat. Thus slavery is naturally
more fitted to the countries from which these productions are
derived. Tobacco, cotton, and the sugar-cane are exclusively grown
in the South, and they form one of the principal sources of the
wealth of those States. If slavery were abolished, the inhabitants
of the South would be constrained to adopt one of two alternatives:
they must either change their system of cultivation, and then they
would come into competition with the more active and more
Experienced inhabitants of the North; or, if they continued to
cultivate the same produce without slave labor, they would have to
support the competition of the other States of the South, which
might still retain their slaves. Thus, peculiar reasons for
maintaining slavery exist in the South which do not operate in the
North.
But there is yet another motive which is more cogent than all the
others: the South might indeed, rigorously speaking, abolish
slavery; but how should it rid its territory of the black
population? Slaves and slavery are driven from the North by the same
law, but this twofold result cannot be hoped for in the South.
The arguments which I have adduced to show that slavery is more
natural and more advantageous in the South than in the North,
sufficiently prove that the number of slaves must be far greater in
the former districts. It was to the southern settlements that the
first Africans were brought, and it is there that the greatest
number of them have always been imported. As we advance towards the
South, the prejudice which sanctions idleness increases in power. In
the States nearest to the tropics there is not a single white
laborer; the negroes are consequently much more numerous in the
South than in the North. And, as I have already observed, this
disproportion increases daily, since the negroes are transferred to
one part of the Union as soon as slavery is abolished in the other.
Thus the black population augments in the South, not only by its
natural fecundity, but by the compulsory emigration of the negroes
from the North; and the African race has causes of increase in the
South very analogous to those which so powerfully accelerate the
growth of the European race in the North.
In the State of Maine there is one negro in 300 inhabitants; in
Massachusetts, one in 100; in New York, two in 100; in Pennsylvania,
three in the same number; in Maryland, thirty-four; in Virginia,
forty-two; and lastly, in South Carolina *q fifty-five per cent.
Such was the proportion of the black population to the whites in the
year 1830. But this proportion is perpetually changing, as it
constantly decreases in the North and augments in the South.
[Footnote q: We find it asserted in an American work, entitled
"Letters on the Colonization Society," by Mr. Carey, 1833, "That for
the last forty years the black race has increased more rapidly than
the white race in the State of South Carolina; and that if we take
the average population of the five States of the South into which
slaves were first introduced, viz., Maryland, Virginia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, we shall find that from 1790
to 1830 the whites have augmented in the proportion of 80 to 100,
and the blacks in that of 112 to 100."
In the United States, in 1830, the population of the two races stood
as follows: -
States where slavery is abolished, 6,565,434 whites; 120,520 blacks.
Slave States, 3,960,814 whites; 2,208,102 blacks. [In 1890 the
United States contained a population of 54,983,890 whites, and
7,638,360 negroes.]]
It is evident that the most Southern States of the Union cannot
abolish slavery without incurring very great dangers, which the
North had no reason to apprehend when it emancipated its black
population. We have already shown the system by which the Northern
States secure the transition from slavery to freedom, by keeping the
present generation in chains, and setting their descendants free; by
this means the negroes are gradually introduced into society; and
whilst the men who might abuse their freedom are kept in a state of
servitude, those who are emancipated may learn the art of being free
before they become their own masters. But it would be difficult to
apply this method in the South. To declare that all the negroes born
after a certain period shall be free, is to introduce the principle
and the notion of liberty into the heart of slavery; the blacks whom
the law thus maintains in a state of slavery from which their
children are delivered, are astonished at so unequal a fate, and
their astonishment is only the prelude to their impatience and
irritation. Thenceforward slavery loses, in their eyes, that kind of
moral power which it derived from time and habit; it is reduced to a
mere palpable abuse of force. The Northern States had nothing to
fear from the contrast, because in them the blacks were few in
number, and the white population was very considerable. But if this
faint dawn of freedom were to show two millions of men their true
position, the oppressors would have reason to tremble. After having
affranchised the children of their slaves the Europeans of the
Southern States would very shortly be obliged to extend the same
benefit to the whole black population.
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part V
In the North, as I have already remarked, a twofold migration ensues
upon the abolition of slavery, or even precedes that event when
circumstances have rendered it probable; the slaves quit the country
to be transported southwards; and the whites of the Northern States,
as well as the emigrants from Europe, hasten to fill up their place.
But these two causes cannot operate in the same manner in the
Southern States. On the one hand, the mass of slaves is too great
for any expectation of their ever being removed from the country to
be entertained; and on the other hand, the Europeans and
Anglo-Americans of the North are afraid to come to inhabit a country
in which labor has not yet been reinstated in its rightful honors.
Besides, they very justly look upon the States in which the
proportion of the negroes equals or exceeds that of the whites, as
exposed to very great dangers; and they refrain from turning their
activity in that direction.
Thus the inhabitants of the South would not be able, like their
Northern countrymen, to initiate the slaves gradually into a state
of freedom by abolishing slavery; they have no means of perceptibly
diminishing the black population, and they would remain unsupported
to repress its excesses. So that in the course of a few years, a
great people of free negroes would exist in the heart of a white
nation of equal size.
The same abuses of power which still maintain slavery, would then
become the source of the most alarming perils which the white
population of the South might have to apprehend. At the present time
the descendants of the Europeans are the sole owners of the land;
the absolute masters of all labor; and the only persons who are
possessed of wealth, knowledge, and arms. The black is destitute of
all these advantages, but he subsists without them because he is a
slave. If he were free, and obliged to provide for his own
subsistence, would it be possible for him to remain without these
things and to support life? Or would not the very instruments of the
present superiority of the white, whilst slavery exists, expose him
to a thousand dangers if it were abolished?
As long as the negro remains a slave, he may be kept in a condition
not very far removed from that of the brutes; but, with his liberty,
he cannot but acquire a degree of instruction which will enable him
to appreciate his misfortunes, and to discern a remedy for them.
Moreover, there exists a singular principle of relative justice
which is very firmly implanted in the human heart. Men are much more
forcibly struck by those inequalities which exist within the circle
of the same class, than with those which may be remarked between
different classes. It is more easy for them to admit slavery, than
to allow several millions of citizens to exist under a load of
eternal infamy and hereditary wretchedness. In the North the
population of freed negroes feels these hardships and resents these
indignities; but its numbers and its powers are small, whilst in the
South it would be numerous and strong.
As soon as it is admitted that the whites and the emancipated blacks
are placed upon the same territory in the situation of two alien
communities, it will readily be understood that there are but two
alternatives for the future; the negroes and the whites must either
wholly part or wholly mingle. I have already expressed the
conviction which I entertain as to the latter event. *r I do not
imagine that the white and black races will ever live in any country
upon an equal footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still
greater in the United States than elsewhere. An isolated individual
may surmount the prejudices of religion, of his country, or of his
race, and if this individual is a king he may effect surprising
changes in society; but a whole people cannot rise, as it were,
above itself. A despot who should subject the Americans and their
former slaves to the same yoke, might perhaps succeed in commingling
their races; but as long as the American democracy remains at the
head of affairs, no one will undertake so difficult a task; and it
may be foreseen that the freer the white population of the United
States becomes, the more isolated will it remain. *s
[Footnote r: This opinion is sanctioned by authorities infinitely
weightier than anything that I can say: thus, for instance, it is
stated in the "Memoirs of Jefferson" (as collected by M. Conseil),
"Nothing is more clearly written in the book of destiny than the
emancipation of the blacks; and it is equally certain that the two
races will never live in a state of equal freedom under the same
government, so insurmountable are the barriers which nature, habit,
and opinions have established between them."]
[Footnote s: If the British West India planters had governed
themselves, they would assuredly not have passed the Slave
Emancipation Bill which the mother-country has recently imposed upon
them.]
I have previously observed that the mixed race is the true bond of
union between the Europeans and the Indians; just so the mulattoes
are the true means of transition between the white and the negro; so
that wherever mulattoes abound, the intermixture of the two races is
not impossible. In some parts of America, the European and the negro
races are so crossed by one another, that it is rare to meet with a
man who is entirely black, or entirely white: when they are arrived
at this point, the two races may really be said to be combined; or
rather to have been absorbed in a third race, which is connected
with both without being identical with either.
Of all the Europeans the English are those who have mixed least with
the negroes. More mulattoes are to be seen in the South of the Union
than in the North, but still they are infinitely more scarce than in
any other European colony: mulattoes are by no means numerous in the
United States; they have no force peculiar to themselves, and when
quarrels originating in differences of color take place, they
generally side with the whites; just as the lackeys of the great, in
Europe, assume the contemptuous airs of nobility to the lower
orders.
The pride of origin, which is natural to the English, is singularly
augmented by the personal pride which democratic liberty fosters
amongst the Americans: the white citizen of the United States is
proud of his race, and proud of himself. But if the whites and the
negroes do not intermingle in the North of the Union, how should
they mix in the South? Can it be supposed for an instant, that an
American of the Southern States, placed, as he must forever be,
between the white man with all his physical and moral superiority
and the negro, will ever think of preferring the latter? The
Americans of the Southern States have two powerful passions which
will always keep them aloof; the first is the fear of being
assimilated to the negroes, their former slaves; and the second the
dread of sinking below the whites, their neighbors.
If I were called upon to predict what will probably occur at some
future time, I should say, that the abolition of slavery in the
South will, in the common course of things, increase the repugnance
of the white population for the men of color. I found this opinion
upon the analogous observation which I already had occasion to make
in the North. I there remarked that the white inhabitants of the
North avoid the negroes with increasing care, in proportion as the
legal barriers of separation are removed by the legislature; and why
should not the same result take place in the South? In the North,
the whites are deterred from intermingling with the blacks by the
fear of an imaginary danger; in the South, where the danger would be
real, I cannot imagine that the fear would be less general.
If, on the one hand, it be admitted (and the fact is unquestionable)
that the colored population perpetually accumulates in the extreme
South, and that it increases more rapidly than that of the whites;
and if, on the other hand, it be allowed that it is impossible to
foresee a time at which the whites and the blacks will be so
intermingled as to derive the same benefits from society; must it
not be inferred that the blacks and the whites will, sooner or
later, come to open strife in the Southern States of the Union? But
if it be asked what the issue of the struggle is likely to be, it
will readily be understood that we are here left to form a very
vague surmise of the truth. The human mind may succeed in tracing a
wide circle, as it were, which includes the course of future events;
but within that circle a thousand various chances and circumstances
may direct it in as many different ways; and in every picture of the
future there is a dim spot, which the eye of the understanding
cannot penetrate. It appears, however, to be extremely probable that
in the West Indian Islands the white race is destined to be subdued,
and the black population to share the same fate upon the continent.
In the West India Islands the white planters are surrounded by an
immense black population; on the continent, the blacks are placed
between the ocean and an innumerable people, which already extends
over them in a dense mass, from the icy confines of Canada to the
frontiers of Virginia, and from the banks of the Missouri to the
shores of the Atlantic. If the white citizens of North America
remain united, it cannot be supposed that the negroes will escape
the destruction with which they are menaced; they must be subdued by
want or by the sword. But the black population which is accumulated
along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, has a chance of success if
the American Union is dissolved when the struggle between the two
races begins. If the federal tie were broken, the citizens of the
South would be wrong to rely upon any lasting succor from their
Northern countrymen. The latter are well aware that the danger can
never reach them; and unless they are constrained to march to the
assistance of the South by a positive obligation, it may be foreseen
that the sympathy of color will be insufficient to stimulate their
exertions.
Yet, at whatever period the strife may break out, the whites of the
South, even if they are abandoned to their own resources, will enter
the lists with an immense superiority of knowledge and of the means
of warfare; but the blacks will have numerical strength and the
energy of despair upon their side, and these are powerful resources
to men who have taken up arms. The fate of the white population of
the Southern States will, perhaps, be similar to that of the Moors
in Spain. After having occupied the land for centuries, it will
perhaps be forced to retire to the country whence its ancestors
came, and to abandon to the negroes the possession of a territory,
which Providence seems to have more peculiarly destined for them,
since they can subsist and labor in it more easily that the whites.
The danger of a conflict between the white and the black inhabitants
of the Southern States of the Union - a danger which, however remote
it may be, is inevitable - perpetually haunts the imagination of the
Americans. The inhabitants of the North make it a common topic of
conversation, although they have no direct injury to fear from the
struggle; but they vainly endeavor to devise some means of obviating
the misfortunes which they foresee. In the Southern States the
subject is not discussed: the planter does not allude to the future
in conversing with strangers; the citizen does not communicate his
apprehensions to his friends; he seeks to conceal them from himself;
but there is something more alarming in the tacit forebodings of the
South, than in the clamorous fears of the Northern States.
This all-pervading disquietude has given birth to an undertaking
which is but little known, but which may have the effect of changing
the fate of a portion of the human race. From apprehension of the
dangers which I have just been describing, a certain number of
American citizens have formed a society for the purpose of exporting
to the coast of Guinea, at their own expense, such free negroes as
may be willing to escape from the oppression to which they are
subject. *t In 1820, the society to which I allude formed a
settlement in Africa, upon the seventh degree of north latitude,
which bears the name of Liberia. The most recent intelligence
informs us that 2,500 negroes are collected there; they have
introduced the democratic institutions of America into the country
of their forefathers; and Liberia has a representative system of
government, negro jurymen, negro magistrates, and negro priests;
churches have been built, newspapers established, and, by a singular
change in the vicissitudes of the world, white men are prohibited
from sojourning within the settlement. *u
[Footnote t: This society assumed the name of "The Society for the
Colonization of the Blacks." See its annual reports; and more
particularly the fifteenth. See also the pamphlet, to which allusion
has already been made, entitled "Letters on the Colonization
Society, and on its probable Results," by Mr. Carey, Philadelphia,
1833.]
[Footnote u: This last regulation was laid down by the founders of
the settlement; they apprehended that a state of things might arise
in Africa similar to that which exists on the frontiers of the
United States, and that if the negroes, like the Indians, were
brought into collision with a people more enlightened than
themselves, they would be destroyed before they could be civilized.]
This is indeed a strange caprice of fortune. Two hundred years have
now elapsed since the inhabitants of Europe undertook to tear the
negro from his family and his home, in order to transport him to the
shores of North America; at the present day, the European settlers
are engaged in sending back the descendants of those very negroes to
the Continent from which they were originally taken; and the
barbarous Africans have been brought into contact with civilization
in the midst of bondage, and have become acquainted with free
political institutions in slavery. Up to the present time Africa has
been closed against the arts and sciences of the whites; but the
inventions of Europe will perhaps penetrate into those regions, now
that they are introduced by Africans themselves. The settlement of
Liberia is founded upon a lofty and a most fruitful idea; but
whatever may be its results with regard to the Continent of Africa,
it can afford no remedy to the New World.
In twelve years the Colonization Society has transported 2,500
negroes to Africa; in the same space of time about 700,000 blacks
were born in the United States. If the colony of Liberia were so
situated as to be able to receive thousands of new inhabitants every
year, and if the negroes were in a state to be sent thither with
advantage; if the Union were to supply the society with annual
subsidies, *v and to transport the negroes to Africa in the vessels
of the State, it would still be unable to counterpoise the natural
increase of population amongst the blacks; and as it could not
remove as many men in a year as are born upon its territory within
the same space of time, it would fail in suspending the growth of
the evil which is daily increasing in the States. *w The negro race
will never leave those shores of the American continent, to which it
was brought by the passions and the vices of Europeans; and it will
not disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist.
The inhabitants of the United States may retard the calamities which
they apprehend, but they cannot now destroy their efficient cause.
[Footnote v: Nor would these be the only difficulties attendant upon
the undertaking; if the Union undertook to buy up the negroes now in
America, in order to transport them to Africa, the price of slaves,
increasing with their scarcity, would soon become enormous; and the
States of the North would never consent to expend such great sums
for a purpose which would procure such small advantages to
themselves. If the Union took possession of the slaves in the
Southern States by force, or at a rate determined by law, an
insurmountable resistance would arise in that part of the country.
Both alternatives are equally impossible.]
[Footnote w: In 1830 there were in the United States 2,010,327
slaves and 319,439 free blacks, in all 2,329,766 negroes: which
formed about one-fifth of the total population of the United States
at that time.]
I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of
slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in
the United States. The negroes may long remain slaves without
complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of free men,
they will soon revolt at being deprived of all their civil rights;
and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will
speedily declare themselves as enemies. In the North everything
contributed to facilitate the emancipation of the slaves; and
slavery was abolished, without placing the free negroes in a
position which could become formidable, since their number was too
small for them ever to claim the exercise of their rights. But such
is not the case in the South. The question of slavery was a question
of commerce and manufacture for the slave-owners in the North; for
those of the South, it is a question of life and death. God forbid
that I should seek to justify the principle of negro slavery, as has
been done by some American writers! But I only observe that all the
countries which formerly adopted that execrable principle are not
equally able to abandon it at the present time.
When I contemplate the condition of the South, I can only discover
two alternatives which may be adopted by the white inhabitants of
those States; viz., either to emancipate the negroes, and to
intermingle with them; or, remaining isolated from them, to keep
them in a state of slavery as long as possible. All intermediate
measures seem to me likely to terminate, and that shortly, in the
most horrible of civil wars, and perhaps in the extirpation of one
or other of the two races. Such is the view which the Americans of
the South take of the question, and they act consistently with it.
As they are determined not to mingle with the negroes, they refuse
to emancipate them.
Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as necessary to
the wealth of the planter, for on this point many of them agree with
their Northern countrymen in freely admitting that slavery is
prejudicial to their interest; but they are convinced that, however
prejudicial it may be, they hold their lives upon no other tenure.
The instruction which is now diffused in the South has convinced the
inhabitants that slavery is injurious to the slave-owner, but it has
also shown them, more clearly than before, that no means exist of
getting rid of its bad consequences. Hence arises a singular
contrast; the more the utility of slavery is contested, the more
firmly is it established in the laws; and whilst the principle of
servitude is gradually abolished in the North, that self-same
principle gives rise to more and more rigorous consequences in the
South.
The legislation of the Southern States with regard to slaves,
presents at the present day such unparalleled atrocities as suffice
to show how radically the laws of humanity have been perverted, and
to betray the desperate position of the community in which that
legislation has been promulgated. The Americans of this portion of
the Union have not, indeed, augmented the hardships of slavery; they
have, on the contrary, bettered the physical condition of the
slaves. The only means by which the ancients maintained slavery were
fetters and death; the Americans of the South of the Union have
discovered more intellectual securities for the duration of their
power. They have employed their despotism and their violence against
the human mind. In antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent the
slave from breaking his chains; at the present day measures are
adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The ancients
kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no
restraint upon the mind and no check upon education; and they acted
consistently with their established principle, since a natural
termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave
might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But the
Americans of the South, who do not admit that the negroes can ever
be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them to be taught to
read or to write, under severe penalties; and as they will not raise
them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to
that of the brutes.
The hope of liberty had always been allowed to the slave to cheer
the hardships of his condition. But the Americans of the South are
well aware that emancipation cannot but be dangerous, when the freed
man can never be assimilated to his former master. To give a man his
freedom, and to leave him in wretchedness and ignominy, is nothing
less than to prepare a future chief for a revolt of the slaves.
Moreover, it has long been remarked that the presence of a free
negro vaguely agitates the minds of his less fortunate brethren, and
conveys to them a dim notion of their rights. The Americans of the
South have consequently taken measures to prevent slave-owners from
emancipating their slaves in most cases; not indeed by a positive
prohibition, but by subjecting that step to various forms which it
is difficult to comply with. I happened to meet with an old man, in
the South of the Union, who had lived in illicit intercourse with
one of his negresses, and had had several children by her, who were
born the slaves of their father. He had indeed frequently thought of
bequeathing to them at least their liberty; but years had elapsed
without his being able to surmount the legal obstacles to their
emancipation, and in the mean while his old age was come, and he was
about to die. He pictured to himself his sons dragged from market to
market, and passing from the authority of a parent to the rod of the
stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his expiring
imagination into frenzy. When I saw him he was a prey to all the
anguish of despair, and he made me feel how awful is the retribution
of nature upon those who have broken her laws.
These evils are unquestionably great; but they are the necessary and
foreseen consequence of the very principle of modern slavery. When
the Europeans chose their slaves from a race differing from their
own, which many of them considered as inferior to the other races of
mankind, and which they all repelled with horror from any notion of
intimate connection, they must have believed that slavery would last
forever; since there is no intermediate state which can be durable
between the excessive inequality produced by servitude and the
complete equality which originates in independence. The Europeans
did imperfectly feel this truth, but without acknowledging it even
to themselves. Whenever they have had to do with negroes, their
conduct has either been dictated by their interest and their pride,
or by their compassion. They first violated every right of humanity
by their treatment of the negro and they afterwards informed him
that those rights were precious and inviolable. They affected to
open their ranks to the slaves, but the negroes who attempted to
penetrate into the community were driven back with scorn; and they
have incautiously and involuntarily been led to admit of freedom
instead of slavery, without having the courage to be wholly
iniquitous, or wholly just.
If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Americans of
the South will mingle their blood with that of the negroes, can they
allow their slaves to become free without compromising their own
security? And if they are obliged to keep that race in bondage in
order to save their own families, may they not be excused for
availing themselves of the means best adapted to that end? The
events which are taking place in the Southern States of the Union
appear to me to be at once the most horrible and the most natural
results of slavery. When I see the order of nature overthrown, and
when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain struggle against the
laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of our own time who
are the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve my execration
for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought back
slavery into the world once more.
Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the South to
maintain slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, which is
now confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, which is
attacked by Christianity as unjust, and by political economy as
prejudicial; and which is now contrasted with democratic liberties
and the information of our age, cannot survive. By the choice of the
master, or by the will of the slave, it will cease; and in either
case great calamities may be expected to ensue. If liberty be
refused to the negroes of the South, they will in the end seize it
for themselves by force; if it be given, they will abuse it ere
long. *x
[Footnote x: [This chapter is no longer applicable to the condition
of the negro race in the United States, since the abolition of
slavery was the result, though not the object, of the great Civil
War, and the negroes have been raised to the condition not only of
freedmen, but of citizens; and in some States they exercise a
preponderating political power by reason of their numerical
majority. Thus, in South Carolina there were in 1870, 289,667 whites
and 415,814 blacks. But the emancipation of the slaves has not
solved the problem, how two races so different and so hostile are to
live together in peace in one country on equal terms. That problem
is as difficult, perhaps more difficult than ever; and to this
difficulty the author's remarks are still perfectly applicable.]]
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part VI
What Are The Chances In Favor Of The Duration Of The American Union,
And What Dangers Threaten It *y
[Footnote y: [This chapter is one of the most curious and
interesting portions of the work, because it embraces almost all the
constitutional and social questions which were raised by the great
secession of the South and decided by the results of the Civil War.
But it must be confessed that the sagacity of the author is
sometimes at fault in these speculations, and did not save him from
considerable errors, which the course of events has since made
apparent. He held that "the legislators of the Constitution of 1789
were not appointed to constitute the government of a single people,
but to regulate the association of several States; that the Union
was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States, and in uniting
together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they
been reduced to the condition of one and the same people." Whence he
inferred that "if one of the States chose to withdraw its name from
the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing
so; and that the Federal Government would have no means of
maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right." This
is the Southern theory of the Constitution, and the whole case of
the South in favor of secession. To many Europeans, and to some
American (Northern) jurists, this view appeared to be sound; but it
was vigorously resisted by the North, and crushed by force of arms.
The author of this book was mistaken in supposing that the "Union
was a vast body which presents no definite object to patriotic
feeling." When the day of trial came, millions of men were ready to
lay down their lives for it. He was also mistaken in supposing that
the Federal Executive is so weak that it requires the free consent
of the governed to enable it to subsist, and that it would be
defeated in a struggle to maintain the Union against one or more
separate States. In 1861 nine States, with a population of
8,753,000, seceded, and maintained for four years a resolute but
unequal contest for independence, but they were defeated.
Lastly, the author was mistaken in supposing that a community of
interests would always prevail between North and South sufficiently
powerful to bind them together. He overlooked the influence which
the question of slavery must have on the Union the moment that the
majority of the people of the North declared against it. In 1831,
when the author visited America, the anti-slavery agitation had
scarcely begun; and the fact of Southern slavery was accepted by men
of all parties, even in the States where there were no slaves: and
that was unquestionably the view taken by all the States and by all
American statesmen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution,
in 1789. But in the course of thirty years a great change took
place, and the North refused to perpetuate what had become the
"peculiar institution" of the South, especially as it gave the South
a species of aristocratic preponderance. The result was the
ratification, in December, 1865, of the celebrated 13th article or
amendment of the Constitution, which declared that "neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude - except as a punishment for crime - shall
exist within the United States." To which was soon afterwards added
the 15th article, "The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of
race, color, or previous servitude." The emancipation of several
millions of negro slaves without compensation, and the transfer to
them of political preponderance in the States in which they
outnumber the white population, were acts of the North totally
opposed to the interests of the South, and which could only have
been carried into effect by conquest. - Translator's Note.]]
Reason for which the preponderating force lies in the States rather
than in the Union - The Union will only last as long as all the
States choose to belong to it - Causes which tend to keep them
united - Utility of the Union to resist foreign enemies, and to
prevent the existence of foreigners in America - No natural barriers
between the several States - No conflicting interests to divide them
- Reciprocal interests of the Northern, Southern, and Western States
- Intellectual ties of union - Uniformity of opinions - Dangers of
the Union resulting from the different characters and the passions
of its citizens - Character of the citizens in the South and in the
North - The rapid growth of the Union one of its greatest dangers -
Progress of the population to the Northwest - Power gravitates in
the same direction - Passions originating from sudden turns of
fortune - Whether the existing Government of the Union tends to gain
strength, or to lose it - Various signs of its decrease - Internal
improvements - Waste lands - Indians - The Bank - The Tariff -
General Jackson.
The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several States
depends in some measure upon the maintenance of the Union itself. It
is therefore important in the first instance to inquire into the
probable fate of the Union. One point may indeed be assumed at once:
if the present confederation were dissolved, it appears to me to be
incontestable that the States of which it is now composed would not
return to their original isolated condition, but that several unions
would then be formed in the place of one. It is not my intention to
inquire into the principles upon which these new unions would
probably be established, but merely to show what the causes are
which may effect the dismemberment of the existing confederation.
With this object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the steps
which I have already taken, and to revert to topics which I have
before discussed. I am aware that the reader may accuse me of
repetition, but the importance of the matter which still remains to
be treated is my excuse; I had rather say too much, than say too
little to be thoroughly understood, and I prefer injuring the author
to slighting the subject.
The legislators who formed the Constitution of 1789 endeavored to
confer a distinct and preponderating authority upon the federal
power. But they were confined by the conditions of the task which
they had undertaken to perform. They were not appointed to
constitute the government of a single people, but to regulate the
association of several States; and, whatever their inclinations
might be, they could not but divide the exercise of sovereignty in
the end.
In order to understand the consequences of this division, it is
necessary to make a short distinction between the affairs of the
Government. There are some objects which are national by their very
nature, that is to say, which affect the nation as a body, and can
only be intrusted to the man or the assembly of men who most
completely represent the entire nation. Amongst these may be
reckoned war and diplomacy. There are other objects which are
provincial by their very nature, that is to say, which only affect
certain localities, and which can only be properly treated in that
locality. Such, for instance, is the budget of a municipality.
Lastly, there are certain objects of a mixed nature, which are
national inasmuch as they affect all the citizens who compose the
nation, and which are provincial inasmuch as it is not necessary
that the nation itself should provide for them all. Such are the
rights which regulate the civil and political condition of the
citizens. No society can exist without civil and political rights.
These rights therefore interest all the citizens alike; but it is
not always necessary to the existence and the prosperity of the
nation that these rights should be uniform, nor, consequently, that
they should be regulated by the central authority.
There are, then, two distinct categories of objects which are
submitted to the direction of the sovereign power; and these
categories occur in all well-constituted communities, whatever the
basis of the political constitution may otherwise be. Between these
two extremes the objects which I have termed mixed may be considered
to lie. As these objects are neither exclusively national nor
entirely provincial, they may be obtained by a national or by a
provincial government, according to the agreement of the contracting
parties, without in any way impairing the contract of association.
The sovereign power is usually formed by the union of separate
individuals, who compose a people; and individual powers or
collective forces, each representing a very small portion of the
sovereign authority, are the sole elements which are subjected to
the general Government of their choice. In this case the general
Government is more naturally called upon to regulate, not only those
affairs which are of essential national importance, but those which
are of a more local interest; and the local governments are reduced
to that small share of sovereign authority which is indispensable to
their prosperity.
But sometimes the sovereign authority is composed of preorganized
political bodies, by virtue of circumstances anterior to their
union; and in this case the provincial governments assume the
control, not only of those affairs which more peculiarly belong to
their province, but of all, or of a part of the mixed affairs to
which allusion has been made. For the confederate nations which were
independent sovereign States before their union, and which still
represent a very considerable share of the sovereign power, have
only consented to cede to the general Government the exercise of
those rights which are indispensable to the Union.
When the national Government, independently of the prerogatives
inherent in its nature, is invested with the right of regulating the
affairs which relate partly to the general and partly to the local
interests, it possesses a preponderating influence. Not only are its
own rights extensive, but all the rights which it does not possess
exist by its sufferance, and it may be apprehended that the
provincial governments may be deprived of their natural and
necessary prerogatives by its influence.
When, on the other hand, the provincial governments are invested
with the power of regulating those same affairs of mixed interest,
an opposite tendency prevails in society. The preponderating force
resides in the province, not in the nation; and it may be
apprehended that the national Government may in the end be stripped
of the privileges which are necessary to its existence.
Independent nations have therefore a natural tendency to
centralization, and confederations to dismemberment.
It now only remains for us to apply these general principles to the
American Union. The several States were necessarily possessed of the
right of regulating all exclusively provincial affairs. Moreover
these same States retained the rights of determining the civil and
political competency of the citizens, or regulating the reciprocal
relations of the members of the community, and of dispensing
justice; rights which are of a general nature, but which do not
necessarily appertain to the national Government. We have shown that
the Government of the Union is invested with the power of acting in
the name of the whole nation in those cases in which the nation has
to appear as a single and undivided power; as, for instance, in
foreign relations, and in offering a common resistance to a common
enemy; in short, in conducting those affairs which I have styled
exclusively national.
In this division of the rights of sovereignty, the share of the
Union seems at first sight to be more considerable than that of the
States; but a more attentive investigation shows it to be less so.
The undertakings of the Government of the Union are more vast, but
their influence is more rarely felt. Those of the provincial
governments are comparatively small, but they are incessant, and
they serve to keep alive the authority which they represent. The
Government of the Union watches the general interests of the
country; but the general interests of a people have a very
questionable influence upon individual happiness, whilst provincial
interests produce a most immediate effect upon the welfare of the
inhabitants. The Union secures the independence and the greatness of
the nation, which do not immediately affect private citizens; but
the several States maintain the liberty, regulate the rights,
protect the fortune, and secure the life and the whole future
prosperity of every citizen.
The Federal Government is very far removed from its subjects, whilst
the provincial governments are within the reach of them all, and are
ready to attend to the smallest appeal. The central Government has
upon its side the passions of a few superior men who aspire to
conduct it; but upon the side of the provincial governments are the
interests of all those second-rate individuals who can only hope to
obtain power within their own State, and who nevertheless exercise
the largest share of authority over the people because they are
placed nearest to its level. The Americans have therefore much more
to hope and to fear from the States than from the Union; and, in
conformity with the natural tendency of the human mind, they are
more likely to attach themselves to the former than to the latter.
In this respect their habits and feelings harmonize with their
interests.
When a compact nation divides its sovereignty, and adopts a
confederate form of government, the traditions, the customs, and the
manners of the people are for a long time at variance with their
legislation; and the former tend to give a degree of influence to
the central government which the latter forbids. When a number of
confederate states unite to form a single nation, the same causes
operate in an opposite direction. I have no doubt that if France
were to become a confederate republic like that of the United
States, the government would at first display more energy than that
of the Union; and if the Union were to alter its constitution to a
monarchy like that of France, I think that the American Government
would be a long time in acquiring the force which now rules the
latter nation. When the national existence of the Anglo-Americans
began, their provincial existence was already of long standing;
necessary relations were established between the townships and the
individual citizens of the same States; and they were accustomed to
consider some objects as common to them all, and to conduct other
affairs as exclusively relating to their own special interests.
The Union is a vast body which presents no definite object to
patriotic feeling. The forms and limits of the State are distinct
and circumscribed; since it represents a certain number of objects
which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all. It is
identified with the very soil, with the right of property and the
domestic affections, with the recollections of the past, the labors
of the present, and the hopes of the future. Patriotism, then, which
is frequently a mere extension of individual egotism, is still
directed to the State, and is not excited by the Union. Thus the
tendency of the interests, the habits, and the feelings of the
people is to centre political activity in the States, in preference
to the Union.
It is easy to estimate the different forces of the two governments,
by remarking the manner in which they fulfil their respective
functions. Whenever the government of a State has occasion to
address an individual or an assembly of individuals, its language is
clear and imperative; and such is also the tone of the Federal
Government in its intercourse with individuals, but no sooner has it
anything to do with a State than it begins to parley, to explain its
motives and to justify its conduct, to argue, to advise, and, in
short, anything but to command. If doubts are raised as to the
limits of the constitutional powers of each government, the
provincial government prefers its claim with boldness, and takes
prompt and energetic steps to support it. In the mean while the
Government of the Union reasons; it appeals to the interests, to the
good sense, to the glory of the nation; it temporizes, it
negotiates, and does not consent to act until it is reduced to the
last extremity. At first sight it might readily be imagined that it
is the provincial government which is armed with the authority of
the nation, and that Congress represents a single State.
The Federal Government is, therefore, notwithstanding the
precautions of those who founded it, naturally so weak that it more
peculiarly requires the free consent of the governed to enable it to
subsist. It is easy to perceive that its object is to enable the
States to realize with facility their determination of remaining
united; and, as long as this preliminary condition exists, its
authority is great, temperate, and effective. The Constitution fits
the Government to control individuals, and easily to surmount such
obstacles as they may be inclined to offer; but it was by no means
established with a view to the possible separation of one or more of
the States from the Union.
If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with
that of the States at the present day, its defeat may be confidently
predicted; and it is not probable that such a struggle would be
seriously undertaken. As often as a steady resistance is offered to
the Federal Government it will be found to yield. Experience has
hitherto shown that whenever a State has demanded anything with
perseverance and resolution, it has invariably succeeded; and that
if a separate government has distinctly refused to act, it was left
to do as it thought fit. *z
[Footnote z: See the conduct of the Northern States in the war of
1812. "During that war," says Jefferson in a letter to General
Lafayette, "four of the Eastern States were only attached to the
Union, like so many inanimate bodies to living men."]
But even if the Government of the Union had any strength inherent in
itself, the physical situation of the country would render the
exercise of that strength very difficult. *a The United States cover
an immense territory; they are separated from each other by great
distances; and the population is disseminated over the surface of a
country which is still half a wilderness. If the Union were to
undertake to enforce the allegiance of the confederate States by
military means, it would be in a position very analogous to that of
England at the time of the War of Independence.
[Footnote a: The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for
a standing army; and without a standing army a government is not
prepared to profit by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance,
and take the sovereign power by surprise. [This note, and the
paragraph in the text which precedes, have been shown by the results
of the Civil War to be a misconception of the writer.]]
However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from the
consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the
foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the
voluntary agreement of the States; and, in uniting together, they
have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to
the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose
to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to
disprove its right of doing so; and the Federal Government would
have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or
by right. In order to enable the Federal Government easily to
conquer the resistance which may be offered to it by any one of its
subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be
specially interested in the existence of the Union, as has
frequently been the case in the history of confederations.
If it be supposed that amongst the States which are united by the
federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal
advantages of union, or whose prosperity depends on the duration of
that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to
support the central Government in enforcing the obedience of the
others. But the Government would then be exerting a force not
derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature.
States form confederations in order to derive equal advantages from
their union; and in the case just alluded to, the Federal Government
would derive its power from the unequal distribution of those
benefits amongst the States.
If one of the confederate States have acquired a preponderance
sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession of the
central authority, it will consider the other States as subject
provinces, and it will cause its own supremacy to be respected under
the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the Union. Great things may
then be done in the name of the Federal Government, but in reality
that Government will have ceased to exist. *b In both these cases,
the power which acts in the name of the confederation becomes
stronger the more it abandons the natural state and the acknowledged
principles of confederations.
[Footnote b: Thus the province of Holland in the republic of the Low
Countries, and the Emperor in the Germanic Confederation, have
sometimes put themselves in the place of the union, and have
employed the federal authority to their own advantage.]
In America the existing Union is advantageous to all the States, but
it is not indispensable to any one of them. Several of them might
break the federal tie without compromising the welfare of the
others, although their own prosperity would be lessened. As the
existence and the happiness of none of the States are wholly
dependent on the present Constitution, they would none of them be
disposed to make great personal sacrifices to maintain it. On the
other hand, there is no State which seems hitherto to have its
ambition much interested in the maintenance of the existing Union.
They certainly do not all exercise the same influence in the federal
councils, but no one of them can hope to domineer over the rest, or
to treat them as its inferiors or as its subjects.
It appears to me unquestionable that if any portion of the Union
seriously desired to separate itself from the other States, they
would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt, to prevent it; and
that the present Union will only last as long as the States which
compose it choose to continue members of the confederation. If this
point be admitted, the question becomes less difficult; and our
object is, not to inquire whether the States of the existing Union
are capable of separating, but whether they will choose to remain
united.
Amongst the various reasons which tend to render the existing Union
useful to the Americans, two principal causes are peculiarly evident
to the observer. Although the Americans are, as it were, alone upon
their continent, their commerce makes them the neighbors of all the
nations with which they trade. Notwithstanding their apparent
isolation, the Americans require a certain degree of strength, which
they cannot retain otherwise than by remaining united to each other.
If the States were to split, they would not only diminish the
strength which they are now able to display towards foreign nations,
but they would soon create foreign powers upon their own territory.
A system of inland custom-houses would then be established; the
valleys would be divided by imaginary boundary lines; the courses of
the rivers would be confined by territorial distinctions; and a
multitude of hindrances would prevent the Americans from exploring
the whole of that vast continent which Providence has allotted to
them for a dominion. At present they have no invasion to fear, and
consequently no standing armies to maintain, no taxes to levy. If
the Union were dissolved, all these burdensome measures might ere
long be required. The Americans are then very powerfully interested
in the maintenance of their Union. On the other hand, it is almost
impossible to discover any sort of material interest which might at
present tempt a portion of the Union to separate from the other
States.
When we cast our eyes upon the map of the United States, we perceive
the chain of the Alleghany Mountains, running from the northeast to
the southwest, and crossing nearly one thousand miles of country;
and we are led to imagine that the design of Providence was to raise
between the valley of the Mississippi and the coast of the Atlantic
Ocean one of those natural barriers which break the mutual
intercourse of men, and form the necessary limits of different
States. But the average height of the Alleghanies does not exceed
2,500 feet; their greatest elevation is not above 4,000 feet; their
rounded summits, and the spacious valleys which they conceal within
their passes, are of easy access from several sides. Besides which,
the principal rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean - the
Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac -take their rise beyond the
Alleghanies, in an open district, which borders upon the valley of
the Mississippi. These streams quit this tract of country, make
their way through the barrier which would seem to turn them
westward, and as they wind through the mountains they open an easy
and natural passage to man. No natural barrier exists in the regions
which are now inhabited by the Anglo-Americans; the Alleghanies are
so far from serving as a boundary to separate nations, that they do
not even serve as a frontier to the States. New York, Pennsylvania,
and Virginia comprise them within their borders, and they extend as
much to the west as to the east of the line. The territory now
occupied by the twenty-four States of the Union, and the three great
districts which have not yet acquired the rank of States, although
they already contain inhabitants, covers a surface of 1,002,600
square miles, *c which is about equal to five times the extent of
France. Within these limits the qualities of the soil, the
temperature, and the produce of the country, are extremely various.
The vast extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American
republics has given rise to doubts as to the maintenance of their
Union. Here a distinction must be made; contrary interests sometimes
arise in the different provinces of a vast empire, which often
terminate in open dissensions; and the extent of the country is then
most prejudicial to the power of the State. But if the inhabitants
of these vast regions are not divided by contrary interests, the
extent of the territory may be favorable to their prosperity; for
the unity of the government promotes the interchange of the
different productions of the soil, and increases their value by
facilitating their consumption.
[Footnote c: See "Darby's View of the United States," p. 435. [In
1890 the number of States and Territories had increased to 51, the
population to 62,831,900, and the area of the States, 3,602,990
square miles. This does not include the Philippine Islands, Hawaii,
or Porto Rico. A conservative estimate of the population of the
Philippine Islands is 8,000,000; that of Hawaii, by the census of
1897, was given at 109,020; and the present estimated population of
Porto Rico is 900,000. The area of the Philippine Islands is about
120,000 square miles, that of Hawaii is 6,740 square miles, and the
area of Porto Rico is about 3,600 square miles.]]
It is indeed easy to discover different interests in the different
parts of the Union, but I am unacquainted with any which are hostile
to each other. The Southern States are almost exclusively
agricultural. The Northern States are more peculiarly commercial and
manufacturing. The States of the West are at the same time
agricultural and manufacturing. In the South the crops consist of
tobacco, of rice, of cotton, and of sugar; in the North and the
West, of wheat and maize. These are different sources of wealth; but
union is the means by which these sources are opened to all, and
rendered equally advantageous to the several districts.
The North, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans to all
parts of the world, and brings back the produce of the globe to the
Union, is evidently interested in maintaining the confederation in
its present condition, in order that the number of American
producers and consumers may remain as large as possible. The North
is the most natural agent of communication between the South and the
West of the Union on the one hand, and the rest of the world upon
the other; the North is therefore interested in the union and
prosperity of the South and the West, in order that they may
continue to furnish raw materials for its manufactures, and cargoes
for its shipping.
The South and the West, on their side, are still more directly
interested in the preservation of the Union, and the prosperity of
the North. The produce of the South is, for the most part, exported
beyond seas; the South and the West consequently stand in need of
the commercial resources of the North. They are likewise interested
in the maintenance of a powerful fleet by the Union, to protect them
efficaciously. The South and the West have no vessels, but they
cannot refuse a willing subsidy to defray the expenses of the navy;
for if the fleets of Europe were to blockade the ports of the South
and the delta of the Mississippi, what would become of the rice of
the Carolinas, the tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton
which grow in the valley of the Mississippi? Every portion of the
federal budget does therefore contribute to the maintenance of
material interests which are common to all the confederate States.
Independently of this commercial utility, the South and the West of
the Union derive great political advantages from their connection
with the North. The South contains an enormous slave population; a
population which is already alarming, and still more formidable for
the future. The States of the West lie in the remotest parts of a
single valley; and all the rivers which intersect their territory
rise in the Rocky Mountains or in the Alleghanies, and fall into the
Mississippi, which bears them onwards to the Gulf of Mexico. The
Western States are consequently entirely cut off, by their position,
from the traditions of Europe and the civilization of the Old World.
The inhabitants of the South, then, are induced to support the Union
in order to avail themselves of its protection against the blacks;
and the inhabitants of the West in order not to be excluded from a
free communication with the rest of the globe, and shut up in the
wilds of central America. The North cannot but desire the
maintenance of the Union, in order to remain, as it now is, the
connecting link between that vast body and the other parts of the
world.
The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union are,
then, intimately connected; and the same assertion holds true
respecting those opinions and sentiments which may be termed the
immaterial interests of men.
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part VII
The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their
attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not rely upon
that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest, and
which a change in the interests at stake may obliterate. Nor do I
attach much importance to the language of the Americans, when they
manifest, in their daily conversations, the intention of maintaining
the federal system adopted by their forefathers. A government
retains its sway over a great number of citizens, far less by the
voluntary and rational consent of the multitude, than by that
instinctive, and to a certain extent involuntary agreement, which
results from similarity of feelings and resemblances of opinion. I
will never admit that men constitute a social body, simply because
they obey the same head and the same laws. Society can only exist
when a great number of men consider a great number of things in the
same point of view; when they hold the same opinions upon many
subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest the same thoughts
and impressions to their minds.
The observer who examines the present condition of the United States
upon this principle, will readily discover, that although the
citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they
nevertheless constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led
to think that the state of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a
state of society than that of certain nations of Europe which live
under the same legislation and the same prince.
Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all
regard religion in the same manner. They are not always agreed upon
the measures which are most conducive to good government, and they
vary upon some of the forms of government which it is expedient to
adopt; but they are unanimous upon the general principles which
ought to rule human society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from
the Missouri to the Atlantic Ocean, the people is held to be the
legitimate source of all power. The same notions are entertained
respecting liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right
of association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of
Government.
If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the moral
and philosophical principles which regulate the daily actions of
life and govern their conduct, we shall still find the same
uniformity. The Anglo-Americans *d acknowledge the absolute moral
authority of the reason of the community, as they acknowledge the
political authority of the mass of citizens; and they hold that
public opinion is the surest arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden,
true or false. The majority of them believe that a man will be led
to do what is just and good by following his own interest rightly
understood. They hold that every man is born in possession of the
right of self-government, and that no one has the right of
constraining his fellow-creatures to be happy. They have all a
lively faith in the perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that
the effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be
advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all
consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a
changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and
they admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be
superseded by something better-to-morrow. I do not give all these
opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of the
Americans.
[Footnote d: It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the
expression Anglo-Americans, I only mean to designate the great
majority of the nation; for a certain number of isolated individuals
are of course to be met with holding very different opinions.]
The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by these common
opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a common
feeling of pride. For the last fifty years no pains have been spared
to convince the inhabitants of the United States that they
constitute the only religious, enlightened, and free people. They
perceive that, for the present, their own democratic institutions
succeed, whilst those of other countries fail; hence they conceive
an overweening opinion of their superiority, and they are not very
remote from believing themselves to belong to a distinct race of
mankind.
The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in
the diversity of interests or of opinions, but in the various
characters and passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit the
vast territory of the United States are almost all the issue of a
common stock; but the effects of the climate, and more especially of
slavery, have gradually introduced very striking differences between
the British settler of the Southern States and the British settler
of the North. In Europe it is generally believed that slavery has
rendered the interests of one part of the Union contrary to those of
another part; but I by no means remarked this to be the case:
slavery has not created interests in the South contrary to those of
the North, but it has modified the character and changed the habits
of the natives of the South.
I have already explained the influence which slavery has exercised
upon the commercial ability of the Americans in the South; and this
same influence equally extends to their manners. The slave is a
servant who never remonstrates, and who submits to everything
without complaint. He may sometimes assassinate, but he never
withstands, his master. In the South there are no families so poor
as not to have slaves. The citizen of the Southern States of the
Union is invested with a sort of domestic dictatorship, from his
earliest years; the first notion he acquires in life is that he is
born to command, and the first habit which he contracts is that of
being obeyed without resistance. His education tends, then, to give
him the character of a supercilious and a hasty man; irascible,
violent, and ardent in his desires, impatient of obstacles, but
easily discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his first attempt.
The American of the Northern States is surrounded by no slaves in
his childhood; he is even unattended by free servants, and is
usually obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner does he
enter the world than the idea of necessity assails him on every
side: he soon learns to know exactly the natural limit of his
authority; he never expects to subdue those who withstand him, by
force; and he knows that the surest means of obtaining the support
of his fellow-creatures, is to win their favor. He therefore becomes
patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow to act, and persevering in his
designs.
In the Southern States the more immediate wants of life are always
supplied; the inhabitants of those parts are not busied in the
material cares of life, which are always provided for by others; and
their imagination is diverted to more captivating and less definite
objects. The American of the South is fond of grandeur, luxury, and
renown, of gayety, of pleasure, and above all of idleness; nothing
obliges him to exert himself in order to subsist; and as he has no
necessary occupations, he gives way to indolence, and does not even
attempt what would be useful.
But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery in the
North, plunge the inhabitants in those same cares of daily life
which are disdained by the white population of the South. They are
taught from infancy to combat want, and to place comfort above all
the pleasures of the intellect or the heart. The imagination is
extinguished by the trivial details of life, and the ideas become
less numerous and less general, but far more practical and more
precise. As prosperity is the sole aim of exertion, it is
excellently well attained; nature and mankind are turned to the best
pecuniary advantage, and society is dexterously made to contribute
to the welfare of each of its members, whilst individual egotism is
the source of general happiness.
The citizen of the North has not only Experience, but knowledge:
nevertheless he sets but little value upon the pleasures of
knowledge; he esteems it as the means of attaining a certain end,
and he is only anxious to seize its more lucrative applications. The
citizen of the South is more given to act upon impulse; he is more
clever, more frank, more generous, more intellectual, and more
brilliant. The former, with a greater degree of activity, of
common-sense, of information, and of general aptitude, has the
characteristic good and evil qualities of the middle classes. The
latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and the
magnanimity of all aristocracies. If two men are united in society,
who have the same interests, and to a certain extent the same
opinions, but different characters, different acquirements, and a
different style of civilization, it is probable that these men will
not agree. The same remark is applicable to a society of nations.
Slavery, then, does not attack the American Union directly in its
interests, but indirectly in its manners.
[Footnote e: Census of 1790, 3,929,328; 1830, 12,856,165; 1860,
31,443,321; 1870, 38,555,983; 1890, 62,831,900.]
The States which gave their assent to the federal contract in 1790
were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of thirty-four
members. The population, which amounted to nearly 4,000,000 in 1790,
had more than tripled in the space of forty years; and in 1830 it
amounted to nearly 13,000,000. *e Changes of such magnitude cannot
take place without some danger.
A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derives
its principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its members,
their individual weakness, and their limited number. The Americans
who quit the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean to plunge into the western
wilderness, are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of
wealth, and frequently men expelled from the States in which they
were born. When they arrive in the deserts they are unknown to each
other, and they have neither traditions, family feeling, nor the
force of example to check their excesses. The empire of the laws is
feeble amongst them; that of morality is still more powerless. The
settlers who are constantly peopling the valley of the Mississippi
are, then, in every respect very inferior to the Americans who
inhabit the older parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they already
exercise a great influence in its councils; and they arrive at the
government of the commonwealth before they have learnt to govern
themselves. *f
[Footnote f: This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt
that in time society will assume as much stability and regularity in
the West as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic
Ocean.]
The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting
parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the
contract; for their safety is then dependent upon their union. When,
in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did not contain
500,000 inhabitants, *g each of them felt its own insignificance as
an independent people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the
federal authority more easy. But when one of the confederate States
reckons, like the State of New York, 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and
covers an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter of
France, *h it feels its own strength; and although it may continue
to support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer
regards that body as necessary to its existence, and as it continues
to belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in
the federal assemblies. The probable unanimity of the States is
diminished as their number increases. At present the interests of
the different parts of the Union are not at variance; but who is
able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future, in a country
in which towns are founded from day to day, and States almost from
year to year?
[Footnote g: Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790 [and
5,258,014 in 1890.]]
[Footnote h: The area of the State of New York is 49,170 square
miles. [See U. S. census report of 1890.]]
Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of
inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no
causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the
Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before
that space of time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and
dependencies of the United States will be covered by more than
100,000,000 of inhabitants, and divided into forty States. *i I
admit that these 100,000,000 of men have no ho hostile interests. I
suppose, on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in
the maintenance of the Union; but I am still of opinion that where
there are 100,000,000 of men, and forty distinct nations, unequally
strong, the continuance of the Federal Government can only be a
fortunate accident.
[Footnote i: If the population continues to double every twenty-two
years, as it has done for the last two hundred years, the number of
inhabitants in the United States in 1852 will be twenty millions; in
1874, forty-eight millions; and in 1896, ninety-six millions. This
may still be the case even if the lands on the western slope of the
Rocky Mountains should be found to be unfit for cultivation. The
territory which is already occupied can easily contain this number
of inhabitants. One hundred millions of men disseminated over the
surface of the twenty-four States, and the three dependencies, which
constitute the Union, would only give 762 inhabitants to the square
league; this would be far below the mean population of France, which
is 1,063 to the square league; or of England, which is 1,457; and it
would even be below the population of Switzerland, for that country,
notwithstanding its lakes and mountains, contains 783 inhabitants to
the square league. See "Malte Brun," vol. vi. p. 92.
[The actual result has fallen somewhat short of these calculations,
in spite of the vast territorial acquisitions of the United States:
but in 1899 the population is probably about eighty- seven millions,
including the population of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto
Rico.]]
Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man, until human
nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to
believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold
together forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory
equal to one-half of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry,
ambition, and struggles between them, and to direct their
independent activity to the accomplishment of the same designs.
But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase
arises from the continual changes which take place in the position
of its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to the
Gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude,
a distance of more than 1,200 miles as the bird flies. The frontier
of the United States winds along the whole of this immense line,
sometimes falling within its limits, but more frequently extending
far beyond it, into the waste. It has been calculated that the
whites advance every year a mean distance of seventeen miles along
the whole of his vast boundary. *j Obstacles, such as an
unproductive district, a lake or an Indian nation unexpectedly
encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column then halts
for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves, and as
soon as they are reunited they proceed onwards. This gradual and
continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains
has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of
men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of God.
[Footnote j: See Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, p.
105.]
Within this first line of conquering settlers towns are built, and
vast States founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers
sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present
day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in
the whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly
4,000,000. *k The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the
very centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken
place, that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the
delegates of the most remote Western States are already obliged to
perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris. *l
[Footnote k: 3,672,317 - Census of 1830.]
[Footnote l: The distance from Jefferson, the capital of the State
of Missouri, to Washington is 1,019 miles. ("American Almanac,"
1831, p. 48.)]
All the States are borne onwards at the same time in the path of
fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the
same proportion. To the North of the Union the detached branches of
the Alleghany chain, which extend as far as the Atlantic Ocean, form
spacious roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels
of the greatest burden. But from the Potomac to the mouth of the
Mississippi the coast is sandy and flat. In this part of the Union
the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few
harbors which exist amongst these lagoons afford much shallower
water to vessels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of
the North.
This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another cause
proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that slavery, which
is abolished in the North, still exists in the South; and I have
pointed out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the
planter himself.
The North is therefore superior to the South both in commerce *m and
manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more rapid
increase of population and of wealth within its borders. The States
situate upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean are already
half-peopled. Most of the land is held by an owner; and these
districts cannot therefore receive so many emigrants as the Western
States, where a boundless field is still open to their exertions.
The valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile than the coast of
the Atlantic Ocean. This reason, added to all the others,
contributes to drive the Europeans westward - a fact which may be
rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found that the sum total
of the population of all the United States has about tripled in the
course of forty years. But in the recent States adjacent to the
Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one-fold, within
the same space of time. *n
[Footnote m: The following statements will suffice to show the
difference which exists between the commerce of the South and that
of the North: -
In 1829 the tonnage of all the merchant vessels belonging to
Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four great Southern
States), amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the tonnage
of the vessels of the State of Massachusetts alone amounted to
17,322 tons. (See Legislative Documents, 21st Congress, 2d session,
No. 140, p. 244.) Thus the State of Massachusetts had three times as
much shipping as the four above-mentioned States. Nevertheless the
area of the State of Massachusetts is only 7,335 square miles, and
its population amounts to 610,014 inhabitants [2,238,943 in 1890];
whilst the area of the four other States I have quoted is 210,000
square miles, and their population 3,047,767. Thus the area of the
State of Massachusetts forms only one-thirtieth part of the area of
the four States; and its population is five times smaller than
theirs. (See "Darby's View of the United States.") Slavery is
prejudicial to the commercial prosperity of the South in several
different ways; by diminishing the spirit of enterprise amongst the
whites, and by preventing them from meeting with as numerous a class
of sailors as they require. Sailors are usually taken from the
lowest ranks of the population. But in the Southern States these
lowest ranks are composed of slaves, and it is very difficult to
employ them at sea. They are unable to serve as well as a white
crew, and apprehensions would always be entertained of their
mutinying in the middle of the ocean, or of their escaping in the
foreign countries at which they might touch.]
[Footnote n: "Darby's View of the United States," p. 444.]
The relative position of the central federal power is continually
displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of the Union
was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the environs of
the spot upon which Washington now stands; but the great body of the
people is now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty
years the majority will unquestionably be on the western side of the
Alleghanies. If the Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the
Mississippi is evidently marked out, by its fertility and its
extent, as the future centre of the Federal Government. In thirty or
forty years, that tract of country will have assumed the rank which
naturally belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its
population, compared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be,
in round numbers, as 40 to 11. In a few years the States which
founded the Union will lose the direction of its policy, and the
population of the valley of the Mississippi will preponderate in the
federal assemblies.
This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence towards
the northwest is shown every ten years, when a general census of the
population is made, and the number of delegates which each State
sends to Congress is settled afresh. *o In 1790 Virginia had
nineteen representatives in Congress. This number continued to
increase until the year 1813, when it reached to twenty-three; from
that time it began to decrease, and in 1833 Virginia elected only
twenty-one representatives. *p During the same period the State of
New York progressed in the contrary direction: in 1790 it had ten
representatives in Congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823,
thirty-four; and in 1833, forty. The State of Ohio had only one
representative in 1803, and in 1833 it had already nineteen.
[Footnote o: It may be seen that in the course of the last ten years
(1820-1830) the population of one district, as, for instance, the
State of Delaware, has increased in the proportion of five per
cent.; whilst that of another, as the territory of Michigan, has
increased 250 per cent. Thus the population of Virginia had
augmented thirteen per cent., and that of the border State of Ohio
sixty-one per cent., in the same space of time. The general table of
these changes, which is given in the "National Calendar," displays a
striking picture of the unequal fortunes of the different States.]
[Footnote p: It has just been said that in the course of the last
term the population of Virginia has increased thirteen per cent.;
and it is necessary to explain how the number of representatives for
a State may decrease, when the population of that State, far from
diminishing, is actually upon the increase. I take the State of
Virginia, to which I have already alluded, as my term of comparison.
The number of representatives of Virginia in 1823 was proportionate
to the total number of the representatives of the Union, and to the
relation which the population bore to that of the whole Union: in
1833 the number of representatives of Virginia was likewise
proportionate to the total number of the representatives of the
Union, and to the relation which its population, augmented in the
course of ten years, bore to the augmented population of the Union
in the same space of time. The new number of Virginian
representatives will then be to the old numver, on the one hand, as
the new numver of all the representatives is to the old number; and,
on the other hand, as the augmentation of the population of Virginia
is to that of the whole population of the country. Thus, if the
increase of the population of the lesser country be to that of the
greater in an exact inverse ratio of the proportion between the new
and the old numbers of all the representatives, the number of the
representatives of Virginia will remain stationary; and if the
increase of the Virginian population be to that of the whole Union
in a feeblerratio than the new number of the representatives of the
Union to the old number, the number of the representatives of
Virginia must decrease. [Thus, to the 56th Congress in 1899,
Virginia and West Virginia send only fourteen representatives.]]
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part VII
The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their
attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not rely upon
that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest, and
which a change in the interests at stake may obliterate. Nor do I
attach much importance to the language of the Americans, when they
manifest, in their daily conversations, the intention of maintaining
the federal system adopted by their forefathers. A government
retains its sway over a great number of citizens, far less by the
voluntary and rational consent of the multitude, than by that
instinctive, and to a certain extent involuntary agreement, which
results from similarity of feelings and resemblances of opinion. I
will never admit that men constitute a social body, simply because
they obey the same head and the same laws. Society can only exist
when a great number of men consider a great number of things in the
same point of view; when they hold the same opinions upon many
subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest the same thoughts
and impressions to their minds.
The observer who examines the present condition of the United States
upon this principle, will readily discover, that although the
citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereignties, they
nevertheless constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led
to think that the state of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a
state of society than that of certain nations of Europe which live
under the same legislation and the same prince.
Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all
regard religion in the same manner. They are not always agreed upon
the measures which are most conducive to good government, and they
vary upon some of the forms of government which it is expedient to
adopt; but they are unanimous upon the general principles which
ought to rule human society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from
the Missouri to the Atlantic Ocean, the people is held to be the
legitimate source of all power. The same notions are entertained
respecting liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right
of association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of
Government.
If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the moral
and philosophical principles which regulate the daily actions of
life and govern their conduct, we shall still find the same
uniformity. The Anglo-Americans *d acknowledge the absolute moral
authority of the reason of the community, as they acknowledge the
political authority of the mass of citizens; and they hold that
public opinion is the surest arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden,
true or false. The majority of them believe that a man will be led
to do what is just and good by following his own interest rightly
understood. They hold that every man is born in possession of the
right of self-government, and that no one has the right of
constraining his fellow-creatures to be happy. They have all a
lively faith in the perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that
the effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be
advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all
consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a
changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and
they admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be
superseded by something better-to-morrow. I do not give all these
opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of the
Americans.
[Footnote d: It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the
expression Anglo-Americans, I only mean to designate the great
majority of the nation; for a certain number of isolated individuals
are of course to be met with holding very different opinions.]
The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by these common
opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a common
feeling of pride. For the last fifty years no pains have been spared
to convince the inhabitants of the United States that they
constitute the only religious, enlightened, and free people. They
perceive that, for the present, their own democratic institutions
succeed, whilst those of other countries fail; hence they conceive
an overweening opinion of their superiority, and they are not very
remote from believing themselves to belong to a distinct race of
mankind.
The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in
the diversity of interests or of opinions, but in the various
characters and passions of the Americans. The men who inhabit the
vast territory of the United States are almost all the issue of a
common stock; but the effects of the climate, and more especially of
slavery, have gradually introduced very striking differences between
the British settler of the Southern States and the British settler
of the North. In Europe it is generally believed that slavery has
rendered the interests of one part of the Union contrary to those of
another part; but I by no means remarked this to be the case:
slavery has not created interests in the South contrary to those of
the North, but it has modified the character and changed the habits
of the natives of the South.
I have already explained the influence which slavery has exercised
upon the commercial ability of the Americans in the South; and this
same influence equally extends to their manners. The slave is a
servant who never remonstrates, and who submits to everything
without complaint. He may sometimes assassinate, but he never
withstands, his master. In the South there are no families so poor
as not to have slaves. The citizen of the Southern States of the
Union is invested with a sort of domestic dictatorship, from his
earliest years; the first notion he acquires in life is that he is
born to command, and the first habit which he contracts is that of
being obeyed without resistance. His education tends, then, to give
him the character of a supercilious and a hasty man; irascible,
violent, and ardent in his desires, impatient of obstacles, but
easily discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his first attempt.
The American of the Northern States is surrounded by no slaves in
his childhood; he is even unattended by free servants, and is
usually obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner does he
enter the world than the idea of necessity assails him on every
side: he soon learns to know exactly the natural limit of his
authority; he never expects to subdue those who withstand him, by
force; and he knows that the surest means of obtaining the support
of his fellow-creatures, is to win their favor. He therefore becomes
patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow to act, and persevering in his
designs.
In the Southern States the more immediate wants of life are always
supplied; the inhabitants of those parts are not busied in the
material cares of life, which are always provided for by others; and
their imagination is diverted to more captivating and less definite
objects. The American of the South is fond of grandeur, luxury, and
renown, of gayety, of pleasure, and above all of idleness; nothing
obliges him to exert himself in order to subsist; and as he has no
necessary occupations, he gives way to indolence, and does not even
attempt what would be useful.
But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery in the
North, plunge the inhabitants in those same cares of daily life
which are disdained by the white population of the South. They are
taught from infancy to combat want, and to place comfort above all
the pleasures of the intellect or the heart. The imagination is
extinguished by the trivial details of life, and the ideas become
less numerous and less general, but far more practical and more
precise. As prosperity is the sole aim of exertion, it is
excellently well attained; nature and mankind are turned to the best
pecuniary advantage, and society is dexterously made to contribute
to the welfare of each of its members, whilst individual egotism is
the source of general happiness.
The citizen of the North has not only Experience, but knowledge:
nevertheless he sets but little value upon the pleasures of
knowledge; he esteems it as the means of attaining a certain end,
and he is only anxious to seize its more lucrative applications. The
citizen of the South is more given to act upon impulse; he is more
clever, more frank, more generous, more intellectual, and more
brilliant. The former, with a greater degree of activity, of
common-sense, of information, and of general aptitude, has the
characteristic good and evil qualities of the middle classes. The
latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and the
magnanimity of all aristocracies. If two men are united in society,
who have the same interests, and to a certain extent the same
opinions, but different characters, different acquirements, and a
different style of civilization, it is probable that these men will
not agree. The same remark is applicable to a society of nations.
Slavery, then, does not attack the American Union directly in its
interests, but indirectly in its manners.
[Footnote e: Census of 1790, 3,929,328; 1830, 12,856,165; 1860,
31,443,321; 1870, 38,555,983; 1890, 62,831,900.]
The States which gave their assent to the federal contract in 1790
were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of thirty-four
members. The population, which amounted to nearly 4,000,000 in 1790,
had more than tripled in the space of forty years; and in 1830 it
amounted to nearly 13,000,000. *e Changes of such magnitude cannot
take place without some danger.
A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derives
its principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its members,
their individual weakness, and their limited number. The Americans
who quit the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean to plunge into the western
wilderness, are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of
wealth, and frequently men expelled from the States in which they
were born. When they arrive in the deserts they are unknown to each
other, and they have neither traditions, family feeling, nor the
force of example to check their excesses. The empire of the laws is
feeble amongst them; that of morality is still more powerless. The
settlers who are constantly peopling the valley of the Mississippi
are, then, in every respect very inferior to the Americans who
inhabit the older parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they already
exercise a great influence in its councils; and they arrive at the
government of the commonwealth before they have learnt to govern
themselves. *f
[Footnote f: This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt
that in time society will assume as much stability and regularity in
the West as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic
Ocean.]
The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting
parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the
contract; for their safety is then dependent upon their union. When,
in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did not contain
500,000 inhabitants, *g each of them felt its own insignificance as
an independent people, and this feeling rendered compliance with the
federal authority more easy. But when one of the confederate States
reckons, like the State of New York, 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and
covers an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter of
France, *h it feels its own strength; and although it may continue
to support the Union as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer
regards that body as necessary to its existence, and as it continues
to belong to the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in
the federal assemblies. The probable unanimity of the States is
diminished as their number increases. At present the interests of
the different parts of the Union are not at variance; but who is
able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future, in a country
in which towns are founded from day to day, and States almost from
year to year?
[Footnote g: Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790 [and
5,258,014 in 1890.]]
[Footnote h: The area of the State of New York is 49,170 square
miles. [See U. S. census report of 1890.]]
Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of
inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no
causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the
Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before
that space of time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and
dependencies of the United States will be covered by more than
100,000,000 of inhabitants, and divided into forty States. *i I
admit that these 100,000,000 of men have no ho hostile interests. I
suppose, on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in
the maintenance of the Union; but I am still of opinion that where
there are 100,000,000 of men, and forty distinct nations, unequally
strong, the continuance of the Federal Government can only be a
fortunate accident.
[Footnote i: If the population continues to double every twenty-two
years, as it has done for the last two hundred years, the number of
inhabitants in the United States in 1852 will be twenty millions; in
1874, forty-eight millions; and in 1896, ninety-six millions. This
may still be the case even if the lands on the western slope of the
Rocky Mountains should be found to be unfit for cultivation. The
territory which is already occupied can easily contain this number
of inhabitants. One hundred millions of men disseminated over the
surface of the twenty-four States, and the three dependencies, which
constitute the Union, would only give 762 inhabitants to the square
league; this would be far below the mean population of France, which
is 1,063 to the square league; or of England, which is 1,457; and it
would even be below the population of Switzerland, for that country,
notwithstanding its lakes and mountains, contains 783 inhabitants to
the square league. See "Malte Brun," vol. vi. p. 92.
[The actual result has fallen somewhat short of these calculations,
in spite of the vast territorial acquisitions of the United States:
but in 1899 the population is probably about eighty- seven millions,
including the population of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto
Rico.]]
Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man, until human
nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to
believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold
together forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory
equal to one-half of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry,
ambition, and struggles between them, and to direct their
independent activity to the accomplishment of the same designs.
But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase
arises from the continual changes which take place in the position
of its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to the
Gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude,
a distance of more than 1,200 miles as the bird flies. The frontier
of the United States winds along the whole of this immense line,
sometimes falling within its limits, but more frequently extending
far beyond it, into the waste. It has been calculated that the
whites advance every year a mean distance of seventeen miles along
the whole of his vast boundary. *j Obstacles, such as an
unproductive district, a lake or an Indian nation unexpectedly
encountered, are sometimes met with. The advancing column then halts
for a while; its two extremities fall back upon themselves, and as
soon as they are reunited they proceed onwards. This gradual and
continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains
has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of
men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of God.
[Footnote j: See Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, p.
105.]
Within this first line of conquering settlers towns are built, and
vast States founded. In 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers
sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at the present
day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in
the whole Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly
4,000,000. *k The city of Washington was founded in 1800, in the
very centre of the Union; but such are the changes which have taken
place, that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the
delegates of the most remote Western States are already obliged to
perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris. *l
[Footnote k: 3,672,317 - Census of 1830.]
[Footnote l: The distance from Jefferson, the capital of the State
of Missouri, to Washington is 1,019 miles. ("American Almanac,"
1831, p. 48.)]
All the States are borne onwards at the same time in the path of
fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper in the
same proportion. To the North of the Union the detached branches of
the Alleghany chain, which extend as far as the Atlantic Ocean, form
spacious roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels
of the greatest burden. But from the Potomac to the mouth of the
Mississippi the coast is sandy and flat. In this part of the Union
the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few
harbors which exist amongst these lagoons afford much shallower
water to vessels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of
the North.
This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another cause
proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that slavery, which
is abolished in the North, still exists in the South; and I have
pointed out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the
planter himself.
The North is therefore superior to the South both in commerce *m and
manufacture; the natural consequence of which is the more rapid
increase of population and of wealth within its borders. The States
situate upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean are already
half-peopled. Most of the land is held by an owner; and these
districts cannot therefore receive so many emigrants as the Western
States, where a boundless field is still open to their exertions.
The valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile than the coast of
the Atlantic Ocean. This reason, added to all the others,
contributes to drive the Europeans westward - a fact which may be
rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found that the sum total
of the population of all the United States has about tripled in the
course of forty years. But in the recent States adjacent to the
Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one-fold, within
the same space of time. *n
[Footnote m: The following statements will suffice to show the
difference which exists between the commerce of the South and that
of the North: -
In 1829 the tonnage of all the merchant vessels belonging to
Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four great Southern
States), amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the tonnage
of the vessels of the State of Massachusetts alone amounted to
17,322 tons. (See Legislative Documents, 21st Congress, 2d session,
No. 140, p. 244.) Thus the State of Massachusetts had three times as
much shipping as the four above-mentioned States. Nevertheless the
area of the State of Massachusetts is only 7,335 square miles, and
its population amounts to 610,014 inhabitants [2,238,943 in 1890];
whilst the area of the four other States I have quoted is 210,000
square miles, and their population 3,047,767. Thus the area of the
State of Massachusetts forms only one-thirtieth part of the area of
the four States; and its population is five times smaller than
theirs. (See "Darby's View of the United States.") Slavery is
prejudicial to the commercial prosperity of the South in several
different ways; by diminishing the spirit of enterprise amongst the
whites, and by preventing them from meeting with as numerous a class
of sailors as they require. Sailors are usually taken from the
lowest ranks of the population. But in the Southern States these
lowest ranks are composed of slaves, and it is very difficult to
employ them at sea. They are unable to serve as well as a white
crew, and apprehensions would always be entertained of their
mutinying in the middle of the ocean, or of their escaping in the
foreign countries at which they might touch.]
[Footnote n: "Darby's View of the United States," p. 444.] The
relative position of the central federal power is continually
displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of the Union
was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the environs of
the spot upon which Washington now stands; but the great body of the
people is now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty
years the majority will unquestionably be on the western side of the
Alleghanies. If the Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the
Mississippi is evidently marked out, by its fertility and its
extent, as the future centre of the Federal Government. In thirty or
forty years, that tract of country will have assumed the rank which
naturally belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its
population, compared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be,
in round numbers, as 40 to 11. In a few years the States which
founded the Union will lose the direction of its policy, and the
population of the valley of the Mississippi will preponderate in the
federal assemblies.
This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence towards
the northwest is shown every ten years, when a general census of the
population is made, and the number of delegates which each State
sends to Congress is settled afresh. *o In 1790 Virginia had
nineteen representatives in Congress. This number continued to
increase until the year 1813, when it reached to twenty-three; from
that time it began to decrease, and in 1833 Virginia elected only
twenty-one representatives. *p During the same period the State of
New York progressed in the contrary direction: in 1790 it had ten
representatives in Congress; in 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823,
thirty-four; and in 1833, forty. The State of Ohio had only one
representative in 1803, and in 1833 it had already nineteen.
[Footnote o: It may be seen that in the course of the last ten years
(1820-1830) the population of one district, as, for instance, the
State of Delaware, has increased in the proportion of five per
cent.; whilst that of another, as the territory of Michigan, has
increased 250 per cent. Thus the population of Virginia had
augmented thirteen per cent., and that of the border State of Ohio
sixty-one per cent., in the same space of time. The general table of
these changes, which is given in the "National Calendar," displays a
striking picture of the unequal fortunes of the different States.]
[Footnote p: It has just been said that in the course of the last
term the population of Virginia has increased thirteen per cent.;
and it is necessary to explain how the number of representatives for
a State may decrease, when the population of that State, far from
diminishing, is actually upon the increase. I take the State of
Virginia, to which I have already alluded, as my term of comparison.
The number of representatives of Virginia in 1823 was proportionate
to the total number of the representatives of the Union, and to the
relation which the population bore to that of the whole Union: in
1833 the number of representatives of Virginia was likewise
proportionate to the total number of the representatives of the
Union, and to the relation which its population, augmented in the
course of ten years, bore to the augmented population of the Union
in the same space of time. The new number of Virginian
representatives will then be to the old numver, on the one hand, as
the new numver of all the representatives is to the old number; and,
on the other hand, as the augmentation of the population of Virginia
is to that of the whole population of the country. Thus, if the
increase of the population of the lesser country be to that of the
greater in an exact inverse ratio of the proportion between the new
and the old numbers of all the representatives, the number of the
representatives of Virginia will remain stationary; and if the
increase of the Virginian population be to that of the whole Union
in a feeblerratio than the new number of the representatives of the
Union to the old number, the number of the representatives of
Virginia must decrease. [Thus, to the 56th Congress in 1899,
Virginia and West Virginia send only fourteen representatives.]]
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part VIII It is
difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is rich and
strong with one which is poor and weak, even if it were proved that
the strength and wealth of the one are not the causes of the
weakness and poverty of the other. But union is still more difficult
to maintain at a time at which one party is losing strength, and the
other is gaining it. This rapid and disproportionate increase of
certain States threatens the independence of the others. New York
might perhaps succeed, with its 2,000,000 of inhabitants and its
forty representatives, in dictating to the other States in Congress.
But even if the more powerful States make no attempt to bear down
the lesser ones, the danger still exists; for there is almost as
much in the possibility of the act as in the act itself. The weak
generally mistrust the justice and the reason of the strong. The
States which increase less rapidly than the others look upon those
which are more favored by fortune with envy and suspicion. Hence
arise the deep-seated uneasiness and ill-defined agitation which are
observable in the South, and which form so striking a contrast to
the confidence and prosperity which are common to other parts of the
Union. I am inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the
Southern provinces upon a recent occasion are attributable to no
other cause. The inhabitants of the Southern States are, of all the
Americans, those who are most interested in the maintenance of the
Union; they would assuredly suffer most from being left to
themselves; and yet they are the only citizens who threaten to break
the tie of confederation. But it is easy to perceive that the South,
which has given four Presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and
Monroe, to the Union, which perceives that it is losing its federal
influence, and that the number of its representatives in Congress is
diminishing from year to year, whilst those of the Northern and
Western States are increasing; the South, which is peopled with
ardent and irascible beings, is becoming more and more irritated and
alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their present position and
remember their past influence, with the melancholy uneasiness of men
who suspect oppression: if they discover a law of the Union which is
not unequivocally favorable to their interests, they protest against
it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent remonstrances are not
listened to, they threaten to quit an association which loads them
with burdens whilst it deprives them of their due profits. "The
tariff," said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832, "enriches the
North, and ruins the South; for if this were not the case, to what
can we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth of the
North, with its inclement skies and arid soil; whilst the South,
which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly declining?" *q
[Footnote q: See the report of its committee to the Convention which
proclaimed the nullification of the tariff in South Carolina.]
If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that each
generation at least might have time to disappear with the order of
things under which it had lived, the danger would be less; but the
progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost
revolutionary. The same citizen may have lived to see his State take
the lead in the Union, and afterwards become powerless in the
federal assemblies; and an Anglo-American republic has been known to
grow as rapidly as a man passing from birth and infancy to maturity
in the course of thirty years. It must not be imagined, however,
that the States which lose their preponderance, also lose their
population or their riches: no stop is put to their prosperity, and
they even go on to increase more rapidly than any kingdom in Europe.
*r But they believe themselves to be impoverished because their
wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors; any
they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly come into
collision with a power greater than their own: *s thus they are more
hurt in their feelings and their passions than in their interests.
But this is amply sufficient to endanger the maintenance of the
Union. If kings and peoples had only had their true interests in
view ever since the beginning of the world, the name of war would
scarcely be known among mankind.
[Footnote r: The population of a country assuredly constitutes the
first element of its wealth. In the ten years (1820-1830) during
which Virginia lost two of its representatives in Congress, its
population increased in the proportion of 13.7 per cent.; that of
Carolina in the proportion of fifteen per cent.; and that of
Georgia, 15.5 per cent. (See the "American Almanac," 1832, p. 162)
But the population of Russia, which increases more rapidly than that
of any other European country, only augments in ten years at the
rate of 9.5 per cent.; in France, at the rate of seven per cent.;
and in Europe in general, at the rate of 4.7 per cent. (See "Malte
Brun," vol. vi. p. 95)]
[Footnote s: It must be admitted, however, that the depreciation
which has taken place in the value of tobacco, during the last fifty
years, has notably diminished the opulence of the Southern planters:
but this circumstance is as independent of the will of their
Northern brethren as it is of their own.]
Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the most
serious dangers that threaten them, since it tends to create in some
of the confederate States that over-excitement which accompanies a
rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in others those feelings of
envy, mistrust, and regret which usually attend upon the loss of it.
The Americans contemplate this extraordinary and hasty progress with
exultation; but they would be wiser to consider it with sorrow and
alarm. The Americans of the United States must inevitably become one
of the greatest nations in the world; their offset will cover almost
the whole of North America; the continent which they inhabit is
their dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them to take
possession of it so soon? Riches, power, and renown cannot fail to
be theirs at some future time, but they rush upon their fortune as
if but a moment remained for them to make it their own.
I think that I have demonstrated that the existence of the present
confederation depends entirely on the continued assent of all the
confederates; and, starting from this principle, I have inquired
into the causes which may induce the several States to separate from
the others. The Union may, however, perish in two different ways:
one of the confederate States may choose to retire from the compact,
and so forcibly to sever the federal tie; and it is to this
supposition that most of the remarks that I have made apply: or the
authority of the Federal Government may be progressively entrenched
on by the simultaneous tendency of the united republics to resume
their independence. The central power, successively stripped of all
its prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, would
become incompetent to fulfil its purpose; and the second Union would
perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inaptitude. The gradual
weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead to the
dissolution of the Union, is a distinct circumstance, that may
produce a variety of minor consequences before it operates so
violent a change. The confederation might still subsist, although
its Government were reduced to such a degree of inanition as to
paralyze the nation, to cause internal anarchy, and to check the
general prosperity of the country.
After having investigated the causes which may induce the
Anglo-Americans to disunite, it is important to inquire whether, if
the Union continues to subsist, their Government will extend or
contract its sphere of action, and whether it will become more
energetic or more weak.
The Americans are evidently disposed to look upon their future
condition with alarm. They perceive that in most of the nations of
the world the exercise of the rights of sovereignty tends to fall
under the control of a few individuals, and they are dismayed by the
idea that such will also be the case in their own country. Even the
statesmen feel, or affect to feel, these fears; for, in America,
centralization is by no means popular, and there is no surer means
of courting the majority than by inveighing against the
encroachments of the central power. The Americans do not perceive
that the countries in which this alarming tendency to centralization
exists are inhabited by a single people; whilst the fact of the
Union being composed of different confederate communities is
sufficient to baffle all the inferences which might be drawn from
analogous circumstances. I confess that I am inclined to consider
the fears of a great number of Americans as purely imaginary; and
far from participating in their dread of the consolidation of power
in the hands of the Union, I think that the Federal Government is
visibly losing strength.
To prove this assertion I shall not have recourse to any remote
occurrences, but to circumstances which I have myself witnessed, and
which belong to our own time.
An attentive examination of what is going on in the United States
will easily convince us that two opposite tendencies exist in that
country, like two distinct currents flowing in contrary directions
in the same channel. The Union has now existed for forty-five years,
and in the course of that time a vast number of provincial
prejudices, which were at first hostile to its power, have died
away. The patriotic feeling which attached each of the Americans to
his own native State is become less exclusive; and the different
parts of the Union have become more intimately connected the better
they have become acquainted with each other. The post, *t that great
instrument of intellectual intercourse, now reaches into the
backwoods; and steamboats have established daily means of
communication between the different points of the coast. An inland
navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down
the rivers of the country. *u And to these facilities of nature and
art may be added those restless cravings, that busy-mindedness, and
love of pelf, which are constantly urging the American into active
life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He
crosses the country in every direction; he visits all the various
populations of the land; and there is not a province in France in
which the natives are so well known to each other as the 13,000,000
of men who cover the territory of the United States.
[Footnote t: In 1832, the district of Michigan, which only contains
31,639 inhabitants, and is still an almost unexplored wilderness,
possessed 940 miles of mail-roads. The territory of Arkansas, which
is still more uncultivated, was already intersected by 1,938 miles
of mail-roads. (See the report of the General Post Office, November
30, 1833.) The postage of newspapers alone in the whole Union
amounted to $254,796.]
[Footnote u: In the course of ten years, from 1821 to 1831, 271
steamboats have been launched upon the rivers which water the valley
of the Mississippi alone. In 1829 259 steamboats existed in the
United States. (See Legislative Documents, No. 140, p. 274.)]
But whilst the Americans intermingle, they grow in resemblance of
each other; the differences resulting from their climate, their
origin, and their institutions, diminish; and they all draw nearer
and nearer to the common type. Every year, thousands of men leave
the North to settle in different parts of the Union: they bring with
them their faith, their opinions, and their manners; and as they are
more enlighthned than the men amongst whom they are about to dwell,
they soon rise to the head of affairs, and they adapt society to
their own advantage. This continual emigration of the North to the
South is peculiarly favorable to the fusion of all the different
provincial characters into one national character. The civilization
of the North appears to be the common standard, to which the whole
nation will one day be assimilated.
The commercial ties which unite the confederate States are
strengthened by the increasing manufactures of the Americans; and
the union which began to exist in their opinions, gradually forms a
part of their habits: the course of time has swept away the bugbear
thoughts which haunted the imaginations of the citizens in 1789. The
federal power is not become oppressive; it has not destroyed the
independence of the States; it has not subjected the confederates to
monarchial institutions; and the Union has not rendered the lesser
States dependent upon the larger ones; but the confederation has
continued to increase in population, in wealth, and in power. I am
therefore convinced that the natural obstacles to the continuance of
the American Union are not so powerful at the present time as they
were in 1789; and that the enemies of the Union are not so numerous.
Nevertheless, a careful examination of the history of the United
States for the last forty-five years will readily convince us that
the federal power is declining; nor is it difficult to explain the
causes of this phenomenon. *v When the Constitution of 1789 was
promulgated, the nation was a prey to anarchy; the Union, which
succeeded this confusion, excited much dread and much animosity; but
it was warmly supported because it satisfied an imperious want.
Thus, although it was more attacked than it is now, the federal
power soon reached the maximum of its authority, as is usually the
case with a government which triumphs after having braced its
strength by the struggle. At that time the interpretation of the
Constitution seemed to extend, rather than to repress, the federal
sovereignty; and the Union offered, in several respects, the
appearance of a single and undivided people, directed in its foreign
and internal policy by a single Government. But to attain this point
the people had risen, to a certain extent, above itself.
[Footnote v: [Since 1861 the movement is certainly in the opposite
direction, and the federal power has largely increased, and tends to
further increase.]]
The Constitution had not destroyed the distinct sovereignty of the
States; and all communities, of whatever nature they may be, are
impelled by a secret propensity to assert their independence. This
propensity is still more decided in a country like America, in which
every village forms a sort of republic accustomed to conduct its own
affairs. It therefore cost the States an effort to submit to the
federal supremacy; and all efforts, however successful they may be,
necessarily subside with the causes in which they originated.
As the Federal Government consolidated its authority, America
resumed its rank amongst the nations, peace returned to its
frontiers, and public credit was restored; confusion was succeeded
by a fixed state of things, which was favorable to the full and free
exercise of industrious enterprise. It was this very prosperity
which made the Americans forget the cause to which it was
attributable; and when once the danger was passed, the energy and
the patriotism which had enabled them to brave it disappeared from
amongst them. No sooner were they delivered from the cares which
oppressed them, than they easily returned to their ordinary habits,
and gave themselves up without resistance to their natural
inclinations. When a powerful Government no longer appeared to be
necessary, they once more began to think it irksome. The Union
encouraged a general prosperity, and the States were not inclined to
abandon the Union; but they desired to render the action of the
power which represented that body as light as possible. The general
principle of Union was adopted, but in every minor detail there was
an actual tendency to independence. The principle of confederation
was every day more easily admitted, and more rarely applied; so that
the Federal Government brought about its own decline, whilst it was
creating order and peace.
As soon as this tendency of public opinion began to be manifested
externally, the leaders of parties, who live by the passions of the
people, began to work it to their own advantage. The position of the
Federal Government then became exceedingly critical. Its enemies
were in possession of the popular favor; and they obtained the right
of conducting its policy by pledging themselves to lessen its
influence. From that time forwards the Government of the Union has
invariably been obliged to recede, as often as it has attempted to
enter the lists with the governments of the States. And whenever an
interpretation of the terms of the Federal Constitution has been
called for, that interpretation has most frequently been opposed to
the Union, and favorable to the States.
The Constitution invested the Federal Government with the right of
providing for the interests of the nation; and it had been held that
no other authority was so fit to superintend the "internal
improvements" which affected the prosperity of the whole Union;
such, for instance, as the cutting of canals. But the States were
alarmed at a power, distinct from their own, which could thus
dispose of a portion of their territory; and they were afraid that
the central Government would, by this means, acquire a formidable
extent of patronage within their own confines, and exercise a degree
of influence which they intended to reserve exclusively to their own
agents. The Democratic party, which has constantly been opposed to
the increase of the federal authority, then accused the Congress of
usurpation, and the Chief Magistrate of ambition. The central
Government was intimidated by the opposition; and it soon
acknowledged its error, promising exactly to confine its influence
for the future within the circle which was prescribed to it.
The Constitution confers upon the Union the right of treating with
foreign nations. The Indian tribes, which border upon the frontiers
of the United States, had usually been regarded in this light. As
long as these savages consented to retire before the civilized
settlers, the federal right was not contested: but as soon as an
Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a given spot, the
adjacent States claimed possession of the lands and the rights of
sovereignty over the natives. The central Government soon recognized
both these claims; and after it had concluded treaties with the
Indians as independent nations, it gave them up as subjects to the
legislative tyranny of the States. *w
[Footnote w: See in the Legislative Documents, already quoted in
speaking of the Indians, the letter of the President of the United
States to the Cherokees, his correspondence on this subject with his
agents, and his messages to Congress.]
Some of the States which had been founded upon the coast of the
Atlantic, extended indefinitely to the West, into wild regions where
no European had ever penetrated. The States whose confines were
irrevocably fixed, looked with a jealous eye upon the unbounded
regions which the future would enable their neighbors to explore.
The latter then agreed, with a view to conciliate the others, and to
facilitate the act of union, to lay down their own boundaries, and
to abandon all the territory which lay beyond those limits to the
confederation at large. *x Thenceforward the Federal Government
became the owner of all the uncultivated lands which lie beyond the
borders of the thirteen States first confederated. It was invested
with the right of parcelling and selling them, and the sums derived
from this source were exclusively reserved to the public treasure of
the Union, in order to furnish supplies for purchasing tracts of
country from the Indians, for opening roads to the remote
settlements, and for accelerating the increase of civilization as
much as possible. New States have, however, been formed in the
course of time, in the midst of those wilds which were formerly
ceded by the inhabitants of the shores of the Atlantic. Congress has
gone on to sell, for the profit of the nation at large, the
uncultivated lands which those new States contained. But the latter
at length asserted that, as they were now fully constituted, they
ought to enjoy the exclusive right of converting the produce of
these sales to their own use. As their remonstrances became more and
more threatening, Congress thought fit to deprive the Union of a
portion of the privileges which it had hitherto enjoyed; and at the
end of 1832 it passed a law by which the greatest part of the
revenue derived from the sale of lands was made over to the new
western republics, although the lands themselves were not ceded to
them. *y
[Footnote x: The first act of session was made by the State of New
York in 1780; Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South and North
Carolina, followed this example at different times, and lastly, the
act of cession of Georgia was made as recently as 1802.]
[Footnote y: It is true that the President refused his assent to
this law; but he completely adopted it in principle. (See Message of
December 8, 1833.)]
The slightest observation in the United States enables one to
appreciate the advantages which the country derives from the bank.
These advantages are of several kinds, but one of them is peculiarly
striking to the stranger. The banknotes of the United States are
taken upon the borders of the desert for the same value as at
Philadelphia, where the bank conducts its operations. *z
[Footnote z: The present Bank of the United States was established
in 1816, with a capital of $35,000,000; its charter expires in 1836.
Last year Congress passed a law to renew it, but the President put
his veto upon the bill. The struggle is still going on with great
violence on either side, and the speedy fall of the bank may easily
be foreseen. [It was soon afterwards extinguished by General
Jackson.]]
The Bank of the United States is nevertheless the object of great
animosity. Its directors have proclaimed their hostility to the
President: and they are accused, not without some show of
probability, of having abused their influence to thwart his
election. The President therefore attacks the establishment which
they represent with all the warmth of personal enmity; and he is
encouraged in the pursuit of his revenge by the conviction that he
is supported by the secret propensities of the majority. The bank
may be regarded as the great monetary tie of the Union, just as
Congress is the great legislative tie; and the same passions which
tend to render the States independent of the central power,
contribute to the overthrow of the bank.
The Bank of the United States always holds a great number of the
notes issued by the provincial banks, which it can at any time
oblige them to convert into cash. It has itself nothing to fear from
a similar demand, as the extent of its resources enables it to meet
all claims. But the existence of the provincial banks is thus
threatened, and their operations are restricted, since they are only
able to issue a quantity of notes duly proportioned to their
capital. They submit with impatience to this salutary control. The
newspapers which they have bought over, and the President, whose
interest renders him their instrument, attack the bank with the
greatest vehemence. They rouse the local passions and the blind
democratic instinct of the country to aid their cause; and they
assert that the bank directors form a permanent aristocratic body,
whose influence must ultimately be felt in the Government, and must
affect those principles of equality upon which society rests in
America.
The contest between the bank and its opponents is only an incident
in the great struggle which is going on in America between the
provinces and the central power; between the spirit of democratic
independence and the spirit of gradation and subordination. I do not
mean that the enemies of the bank are identically the same
individuals who, on other points, attack the Federal Government; but
I assert that the attacks directed against the bank of the United
States originate in the same propensities which militate against the
Federal Government; and that the very numerous opponents of the
former afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of the
latter.
The Union has never displayed so much weakness as in the celebrated
question of the tariff. *a The wars of the French Revolution and of
1812 had created manufacturing establishments in the North of the
Union, by cutting off all free communication between America and
Europe. When peace was concluded, and the channel of intercourse
reopened by which the produce of Europe was transmitted to the New
World, the Americans thought fit to establish a system of import
duties, for the twofold purpose of protecting their incipient
manufactures and of paying off the amount of the debt contracted
during the war. The Southern States, which have no manufactures to
encourage, and which are exclusively agricultural, soon complained
of this measure. Such were the simple facts, and I do not pretend to
examine in this place whether their complaints were well founded or
unjust.
[Footnote a: See principally for the details of this affair, the
Legislative Documents, 22d Congress, 2d Session, No. 30.]
As early as the year 1820, South Carolina declared, in a petition to
Congress, that the tariff was "unconstitutional, oppressive, and
unjust." And the States of Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina,
Alabama, and Mississippi subsequently remonstrated against it with
more or less vigor. But Congress, far from lending an ear to these
complaints, raised the scale of tariff duties in the years 1824 and
1828, and recognized anew the principle on which it was founded. A
doctrine was then proclaimed, or rather revived, in the South, which
took the name of Nullification.
I have shown in the proper place that the object of the Federal
Constitution was not to form a league, but to create a national
government. The Americans of the United States form a sole and
undivided people, in all the cases which are specified by that
Constitution; and upon these points the will of the nation is
expressed, as it is in all constitutional nations, by the voice of
the majority. When the majority has pronounced its decision, it is
the duty of the minority to submit. Such is the sound legal
doctrine, and the only one which agrees with the text of the
Constitution, and the known intention of those who framed it.
The partisans of Nullification in the South maintain, on the
contrary, that the intention of the Americans in uniting was not to
reduce themselves to the condition of one and the same people; that
they meant to constitute a league of independent States; and that
each State, consequently retains its entire sovereignty, if not de
facto, at least de jure; and has the right of putting its own
construction upon the laws of Congress, and of suspending their
execution within the limits of its own territory, if they are held
to be unconstitutional and unjust.
The entire doctrine of Nullification is comprised in a sentence
uttered by Vice-President Calhoun, the head of that party in the
South, before the Senate of the United States, in the year 1833:
could: "The Constitution is a compact to which the States were
parties in their sovereign capacity; now, whenever a compact is
entered into by parties which acknowledge no tribunal above their
authority to decide in the last resort, each of them has a right to
judge for itself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations
of the instrument." It is evident that a similar doctrine destroys
the very basis of the Federal Constitution, and brings back all the
evils of the old confederation, from which the Americans were
supposed to have had a safe deliverance.
When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to its
remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification
to the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in its former system;
and at length the storm broke out. In the course of 1832 the
citizens of South Carolina, *b named a national Convention, to
consult upon the extraordinary measures which they were called upon
to take; and on November 24th of the same year this Convention
promulgated a law, under the form of a decree, which annulled the
federal law of the tariff, forbade the levy of the imposts which
that law commands, and refused to recognize the appeal which might
be made to the federal courts of law. *c This decree was only to be
put in execution in the ensuing month of February, and it was
intimated, that if Congress modified the tariff before that period,
South Carolina might be induced to proceed no further with her
menaces; and a vague desire was afterwards expressed of submitting
the question to an extraordinary assembly of all the confederate
States.
[Footnote b: That is to say, the majority of the people; for the
opposite party, called the Union party, always formed a very strong
and active minority. Carolina may contain about 47,000 electors;
30,000 were in favor of nullification, and 17,000 opposed to it.]
[Footnote c: This decree was preceded by a report of the committee
by which it was framed, containing the explanation of the motives
and object of the law. The following passage occurs in it, p. 34: -
"When the rights reserved by the Constitution to the different
States are deliberately violated, it is the duty and the right of
those States to interfere, in order to check the progress of the
evil; to resist usurpation, and to maintain, within their respective
limits, those powers and privileges which belong to them as
independent sovereign States. If they were destitute of this right,
they would not be sovereign. South Carolina declares that she
acknowledges no tribunal upon earth above her authority. She has
indeed entered into a solemn compact of union with the other States;
but she demands, and will exercise, the right of putting her own
construction upon it; and when this compact is violated by her
sister States, and by the Government which they have created, she is
determined to avail herself of the unquestionable right of judging
what is the extent of the infraction, and what are the measures best
fitted to obtain justice."]
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part IX
In the meantime South Carolina armed her militia, and prepared for
war. But Congress, which had slighted its suppliant subjects,
listened to their complaints as soon as they were found to have
taken up arms. *d A law was passed, by which the tariff duties were
to be progressively reduced for ten years, until they were brought
so low as not to exceed the amount of supplies necessary to the
Government. *e Thus Congress completely abandoned the principle of
the tariff; and substituted a mere fiscal impost to a system of
protective duties. *f The Government of the Union, in order to
conceal its defeat, had recourse to an expedient which is very much
in vogue with feeble governments. It yielded the point de facto, but
it remained inflexible upon the principles in question; and whilst
Congress was altering the tariff law, it passed another bill, by
which the President was invested with extraordinary powers, enabling
him to overcome by force a resistance which was then no longer to be
apprehended.
[Footnote d: Congress was finally decided to take this step by the
conduct of the powerful State of Virginia, whose legislature offered
to serve as mediator between the Union and South Carolina. Hitherto
the latter State had appeared to be entirely abandoned, even by the
States which had joined in her remonstrances.]
[Footnote e: This law was passed on March 2, 1833.]
[Footnote f: This bill was brought in by Mr. Clay, and it passed in
four days through both Houses of Congress by an immense majority.]
But South Carolina did not consent to leave the Union in the
enjoyment of these scanty trophies of success: the same national
Convention which had annulled the tariff bill, met again, and
accepted the proffered concession; but at the same time it declared
it unabated perseverance in the doctrine of Nullification: and to
prove what it said, it annulled the law investing the President with
extraordinary powers, although it was very certain that the clauses
of that law would never be carried into effect.
Almost all the controversies of which I have been speaking have
taken place under the Presidency of General Jackson; and it cannot
be denied that in the question of the tariff he has supported the
claims of the Union with vigor and with skill. I am, however, of
opinion that the conduct of the individual who now represents the
Federal Government may be reckoned as one of the dangers which
threaten its continuance.
Some persons in Europe have formed an opinion of the possible
influence of General Jackson upon the affairs of his country, which
appears highly extravagant to those who have seen more of the
subject. We have been told that General Jackson has won sundry
battles, that he is an energetic man, prone by nature and by habit
to the use of force, covetous of power, and a despot by taste. All
this may perhaps be true; but the inferences which have been drawn
from these truths are exceedingly erroneous. It has been imagined
that General Jackson is bent on establishing a dictatorship in
America, on introducing a military spirit, and on giving a degree of
influence to the central authority which cannot but be dangerous to
provincial liberties. But in America the time for similar
undertakings, and the age for men of this kind, is not yet come: if
General Jackson had entertained a hope of exercising his authority
in this manner, he would infallibly have forfeited his political
station, and compromised his life; accordingly he has not been so
imprudent as to make any such attempt.
Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the President belongs
to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to the bare
and precise letter of the Constitution, and which never puts a
construction upon that act favorable to the Government of the Union;
far from standing forth as the champion of centralization, General
Jackson is the agent of all the jealousies of the States; and he was
placed in the lofty station he occupies by the passions of the
people which are most opposed to the central Government. It is by
perpetually flattering these passions that he maintains his station
and his popularity. General Jackson is the slave of the majority: he
yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands; say rather,
that he anticipates and forestalls them.
Whenever the governments of the States come into collision with that
of the Union, the President is generally the first to question his
own rights: he almost always outstrips the legislature; and when the
extent of the federal power is controverted, he takes part, as it
were, against himself; he conceals his official interests, and
extinguishes his own natural inclinations. Not indeed that he is
naturally weak or hostile to the Union; for when the majority
decided against the claims of the partisans of nullification, he put
himself at its head, asserted the doctrines which the nation held
distinctly and energetically, and was the first to recommend
forcible measures; but General Jackson appears to me, if I may use
the American expressions, to be a Federalist by taste, and a
Republican by calculation.
General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority, but when
he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all obstacles
in the pursuit of the objects which the community approves, or of
those which it does not look upon with a jealous eye. He is
supported by a power with which his predecessors were unacquainted;
and he tramples on his personal enemies whenever they cross his path
with a facility which no former President ever enjoyed; he takes
upon himself the responsibility of measures which no one before him
would have ventured to attempt: he even treats the national
representatives with disdain approaching to insult; he puts his veto
upon the laws of Congress, and frequently neglects to reply to that
powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes treats his master
roughly. The power of General Jackson perpetually increases; but
that of the President declines; in his hands the Federal Government
is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands of his
successor.
I am strangely mistaken if the Federal Government of the United
States be not constantly losing strength, retiring gradually from
public affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more and more. It
is naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions to
strength. On the other hand, I thought that I remarked a more lively
sense of independence, and a more decided attachment to provincial
government in the States. The Union is to subsist, but to subsist as
a shadow; it is to be strong in certain cases, and weak in all
others; in time of warfare, it is to be able to concentrate all the
forces of the nation and all the resources of the country in its
hands; and in time of peace its existence is to be scarcely
perceptible: as if this alternate debility and vigor were natural or
possible.
I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able to check
this general impulse of public opinion; the causes in which it
originated do not cease to operate with the same effect. The change
will therefore go on, and it may be predicted that, unless some
extraordinary event occurs, the Government of the Union will grow
weaker and weaker every day.
I think, however, that the period is still remote at which the
federal power will be entirely extinguished by its inability to
protect itself and to maintain peace in the country. The Union is
sanctioned by the manners and desires of the people; its results are
palpable, its benefits visible. When it is perceived that the
weakness of the Federal Government compromises the existence of the
Union, I do not doubt that a reaction will take place with a view to
increase its strength.
The Government of the United States is, of all the federal
governments which have hitherto been established, the one which is
most naturally destined to act. As long as it is only indirectly
assailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as long as its
substance is not seriously altered, a change of opinion, an internal
crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigor which it requires. The
point which I have been most anxious to put in a clear light is
simply this: Many people, especially in France, imagine that a
change in opinion is going on in the United States, which is
favorable to a centralization of power in the hands of the President
and the Congress. I hold that a contrary tendency may distinctly be
observed. So far is the Federal Government from acquiring strength,
and from threatening the sovereignty of the States, as it grows
older, that I maintain it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that
the sovereignty of the Union alone is in danger. Such are the facts
which the present time discloses. The future conceals the final
result of this tendency, and the events which may check, retard, or
accelerate the changes I have described; but I do not affect to be
able to remove the veil which hides them from our sight.
Of The Republican Institutions Of The United States, And What Their
Chances Of Duration Are
The Union is accidental - The Republican institutions have more
prospect of permanence - A republic for the present the natural
state of the Anglo-Americans - Reason of this - In order to destroy
it, all the laws must be changed at the same time, and a great
alteration take place in manners -Difficulties Experienced by the
Americans in creating an aristocracy.
The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of war into the
heart of those States which are now confederate, with standing
armies, a dictatorship, and a heavy taxation, might, eventually,
compromise the fate of the republican institutions. But we ought not
to confound the future prospects of the republic with those of the
Union. The Union is an accident, which will only last as long as
circumstances are favorable to its existence; but a republican form
of government seems to me to be the natural state of the Americans;
which nothing but the continued action of hostile causes, always
acting in the same direction, could change into a monarchy. The
Union exists principally in the law which formed it; one revolution,
one change in public opinion, might destroy it forever; but the
republic has a much deeper foundation to rest upon.
What is understood by a republican government in the United States
is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself. It is a regular
state of things really founded upon the enlightened will of the
people. It is a conciliatory government under which resolutions are
allowed time to ripen; and in which they are deliberately discussed,
and executed with mature judgment. The republicans in the United
States set a high value upon morality, respect religious belief, and
acknowledge the existence of rights. They profess to think that a
people ought to be moral,religious, and temperate, in proportion as
it is free. What is called the republic in the United States, is the
tranquil rule of the majority, which, after having had time to
examine itself, and to give proof of its existence, is the common
source of all the powers of the State. But the power of the majority
is not of itself unlimited. In the moral world humanity, justice,
and reason enjoy an undisputed supremacy; in the political world
vested rights are treated with no less deference. The majority
recognizes these two barriers; and if it now and then overstep them,
it is because, like individuals, it has passions, and, like them, it
is prone to do what is wrong, whilst it discerns what is right.
But the demagogues of Europe have made strange discoveries. A
republic is not, according to them, the rule of the majority, as has
hitherto been thought, but the rule of those who are strenuous
partisans of the majority. It is not the people who preponderates in
this kind of government, but those who are best versed in the good
qualities of the people. A happy distinction, which allows men to
act in the name of nations without consulting them, and to claim
their gratitude whilst their rights are spurned. A republican
government, moreover, is the only one which claims the right of
doing whatever it chooses, and despising what men have hitherto
respected, from the highest moral obligations to the vulgar rules of
common-sense. It had been supposed, until our time, that despotism
was odious, under whatever form it appeared. But it is a discovery
of modern days that there are such things as legitimate tyranny and
holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of the
people.
The ideas which the Americans have adopted respecting the republican
form of government, render it easy for them to live under it, and
insure its duration. If, in their country, this form be often
practically bad, at least it is theoretically good; and, in the end,
the people always acts in conformity to it.
It was impossible at the foundation of the States, and it would
still be difficult, to establish a central administration in
America. The inhabitants are dispersed over too great a space, and
separated by too many natural obstacles, for one man to undertake to
direct the details of their existence. America is therefore
pre-eminently the country of provincial and municipal government. To
this cause, which was plainly felt by all the Europeans of the New
World, the Anglo-Americans added several others peculiar to
themselves.
At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies,
municipal liberty had already penetrated into the laws as well as
the manners of the English; and the emigrants adopted it, not only
as a necessary thing, but as a benefit which they knew how to
appreciate. We have already seen the manner in which the colonies
were founded: every province, and almost every district, was peopled
separately by men who were strangers to each other, or who
associated with very different purposes. The English settlers in the
United States, therefore, early perceived that they were divided
into a great number of small and distinct communities which belonged
to no common centre; and that it was needful for each of these
little communities to take care of its own affairs, since there did
not appear to be any central authority which was naturally bound and
easily enabled to provide for them. Thus, the nature of the country,
the manner in which the British colonies were founded, the habits of
the first emigrants, in short everything, united to promote, in an
extraordinary degree, municipal and provincial liberties.
In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of the
country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to
destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be
necessary to abolish all the laws at once. At the present day it
would be even more difficult for a party to succeed in founding a
monarchy in the United States than for a set of men to proclaim that
France should henceforward be a republic. Royalty would not find a
system of legislation prepared for it beforehand; and a monarchy
would then exist, really surrounded by republican institutions. The
monarchical principle would likewise have great difficulty in
penetrating into the manners of the Americans.
In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an
isolated doctrine bearing no relation to the prevailing manners and
ideas of the people: it may, on the contrary, be regarded as the
last link of a chain of opinions which binds the whole Anglo-
American world. That Providence has given to every human being the
degree of reason necessary to direct himself in the affairs which
interest him exclusively - such is the grand maxim upon which civil
and political society rests in the United States. The father of a
family applies it to his children; the master to his servants; the
township to its officers; the province to its townships; the State
to its provinces; the Union to the States; and when extended to the
nation, it becomes the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.
Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the
republic is the same which governs the greater part of human
actions; republican notions insinuate themselves into all the ideas,
opinions, and habits of the Americans, whilst they are formerly
recognized by the legislation: and before this legislation can be
altered the whole community must undergo very serious changes. In
the United States, even the religion of most of the citizens is
republican, since it submits the truths of the other world to
private judgment: as in politics the care of its temporal interests
is abandoned to the good sense of the people. Thus every man is
allowed freely to take that road which he thinks will lead him to
heaven; just as the law permits every citizen to have the right of
choosing his government.
It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all having
the same tendency, can substitute for this combination of laws,
opinions, and manners, a mass of opposite opinions, manners, and
laws.
If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only
yield after a laborious social process, often interrupted, and as
often resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will not
become totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have
succeeded to that which now exists. Now, it must be admitted that
there is no symptom or presage of the approach of such a revolution.
There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the
United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he
finds political society. The laws are incessantly changing, and at
first sight it seems impossible that a people so variable in its
desires should avoid adopting, within a short space of time, a
completely new form of government. Such apprehensions are, however,
premature; the instability which affects political institutions is
of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded: the first, which
modifies secondary laws, is not incompatible with a very settled
state of society; the other shakes the very foundations of the
Constitution, and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation;
this species of instability is always followed by troubles and
revolutions, and the nation which suffers under it is in a state of
violent transition.
Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability
have no necessary connection; for they have been found united or
separate, according to times and circumstances. The first is common
in the United States, but not the second: the Americans often change
their laws, but the foundation of the Constitution is respected.
In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the
monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The French of
that period were not only friends of the monarchy, but they thought
it impossible to put anything in its place; they received it as we
receive the rays of the sun and the return of the seasons. Amongst
them the royal power had neither advocates nor opponents. In like
manner does the republican government exist in America, without
contention or opposition; without proofs and arguments, by a tacit
agreement, a sort of consensus universalis. It is, however, my
opinion that by changing their administrative forms as often as they
do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the future
stability of their government.
It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their
designs by the mutability of the legislation, will learn to look
upon republican institutions as an inconvenient form of society; the
evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments
might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the fundamental
principles of the Constitution, and indirectly bring about a
revolution; but this epoch is still very remote.
It may, however, be foreseen even now, that when the Americans lose
their republican institutions they will speedily arrive at a
despotic government, without a long interval of limited monarchy.
Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more absolute than the
authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the
powers which had fearlessly been intrusted to an elected magistrate
are then transferred to a hereditary sovereign. This is true in
general, but it is more peculiarly applicable to a democratic
republic. In the United States, the magistrates are not elected by a
particular class of citizens, but by the majority of the nation;
they are the immediate representatives of the passions of the
multitude; and as they are wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they
excite neither hatred nor fear: hence, as I have already shown, very
little care has been taken to limit their influence, and they are
left in possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of
things has engendered habits which would outlive itself; the
American magistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to be
responsible for the exercise of it; and it is impossible to say what
bounds could then be set to tyranny.
Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise
in America, and they already predict the exact period at which it
will be able to assume the reins of government. I have previously
observed, and I repeat my assertion, that the present tendency of
American society appears to me to become more and more democratic.
Nevertheless, I do not assert that the Americans will not, at some
future time, restrict the circle of political rights in their
country, or confiscate those rights to the advantage of a single
individual; but I cannot imagine that they will ever bestow the
exclusive exercise of them upon a privileged class of citizens, or,
in other words, that they will ever found an aristocracy.
An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens
who, without being very far removed from the mass of the people,
are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a body which it
is easy to touch and difficult to strike; with which the people are
in daily contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can
be imagined more contrary to nature and to the secret propensities
of the human heart than a subjection of this kind; and men who are
left to follow their own bent will always prefer the arbitrary power
of a king to the regular administration of an aristocracy.
Aristocratic institutions cannot subsist without laying down the
inequality of men as a fundamental principle, as a part and parcel
of the legislation, affecting the condition of the human family as
much as it affects that of society; but these are things so
repugnant to natural equity that they can only be extorted from men
by constraint.
I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society
began to exist, which has, by its own free will and by its own
exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the
aristocracies of the Middle Ages were founded by military conquest;
the conqueror was the noble, the vanquished became the serf.
Inequality was then imposed by force; and after it had been
introduced into the maners of the country it maintained its own
authority, and was sanctioned by the legislation. Communities have
existed which were aristocratic from their earliest origin, owing to
circumstances anterior to that event, and which became more
democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the
Romans, and of the barbarians after them. But a people, having taken
its rise in civilization and democracy, which should gradually
establish an inequality of conditions, until it arrived at
inviolable privileges and exclusive castes, would be a novelty in
the world; and nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish
so singular an example.
Reflection On The Causes Of The Commercial Prosperity Of The Of The
United States
The Americans destined by Nature to be a great maritime people -
Extent of their coasts - Depth of their ports - Size of their rivers
- The commercial superiority of the Anglo-Americans less
attributable, however, to physical circumstances than to moral and
intellectual causes - Reason of this opinion -Future destiny of the
Anglo-Americans as a commercial nation - The dissolution of the
Union would not check the maritime vigor of the States - Reason of
this - Anglo-Americans will naturally supply the wants of the
inhabitants of South America - They will become, like the English,
the factors of a great portion of the world.
The coast of the United States, from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine
River in the Gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand miles in
extent. These shores form an unbroken line, and they are all subject
to the same government. No nation in the world possesses vaster,
deeper, or more secure ports for shipping than the Americans.
The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized
people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated
country at a distance of three thousand miles from the central point
of civilization. America consequently stands in daily need of
European trade. The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately succeed in
producing or manufacturing at home most of the articles which they
require; but the two continents can never be independent of each
other, so numerous are the natural ties which exist between their
wants, their ideas, their habits, and their manners.
The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now become
necessary to us, but which cannot be cultivated, or can only be
raised at an enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe. The
Americans only consume a small portion of this produce, and they are
willing to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore the market of
America, as America is the market of Europe; and maritime commerce
is no less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the United States
to transport their raw materials to the ports of Europe, than it is
to enable us to supply them with our manufactured produce. The
United States were therefore necessarily reduced to the alternative
of increasing the business of other maritime nations to a great
extent, if they had themselves declined to enter into commerce, as
the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done; or, in the second place,
of becoming one of the first trading powers of the globe.
The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided taste for
the sea. The Declaration of Independence broke the commercial
restrictions which united them to England, and gave a fresh and
powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. Ever since that time,
the shipping of the Union has increased in almost the same rapid
proportion as the number of its inhabitants. The Americans
themselves now transport to their own shores nine-tenths of the
European produce which they consume. *g And they also bring three-
quarters of the exports of the New World to the European consumer.
*h The ships of the United States fill the docks of Havre and of
Liverpool; whilst the number of English and French vessels which are
to be seen at New York is comparatively small. *i
[Footnote g: The total value of goods imported during the year which
ended on September 30, 1832, was $101,129,266. The value of the
cargoes of foreign vessels did not amount to $10,731,039, or about
one-tenth of the entire sum.]
[Footnote h: The value of goods exported during the same year
amounted to $87,176,943; the value of goods exported by foreign
vessels amounted to $21,036,183, or about one quarter of the whole
sum. (Williams's "Register," 1833, p. 398.)]
[Footnote i: The tonnage of the vessels which entered all the ports
of the Union in the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, amounted to
3,307,719 tons, of which 544,571 tons were foreign vessels; they
stood, therefore, to the American vessels in a ratio of about 16 to
100. ("National Calendar," 1833, p. 304.) The tonnage of the English
vessels which entered the ports of London, Liverpool, and Hull, in
the years 1820, 1826, and 1831, amounted to 443,800 tons. The
foreign vessels which entered the same ports during the same years
amounted to 159,431 tons. The ratio between them was, therefore,
about 36 to 100. ("Companion to the Almanac," 1834, p. 169.) In the
year 1832 the ratio between the foreign and British ships which
entered the ports of Great Britain was 29 to 100. [These statements
relate to a condition of affairs which has ceased to exist; the
Civil War and the heavy taxation of the United States entirely
altered the trade and navigation of the country.]]
Thus, not only does the American merchant face the competition of
his own countrymen, but he even supports that of foreign nations in
their own ports with success. This is readily explained by the fact
that the vessels of the United States can cross the seas at a
cheaper rate than any other vessels in the world. As long as the
mercantile shipping of the United States preserves this superiority,
it will not only retain what it has acquired, but it will constantly
increase in prosperity.
Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races - Part X
It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can trade at a
lower rate than other nations; and one is at first led to attribute
this circumstance to the physical or natural advantages which are
within their reach; but this supposition is erroneous. The American
vessels cost almost as much to build as our own; *j they are not
better built, and they generally last for a shorter time. The pay of
the American sailor is more considerable than the pay on board
European ships; which is proved by the great number of Europeans who
are to be met with in the merchant vessels of the United States. But
I am of opinion that the true cause of their superiority must not be
sought for in physical advantages, but that it is wholly
attributable to their moral and intellectual qualities.
[Footnote j: Materials are, generally speaking, less expensive in
America than in Europe, but the price of labor is much higher.]
The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. During the
campaigns of the Revolution the French introduced a new system of
tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the oldest generals,
and very nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe.
They undertook (what had never before been attempted) to make shift
without a number of things which had always been held to be
indispensable in warfare; they required novel exertions on the part
of their troops which no civilized nations had ever thought of; they
achieved great actions in an incredibly short space of time; and
they risked human life without hesitation to obtain the object in
view. The French had less money and fewer men than their enemies;
their resources were infinitely inferior; nevertheless they were
constantly victorious, until their adversaries chose to imitate
their example.
The Americans have introduced a similar system into their commercial
speculations; and they do for cheapness what the French did for
conquest. The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets
sail when the weather is favorable; if an unforseen accident befalls
him, he puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canvas;
and when the whitening billows intimate the vicinity of land, he
checks his way, and takes an observation of the sun. But the
American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He
weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day
he spreads his sheets to the wind; he repairs as he goes along such
damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when he
at last approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the
shore as if he already descried a port. The Americans are often
shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly. And as they
perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can perform it at
a cheaper rate.
The European touches several times at different ports in the course
of a long voyage; he loses a good deal of precious time in making
the harbor, or in waiting for a favorable wind to leave it; and he
pays daily dues to be allowed to remain there. The American starts
from Boston to go to purchase tea in China; he arrives at Canton,
stays there a few days, and then returns. In less than two years he
has sailed as far as the entire circumference of the globe, and he
has seen land but once. It is true that during a voyage of eight or
ten months he has drunk brackish water and lived upon salt meat;
that he has been in a continual contest with the sea, with disease,
and with a tedious existence; but upon his return he can sell a
pound of his tea for a half-penny less than the English merchant,
and his purpose is accomplished.
I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that the Americans
affect a sort of heroism in their manner of trading. But the
European merchant will always find it very difficult to imitate his
American competitor, who, in adopting the system which I have just
described, follows not only a calculation of his gain, but an
impulse of his nature.
The inhabitants of the United States are subject to all the wants
and all the desires which result from an advanced stage of
civilization; but as they are not surrounded by a community
admirably adapted, like that of Europe, to satisfy their wants, they
are often obliged to procure for themselves the various articles
which education and habit have rendered necessaries. In America it
sometimes happens that the same individual tills his field, builds
his dwelling, contrives his tools, makes his shoes, and weaves the
coarse stuff of which his dress is composed. This circumstance is
prejudicial to the excellence of the work; but it powerfully
contributes to awaken the intelligence of the workman. Nothing tends
to materialize man, and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of
mind, more than extreme division of labor. In a country like
America, where men devoted to special occupations are rare, a long
apprenticeship cannot be required from anyone who embraces a
profession. The Americans, therefore, change their means of gaining
a livelihood very readily; and they suit their occupations to the
exigencies of the moment, in the manner most profitable to
themselves. Men are to be met with who have successively been
barristers, farmers, merchants, ministers of the gospel, and
physicians. If the American be less perfect in each craft than the
European, at least there is scarcely any trade with which he is
utterly unacquainted. His capacity is more general, and the circle
of his intelligence is enlarged.
The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by the
axioms of their profession; they escape from all the prejudices of
their present station; they are not more attached to one line of
operation than to another; they are not more prone to employ an old
method than a new one; they have no rooted habits, and they easily
shake off the influence which the habits of other nations might
exercise upon their minds from a conviction that their country is
unlike any other, and that its situation is without a precedent in
the world. America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in
constant motion, and every movement seems an improvement. The idea
of novelty is there indissolubly connected with the idea of
amelioration. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of
man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted
to do.
This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, these
frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen
fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to keep the
minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation,
which admirably invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a
state of excitement above the ordinary level of mankind. The whole
life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary
crisis, or a battle. As the same causes are continually in operation
throughout the country, they ultimately impart an irresistible
impulse to the national character. The American, taken as a chance
specimen of his countrymen, must then be a man of singular warmth in
his desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and, above all, of
innovation. The same bent is manifest in all that he does; he
introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrines, his
theories of social economy, and his domestic occupations; he bears
it with him in the depths of the backwoods, as well as in the
business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime
commerce, which makes him the cheapest and the quickest trader in
the world.
As long as the sailors of the United States retain these inspiriting
advantages, and the practical superiority which they derive from
them, they will not only continue to supply the wants of the
producers and consumers of their own country, but they will tend
more and more to become, like the English, the factors of all other
peoples. *k This prediction has already begun to be realized; we
perceive that the American traders are introducing themselves as
intermediate agents in the commerce of several European nations; *l
and America will offer a still wider field to their enterprise.
[Footnote k: It must not be supposed that English vessels are
exclusively employed in transporting foreign produce into England,
or British produce to foreign countries; at the present day the
merchant shipping of England may be regarded in the light of a vast
system of public conveyances, ready to serve all the producers of
the world, and to open communications between all peoples. The
maritime genius of the Americans prompts them to enter into
competition with the English.]
[Footnote l: Part of the commerce of the Mediterranean is already
carried on by American vessels.]
The great colonies which were founded in South America by the
Spaniards and the Portuguese have since become empires. Civil war
and oppression now lay waste those extensive regions. Population
does not increase, and the thinly scattered inhabitants are too much
absorbed in the cares of self-defense even to attempt any
amelioration of their condition. Such, however, will not always be
the case. Europe has succeeded by her own efforts in piercing the
gloom of the Middle Ages; South America has the same Christian laws
and Christian manners as we have; she contains all the germs of
civilization which have grown amidst the nations of Europe or their
offsets, added to the advantages to be derived from our example: why
then should she always remain uncivilized? It is clear that the
question is simply one of time; at some future period, which may be
more or less remote, the inhabitants of South America will
constitute flourishing and enlightened nations.
But when the Spaniards and Portuguese of South America begin to feel
the wants common to all civilized nations, they will still be unable
to satisfy those wants for themselves; as the youngest children of
civilization, they must perforce admit the superiority of their
elder brethren. They will be agriculturists long before they succeed
in manufactures or commerce, and they will require the mediation of
strangers to exchange their produce beyond seas for those articles
for which a demand will begin to be felt.
It is unquestionable that the Americans of the North will one day
supply the wants of the Americans of the South. Nature has placed
them in contiguity, and has furnished the former with every means of
knowing and appreciating those demands, of establishing a permanent
connection with those States, and of gradually filling their
markets. The merchants of the United States could only forfeit these
natural advantages if he were very inferior to the merchant of
Europe; to whom he is, on the contrary, superior in several
respects. The Americans of the United States already exercise a very
considerable moral influence upon all the peoples of the New World.
They are the source of intelligence, and all the nations which
inhabit the same continent are already accustomed to consider them
as the most enlightened, the most powerful, and the most wealthy
members of the great American family. All eyes are therefore turned
towards the Union; and the States of which that body is composed are
the models which the other communities try to imitate to the best of
their power; it is from the United States that they borrow their
political principles and their laws.
The Americans of the United States stand in precisely the same
position with regard to the peoples of South America as their
fathers, the English, occupy with regard to the Italians, the
Spaniards, the Portuguese, and all those nations of Europe which
receive their articles of daily consumption from England, because
they are less advanced in civilization and trade. England is at this
time the natural emporium of almost all the nations which are within
its reach; the American Union will perform the same part in the
other hemisphere; and every community which is founded, or which
prospers in the New World, is founded and prospers to the advantage
of the Anglo-Americans.
If the Union were to be dissolved, the commerce of the States which
now compose it would undoubtedly be checked for a time; but this
consequence would be less perceptible than is generally supposed. It
is evident that, whatever may happen, the commercial States will
remain united. They are all contiguous to each other; they have
identically the same opinions, interests, and manners; and they are
alone competent to form a very great maritime power. Even if the
South of the Union were to become independent of the North, it would
still require the services of those States. I have already observed
that the South is not a commercial country, and nothing intimates
that it is likely to become so. The Americans of the South of the
United States will therefore be obliged, for a long time to come, to
have recourse to strangers to export their produce, and to supply
them with the commodities which are requisite to satisfy their
wants. But the Northern States are undoubtedly able to act as their
intermediate agents cheaper than any other merchants. They will
therefore retain that employment, for cheapness is the sovereign law
of commerce. National claims and national prejudices cannot resist
the influence of cheapness. Nothing can be more virulent than the
hatred which exists between the Americans of the United States and
the English. But notwithstanding these inimical feelings, the
Americans derive the greater part of their manufactured commodities
from England, because England supplies them at a cheaper rate than
any other nation. Thus the increasing prosperity of America turns,
notwithstanding the grudges of the Americans, to the advantage of
British manufactures.
Reason shows and Experience proves that no commercial prosperity can
be durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, to naval force.
This truth is as well understood in the United States as it can be
anywhere else: the Americans are already able to make their flag
respected; in a few years they will be able to make it feared. I am
convinced that the dismemberment of the Union would not have the
effect of diminishing the naval power of the Americans, but that it
would powerfully contribute to increase it. At the present time the
commercial States are connected with others which have not the same
interests, and which frequently yield an unwilling consent to the
increase of a maritime power by which they are only indirectly
benefited. If, on the contrary, the commercial States of the Union
formed one independent nation, commerce would become the foremost of
their national interests; they would consequently be willing to make
very great sacrifices to protect their shipping, and nothing would
prevent them from pursuing their designs upon this point.
Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent
features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I
contemplate the ardor with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute
commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the
success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that
they will one day become the first maritime power of the globe. They
are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world.
Conclusion
I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry; hitherto, in
speaking of the future destiny of the United States, I have
endeavored to divide my subject into distinct portions, in order to
study each of them with more attention. My present object is to
embrace the whole from one single point; the remarks I shall make
will be less detailed, but they will be more sure. I shall perceive
each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the principal facts
with more certainty. A traveller who has just left the walls of an
immense city, climbs the neighboring hill; as he goes father off he
loses sight of the men whom he has so recently quitted; their
dwellings are confused in a dense mass; he can no longer distinguish
the public squares, and he can scarcely trace out the great
thoroughfares; but his eye has less difficulty in following the
boundaries of the city, and for the first time he sees the shape of
the vast whole. Such is the future destiny of the British race in
North America to my eye; the details of the stupendous picture are
overhung with shade, but I conceive a clear idea of the entire
subject.
The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States of
America forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable earth. But
extensive as these confines are, it must not be supposed that the
Anglo-American race will always remain within them; indeed, it has
already far overstepped them.
There was once a time at which we also might have created a great
French nation in the American wilds, to counterbalance the influence
of the English upon the destinies of the New World. France formerly
possessed a territory in North America, scarcely less extensive than
the whole of Europe. The three greatest rivers of that continent
then flowed within her dominions. The Indian tribes which dwelt
between the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the delta of the
Mississippi were unaccustomed to any other tongue but ours; and all
the European settlements scattered over that immense region recalled
the traditions of our country. Louisbourg, Montmorency, Duquesne,
St. Louis, Vincennes, New Orleans (for such were the names they
bore) are words dear to France and familiar to our ears.
But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious to
enumerate, *m have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance.
Wherever the French settlers were numerically weak and partially
established, they have disappeared: those who remain are collected
on a small extent of country, and are now subject to other laws. The
400,000 French inhabitants of Lower Canada constitute, at the
present time, the remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a
new people. A foreign population is increasing around them
unceasingly and on all sides, which already penetrates amongst the
ancient masters of the country, predominates in their cities and
corrupts their language. This population is identical with that of
the United States; it is therefore with truth that I asserted that
the British race is not confined within the frontiers of the Union,
since it already extends to the northeast.
[Footnote m: The foremost of these circumstances is, that nations
which are accustomed to free institutions and municipal government
are better able than any others to found prosperous colonies. The
habit of thinking and governing for oneself is indispensable in a
new country, where success necessarily depends, in a great measure,
upon the individual exertions of the settlers.]
To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few insignificant
Russian settlements; but to the southwest, Mexico presents a barrier
to the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards and the Anglo-Americans
are, properly speaking, the only two races which divide the
possession of the New World. The limits of separation between them
have been settled by a treaty; but although the conditions of that
treaty are exceedingly favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I do not
doubt that they will shortly infringe this arrangement. Vast
provinces, extending beyond the frontiers of the Union towards
Mexico, are still destitute of inhabitants. The natives of the
United States will forestall the rightful occupants of these
solitary regions. They will take possession of the soil, and
establish social institutions, so that when the legal owner arrives
at length, he will find the wilderness under cultivation, and
strangers quietly settled in the midst of his inheritance. *n
[Footnote n: [This was speedily accomplished, and ere long both
Texas and California formed part of the United States. The Russian
settlements were acquired by purchase.]]
The lands of the New World belong to the first occupant, and they
are the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the countries
which are already peopled will have some difficulty in securing
themselves from this invasion. I have already alluded to what is
taking place in the province of Texas. The inhabitants of the United
States are perpetually migrating to Texas, where they purchase land;
and although they conform to the laws of the country, they are
gradually founding the empire of their own language and their own
manners. The province of Texas is still part of the Mexican
dominions, but it will soon contain no Mexicans; the same thing has
occurred whenever the Anglo-Americans have come into contact with
populations of a different origin.
It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing
preponderance over all the other European races in the New World;
and that it is very superior to them in civilization, in industry,
and in power. As long as it is only surrounded by desert or thinly
peopled countries, as long as it encounters no dense populations
upon its route, through which it cannot work its way, it will
assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked out by treaties will
not stop it; but it will everywhere transgress these imaginary
barriers.
The geographical position of the British race in the New World is
peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its northern
frontiers the icy regions of the Pole extend; and a few degrees
below its southern confines lies the burning climate of the Equator.
The Anglo-Americans are, therefore, placed in the most temperate and
habitable zone of the continent.
It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of population
in the United States is posterior to their Declaration of
Independence. But this is an error: the population increased as
rapidly under the colonial system as it does at the present day;
that is to say, it doubled in about twenty-two years. But this
proportion which is now applied to millions, was then applied to
thousands of inhabitants; and the same fact which was scarcely
noticeable a century ago, is now evident to every observer.
The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king, augment
and spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of the United
States, who live under a republican government. During the war of
independence, which lasted eight years, the population continued to
increase without intermission in the same ratio. Although powerful
Indian nations allied with the English existed at that time upon the
western frontiers, the emigration westward was never checked. Whilst
the enemy laid waste the shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the
western parts of Pennsylvania, and the States of Vermont and of
Maine were filling with inhabitants. Nor did the unsettled state of
the Constitution, which succeeded the war, prevent the increase of
the population, or stop its progress across the wilds. Thus, the
difference of laws, the various conditions of peace and war, of
order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible influence upon
the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This may be readily
understood; for the fact is, that no causes are sufficiently general
to exercise a simultaneous influence over the whole of so extensive
a territory. One portion of the country always offers a sure retreat
from the calamities which afflict another part; and however great
may be the evil, the remedy which is at hand is greater still.
It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British race
in the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment of the Union,
and the hostilities which might ensure, the abolition of republican
institutions, and the tyrannical government which might succeed it,
may retard this impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately
fulfilling the destinies to which that race is reserved. No power
upon earth can close upon the emigrants that fertile wilderness
which offers resources to all industry, and a refuge from all want.
Future events, of whatever nature they may be, will not deprive the
Americans of their climate or of their inland seas, of their great
rivers or of their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions,
and anarchy be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that
spirit of enterprise which seem to be the distinctive
characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge which
guides them on their way.
Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least is
sure. At a period which may be said to be near (for we are speaking
of the life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone cover the
immense space contained between the polar regions and the tropics,
extending from the coasts of the Atlantic to the shores of the
Pacific Ocean. The territory which will probably be occupied by the
Anglo-Americans at some future time, may be computed to equal
three-quarters of Europe in extent. *o The climate of the Union is
upon the whole preferable to that of Europe, and its natural
advantages are not less great; it is therefore evident that its
population will at some future time be proportionate to our own.
Europe, divided as it is between so many different nations, and torn
as it has been by incessant wars and the barbarous manners of the
Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a population of 410
inhabitants to the square league. *p What cause can prevent the
United States from having as numerous a population in time?
[Footnote o: The United States already extend over a territory equal
to one-half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 square leagues,
and its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. ("Malte Brun," liv.
114. vol. vi. p. 4.)
[This computation is given in French leagues, which were in use when
the author wrote. Twenty years later, in 1850, the superficial area
of the United States had been extended to 3,306,865 square miles of
territory, which is about the area of Europe.]]
[Footnote p: See "Malte Brun," liv. 116, vol. vi. p. 92.]
Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the British race
in America cease to present the same homogeneous characteristics:
and the time cannot be foreseen at which a permanent inequality of
conditions will be established in the New World. Whatever
differences may arise, from peace or from war, from freedom or
oppression, from prosperity or want, between the destinies of the
different descendants of the great Anglo-American family, they will
at least preserve an analogous social condition, and they will hold
in common the customs and the opinions to which that social
condition has given birth.
In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently powerful to
imbue all the different populations of Europe with the same
civilization. The British of the New World have a thousand other
reciprocal ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to
equality is general amongst mankind. The Middle Ages were a period
when everything was broken up; when each people, each province, each
city, and each family, had a strong tendency to maintain its
distinct individuality. At the present time an opposite tendency
seems to prevail, and the nations seem to be advancing to unity. Our
means of intellectual intercourse unite the most remote parts of the
earth; and it is impossible for men to remain strangers to each
other, or to be ignorant of the events which are taking place in any
corner of the globe. The consequence is that there is less
difference, at the present day, between the Europeans and their
descendants in the New World, than there was between certain towns
in the thirteenth century which were only separated by a river. If
this tendency to assimilation brings foreign nations closer to each
other, it must a fortiori prevent the descendants of the same people
from becoming aliens to each other.
The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions of
men will be living in North America, *q equal in condition, the
progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and
preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same
religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the
same opinions, propagated under the same forms. The rest is
uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact new to the world -
a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to baffle the
efforts even of the imagination.
[Footnote q: This would be a population proportionate to that of
Europe, taken at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the square
league.]
There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world which
seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from
different points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both
of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind
was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent
place amongst the nations; and the world learned their existence and
their greatness at almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits,
and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but
these are still in the act of growth; *r all the others are stopped,
or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding
with ease and with celerity along a path to which the human eye can
assign no term. The American struggles against the natural obstacles
which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former
combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization
with all its weapons and its arts: the conquests of the one are
therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the other by the
sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to
accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions
and common-sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the
authority of society in a single arm: the principal instrument of
the former is freedom; of the latter servitude. Their starting-point
is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them
seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies
of half the globe.
[Footnote r: Russia is the country in the Old World in which
population increases most rapidly in proportion.]
***
End Part One
1840
Democracy In America
by Alexis De Tocqueville
Translator - Henry Reeve
Book Two
Influence Of Democracy On Progress Of Opinion In US
De Tocqueville's Preface To The Second Part
The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has
naturally suggested to them certain laws and a certain political
character. This same state of society has, moreover, engendered
amongst them a multitude of feelings and opinions which were unknown
amongst the elder aristocratic communities of Europe: it has
destroyed or modified all the relations which before existed, and
established others of a novel kind. The aspect of civil society has
been no less affected by these changes than that of the political
world. The former subject has been treated of in the work on the
Democracy of America, which I published five years ago; to examine
the latter is the object of the present book; but these two parts
complete each other, and form one and the same work.
I must at once warn the reader against an error which would be
extremely prejudicial to me. When he finds that I attribute so many
different consequences to the principle of equality, he may thence
infer that I consider that principle to be the sole cause of all
that takes place in the present age: but this would be to impute to
me a very narrow view. A multitude of opinions, feelings, and
propensities are now in existence, which owe their origin to
circumstances unconnected with or even contrary to the principle of
equality. Thus if I were to select the United States as an example,
I could easily prove that the nature of the country, the origin of
its inhabitants, the religion of its founders, their acquired
knowledge, and their former habits, have exercised, and still
exercise, independently of democracy, a vast influence upon the
thoughts and feelings of that people. Different causes, but no less
distinct from the circumstance of the equality of conditions, might
be traced in Europe, and would explain a great portion of the
occurrences taking place amongst us.
I acknowledge the existence of all these different causes, and their
power, but my subject does not lead me to treat of them. I have not
undertaken to unfold the reason of all our inclinations and all our
notions: my only object is to show in what respects the principle of
equality has modified both the former and the latter.
Some readers may perhaps be astonished that - firmly persuaded as I
am that the democratic revolution which we are witnessing is an
irresistible fact against which it would be neither desirable nor
wise to struggle - I should often have had occasion in this book to
address language of such severity to those democratic communities
which this revolution has brought into being. My answer is simply,
that it is because I am not an adversary of democracy, that I have
sought to speak of democracy in all sincerity.
Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth
is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have
spoken it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to
announce the new blessings which the principle of equality promises
to mankind, but that few would dare to point out from afar the
dangers with which it threatens them. To those perils therefore I
have turned my chief attention, and believing that I had discovered
them clearly, I have not had the cowardice to leave them untold.
I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that
impartiality which seems to have been remarked in the former work.
Placed as I am in the midst of the conflicting opinions between
which we are divided, I have endeavored to suppress within me for a
time the favorable sympathies or the adverse emotions with which
each of them inspires me. If those who read this book can find a
single sentence intended to flatter any of the great parties which
have agitated my country, or any of those petty factions which now
harass and weaken it, let such readers raise their voices to accuse
me.
The subject I have sought to embrace is immense, for it includes the
greater part of the feelings and opinions to which the new state of
society has given birth. Such a subject is doubtless above my
strength, and in treating it I have not succeeded in satisfying
myself. But, if I have not been able to reach the goal which I had
in view, my readers will at least do me the justice to acknowledge
that I have conceived and followed up my undertaking in a spirit not
unworthy of success.
A. De T.
March, 1840
***
Chapter I: Philosophical Method Among the Americans
I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention
paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no
philosophical school of their own; and they care but little for all
the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which
are scarcely known to them. Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that
almost all the inhabitants of the United States conduct their
understanding in the same manner, and govern it by the same rules;
that is to say, that without ever having taken the trouble to define
the rules of a philosophical method, they are in possession of one,
common to the whole people. To evade the bondage of system and
habit, of family maxims, class opinions, and, in some degree, of
national prejudices; to accept tradition only as a means of
information, and existing facts only as a lesson used in doing
otherwise, and doing better; to seek the reason of things for one's
self, and in one's self alone; to tend to results without being
bound to means, and to aim at the substance through the form; - such
are the principal characteristics of what I shall call the
philosophical method of the Americans. But if I go further, and if I
seek amongst these characteristics that which predominates over and
includes almost all the rest, I discover that in most of the
operations of the mind, each American appeals to the individual
exercise of his own understanding alone. America is therefore one of
the countries in the world where philosophy is least studied, and
where the precepts of Descartes are best applied. Nor is this
surprising. The Americans do not read the works of Descartes,
because their social condition deters them from speculative studies;
but they follow his maxims because this very social condition
naturally disposes their understanding to adopt them. In the midst
of the continual movement which agitates a democratic community, the
tie which unites one generation to another is relaxed or broken;
every man readily loses the trace of the ideas of his forefathers or
takes no care about them. Nor can men living in this state of
society derive their belief from the opinions of the class to which
they belong, for, so to speak, there are no longer any classes, or
those which still exist are composed of such mobile elements, that
their body can never exercise a real control over its members. As to
the influence which the intelligence of one man has on that of
another, it must necessarily be very limited in a country where the
citizens, placed on the footing of a general similitude, are all
closely seen by each other; and where, as no signs of incontestable
greatness or superiority are perceived in any one of them, they are
constantly brought back to their own reason as the most obvious and
proximate source of truth. It is not only confidence in this or that
man which is then destroyed, but the taste for trusting the ipse
dixit of any man whatsoever. Everyone shuts himself up in his own
breast, and affects from that point to judge the world.
The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the
standard of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other
habits of mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving
without assistance all the little difficulties which their practical
life presents, they readily conclude that everything in the world
may be explained, and that nothing in it transcends the limits of
the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot
comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is
extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable distaste for whatever is
supernatural. As it is on their own testimony that they are
accustomed to rely, they like to discern the object which engages
their attention with extreme clearness; they therefore strip off as
much as possible all that covers it, they rid themselves of whatever
separates them from it, they remove whatever conceals it from sight,
in order to view it more closely and in the broad light of day. This
disposition of the mind soon leads them to contemn forms, which they
regard as useless and inconvenient veils placed between them and the
truth.
The Americans then have not required to extract their philosophical
method from books; they have found it in themselves. The same thing
may be remarked in what has taken place in Europe. This same method
has only been established and made popular in Europe in proportion
as the condition of society has become more equal, and men have
grown more like each other. Let us consider for a moment the
connection of the periods in which this change may be traced. In the
sixteenth century the Reformers subjected some of the dogmas of the
ancient faith to the scrutiny of private judgment; but they still
withheld from it the judgment of all the rest. In the seventeenth
century, Bacon in the natural sciences, and Descartes in the study
of philosophy in the strict sense of the term, abolished recognized
formulas, destroyed the empire of tradition, and overthrew the
authority of the schools. The philosophers of the eighteenth
century, generalizing at length the same principle, undertook to
submit to the private judgment of each man all the objects of his
belief.
Who does not perceive that Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire employed
the same method, and that they differed only in the greater or less
use which they professed should be made of it? Why did the Reformers
confine themselves so closely within the circle of religious ideas?
Why did Descartes, choosing only to apply his method to certain
matters, though he had made it fit to be applied to all, declare
that men might judge for themselves in matters philosophical but not
in matters political? How happened it that in the eighteenth century
those general applications were all at once drawn from this same
method, which Descartes and his predecessors had either not
perceived or had rejected? To what, lastly, is the fact to be
attributed, that at this period the method we are speaking of
suddenly emerged from the schools, to penetrate into society and
become the common standard of intelligence; and that, after it had
become popular among the French, it has been ostensibly adopted or
secretly followed by all the nations of Europe?
The philosophical method here designated may have been engendered in
the sixteenth century - it may have been more accurately defined and
more extensively applied in the seventeenth; but neither in the one
nor in the other could it be commonly adopted. Political laws, the
condition of society, and the habits of mind which are derived from
these causes, were as yet opposed to it. It was discovered at a time
when men were beginning to equalize and assimilate their conditions.
It could only be generally followed in ages when those conditions
had at length become nearly equal, and men nearly alike.
The philosophical method of the eighteenth century is then not only
French, but it is democratic; and this explains why it was so
readily admitted throughout Europe, where it has contributed so
powerfully to change the face of society. It is not because the
French have changed their former opinions, and altered their former
manners, that they have convulsed the world; but because they were
the first to generalize and bring to light a philosophical method,
by the assistance of which it became easy to attack all that was
old, and to open a path to all that was new.
If it be asked why, at the present day, this same method is more
rigorously followed and more frequently applied by the French than
by the Americans, although the principle of equality be no less
complete, and of more ancient date, amongst the latter people, the
fact may be attributed to two circumstances, which it is essential
to have clearly understood in the first instance. It must never be
forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. In the
United States religion is therefore commingled with all the habits
of the nation and all the feelings of patriotism; whence it derives
a peculiar force. To this powerful reason another of no less
intensity may be added: in American religion has, as it were, laid
down its own limits. Religious institutions have remained wholly
distinct from political institutions, so that former laws have been
easily changed whilst former belief has remained unshaken.
Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind
in America; and, I would more particularly remark, that its sway is
not only that of a philosophical doctrine which has been adopted
upon inquiry, but of a religion which is believed without
discussion. In the United States Christian sects are infinitely
diversified and perpetually modified; but Christianity itself is a
fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to
attack or to defend it. The Americans, having admitted the principal
doctrines of the Christian religion without inquiry, are obliged to
accept in like manner a great number of moral truths originating in
it and connected with it. Hence the activity of individual analysis
is restrained within narrow limits, and many of the most important
of human opinions are removed from the range of its influence.
The second circumstance to which I have alluded is the following:
the social condition and the constitution of the Americans are
democratic, but they have not had a democratic revolution. They
arrived upon the soil they occupy in nearly the condition in which
we see them at the present day; and this is of very considerable
importance.
There are no revolutions which do not shake existing belief,
enervate authority, and throw doubts over commonly received ideas.
The effect of all revolutions is therefore, more or less, to
surrender men to their own guidance, and to open to the mind of
every man a void and almost unlimited range of speculation. When
equality of conditions succeeds a protracted conflict between the
different classes of which the elder society was composed, envy,
hatred, and uncharitableness, pride, and exaggerated self-
confidence are apt to seize upon the human heart, and plant their
sway there for a time. This, independently of equality itself, tends
powerfully to divide men - to lead them to mistrust the judgment of
others, and to seek the light of truth nowhere but in their own
understandings. Everyone then attempts to be his own sufficient
guide, and makes it his boast to form his own opinions on all
subjects. Men are no longer bound together by ideas, but by
interests; and it would seem as if human opinions were reduced to a
sort of intellectual dust, scattered on every side, unable to
collect, unable to cohere.
Thus, that independence of mind which equality supposes to exist, is
never so great, nor ever appears so excessive, as at the time when
equality is beginning to establish itself, and in the course of that
painful labor by which it is established. That sort of intellectual
freedom which equality may give ought, therefore, to be very
carefully distinguished from the anarchy which revolution brings.
Each of these two things must be severally considered, in order not
to conceive exaggerated hopes or fears of the future.
I believe that the men who will live under the new forms of society
will make frequent use of their private judgment; but I am far from
thinking that they will often abuse it. This is attributable to a
cause of more general application to all democratic countries, and
which, in the long run, must needs restrain in them the independence
of individual speculation within fixed, and sometimes narrow,
limits. I shall proceed to point out this cause in the next chapter.
Chapter II: Of The Principal Source Of Belief Among Democratic
Nations
At different periods dogmatical belief is more or less abundant. It
arises in different ways, and it may change its object or its form;
but under no circumstances will dogmatical belief cease to exist,
or, in other words, men will never cease to entertain some implicit
opinions without trying them by actual discussion. If everyone
undertook to form his own opinions and to seek for truth by isolated
paths struck out by himself alone, it is not to be supposed that any
considerable number of men would ever unite in any common belief.
But obviously without such common belief no society can prosper -
say rather no society can subsist; for without ideas held in common,
there is no common action, and without common action, there may
still be men, but there is no social body. In order that society
should exist, and, a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is
required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied and
held together by certain predominant ideas; and this cannot be the
case, unless each of them sometimes draws his opinions from the
common source, and consents to accept certain matters of belief at
the hands of the community.
If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that
dogmatical belief is not less indispensable to him in order to live
alone, than it is to enable him to co-operate with his fellow-
creatures. If man were forced to demonstrate to himself all the
truths of which he makes daily use, his task would never end. He
would exhaust his strength in preparatory exercises, without
advancing beyond them. As, from the shortness of his life, he has
not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the
capacity, to accomplish this, he is reduced to take upon trust a
number of facts and opinions which he has not had either the time or
the power to verify himself, but which men of greater ability have
sought out, or which the world adopts. On this groundwork he raises
for himself the structure of his own thoughts; nor is he led to
proceed in this manner by choice so much as he is constrainsd by the
inflexible law of his condition. There is no philosopher of such
great parts in the world, but that he believes a million of things
on the faith of other people, and supposes a great many more truths
than he demonstrates. This is not only necessary but desirable. A
man who should undertake to inquire into everything for himself,
could devote to each thing but little time and attention. His task
would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him
from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind
indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would be at once
independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from
amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many
opinions without discussion, in order to search the better into that
smaller number which he sets apart for investigation. It is true
that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far
enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to
make a good use of freedom.
A principle of authority must then always occur, under all
circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual
world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The
independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less:
unbounded it cannot be. Thus the question is, not to know whether
any intellectual authority exists in the ages of democracy, but
simply where it resides and by what standard it is to be measured.
I have shown in the preceding chapter how the equality of conditions
leads men to entertain a sort of instinctive incredulity of the
supernatural, and a very lofty and often exaggerated opinion of the
human understanding. The men who live at a period of social equality
are not therefore easily led to place that intellectual authority to
which they bow either beyond or above humanity. They commonly seek
for the sources of truth in themselves, or in those who are like
themselves. This would be enough to prove that at such periods no
new religion could be established, and that all schemes for such a
purpose would be not only impious but absurd and irrational. It may
be foreseen that a democratic people will not easily give credence
to divine missions; that they will turn modern prophets to a ready
jest; and they that will seek to discover the chief arbiter of their
belief within, and not beyond, the limits of their kind.
When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in
condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of
superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the
multitude is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these
aristocratic periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their
opinions by the superior standard of a person or a class of persons,
whilst they are averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of
the people.
The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the
citizens are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar
condition, the less prone does each man become to place implicit
faith in a certain man or a certain class of men. But his readiness
to believe the multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever
mistress of the world. Not only is common opinion the only guide
which private judgment retains amongst a democratic people, but
amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it
has elsewhere. At periods of equality men have no faith in one
another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very
resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment
of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all
endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth
should go with the greater number.
When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself
individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he
is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the
totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge
a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own
insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him
independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes
him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number.
The public has therefore among a democratic people a singular power,
of which aristocratic nations could never so much as conceive an
idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces
them, and infuses them into the faculties by a sort of enormous
pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.
In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude
of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus
relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy,
morals, and politics, without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we
look to it very narrowly, it will be perceived that religion herself
holds her sway there, much less as a doctrine of revelation than as
a commonly received opinion. The fact that the political laws of the
Americans are such that the majority rules the community with
sovereign sway, materially increases the power which that majority
naturally exercises over the mind. For nothing is more customary in
man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his
oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority in the United
States doubtless augments the influence which public opinion would
obtain without it over the mind of each member of the community; but
the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it. They must be
sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the more or
less popular institutions which men living under that condition may
give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number
would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed
by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always
be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are
governed in the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in
public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the
majority its ministering prophet.
Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be
diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur
that it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the
action of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited
either to the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the
principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one
leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other
inclined to prohibit him from thinking at all. And I perceive how,
under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that
liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is
favorable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed
on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered
to the general will of the greatest number.
If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by
democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or
retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would
only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means
of independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task)
a new dress for servitude. There is - and I cannot repeat it too
often - there is in this matter for profound reflection for those
who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the
despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie
heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I
am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is
held out to me by the arms of a million of men.
Book One - Chapters III-V
Chapter III: Why The Americans Display More Readiness And More Taste
For General Ideas Than Their Forefathers, The English The Deity does
not regard the human race collectively. He surveys at one glance and
severally all the beings of whom mankind is composed, and he
discerns in each man the resemblances which assimilate him to all
his fellows, and the differences which distinguish him from them.
God, therefore, stands in no need of general ideas; that is to say,
he is never sensible of the necessity of collecting a considerable
number of analogous objects under the same form for greater
convenience in thinking. Such is, however, not the case with man. If
the human mind were to attempt to examine and pass a judgment on all
the individual cases before it, the immensity of detail would soon
lead it astray and bewilder its discernment: in this strait, man has
recourse to an imperfect but necessary expedient, which at once
assists and demonstrates his weakness. Having superficially
considered a certain number of objects, and remarked their
resemblance, he assigns to them a common name, sets them apart, and
proceeds onwards.
General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the
insufficiency of the human intellect; for there are in nature no
beings exactly alike, no things precisely identical, nor any rules
indiscriminately and alike applicable to several objects at once.
The chief merit of general ideas is, that they enable the human mind
to pass a rapid judgment on a great many objects at once; but, on
the other hand, the notions they convey are never otherwise than
incomplete, and they always cause the mind to lose as much in
accuracy as it gains in comprehensiveness. As social bodies advance
in civilization, they acquire the knowledge of new facts, and they
daily lay hold almost unconsciously of some particular truths. The
more truths of this kind a man apprehends, the more general ideas is
he naturally led to conceive. A multitude of particular facts cannot
be seen separately, without at last discovering the common tie which
connects them. Several individuals lead to the perception of the
species; several species to that of the genus. Hence the habit and
the taste for general ideas will always be greatest amongst a people
of ancient cultivation and extensive knowledge.
But there are other reasons which impel men to generalize their
ideas, or which restrain them from it.
The Americans are much more addicted to the use of general ideas
than the English, and entertain a much greater relish for them: this
appears very singular at first sight, when it is remembered that the
two nations have the same origin, that they lived for centuries
under the same laws, and that they still incessantly interchange
their opinions and their manners. This contrast becomes much more
striking still, if we fix our eyes on our own part of the world, and
compare together the two most enlightened nations which inhabit it.
It would seem as if the mind of the English could only tear itself
reluctantly and painfully away from the observation of particular
facts, to rise from them to their causes; and that it only
generalizes in spite of itself. Amongst the French, on the contrary,
the taste for general ideas would seem to have grown to so ardent a
passion, that it must be satisfied on every occasion. I am informed,
every morning when I wake, that some general and eternal law has
just been discovered, which I never heard mentioned before. There is
not a mediocre scribbler who does not try his hand at discovering
truths applicable to a great kingdom, and who is very ill pleased
with himself if he does not succeed in compressing the human race
into the compass of an article. So great a dissimilarity between two
very enlightened nations surprises me. If I again turn my attention
to England, and observe the events which have occurred there in the
last half-century, I think I may affirm that a taste for general
ideas increases in that country in proportion as its ancient
constitution is weakened.
The state of civilization is therefore insufficient by itself to
explain what suggests to the human mind the love of general ideas,
or diverts it from them. When the conditions of men are very
unequal, and inequality itself is the permanent state of society,
individual men gradually become so dissimilar that each class
assumes the aspect of a distinct race: only one of these classes is
ever in view at the same instant; and losing sight of that general
tie which binds them all within the vast bosom of mankind, the
observation invariably rests not on man, but on certain men. Those
who live in this aristocratic state of society never, therefore,
conceive very general ideas respecting themselves, and that is
enough to imbue them with an habitual distrust of such ideas, and an
instinctive aversion of them. He, on the contrary, who inhabits a
democratic country, sees around him, one very hand, men differing
but little from each other; he cannot turn his mind to any one
portion of mankind, without expanding and dilating his thought till
it embrace the whole. All the truths which are applicable to
himself, appear to him equally and similarly applicable to each of
his fellow-citizens and fellow-men. Having contracted the habit of
generalizing his ideas in the study which engages him most, and
interests him more than others, he transfers the same habit to all
his pursuits; and thus it is that the craving to discover general
laws in everything, to include a great number of objects under the
same formula, and to explain a mass of facts by a single cause,
becomes an ardent, and sometimes an undiscerning, passion in the
human mind.
Nothing shows the truth of this proposition more clearly than the
opinions of the ancients respecting their slaves. The most profound
and capacious minds of Rome and Greece were never able to reach the
idea, at once so general and so simple, of the common likeness of
men, and of the common birthright of each to freedom: they strove to
prove that slavery was in the order of nature, and that it would
always exist. Nay, more, everything shows that those of the ancients
who had passed from the servile to the free condition, many of whom
have left us excellent writings, did themselves regard servitude in
no other light.
All the great writers of antiquity belonged to the aristocracy of
masters, or at least they saw that aristocracy established and
uncontested before their eyes. Their mind, after it had expanded
itself in several directions, was barred from further progress in
this one; and the advent of Jesus Christ upon earth was required to
teach that all the members of the human race are by nature equal and
alike.
In the ages of equality all men are independent of each other,
isolated and weak. The movements of the multitude are not
permanently guided by the will of any individuals; at such times
humanity seems always to advance of itself. In order, therefore, to
explain what is passing in the world, man is driven to seek for some
great causes, which, acting in the same manner on all our
fellow-creatures, thus impel them all involuntarily to pursue the
same track. This again naturally leads the human mind to conceive
general ideas, and superinduces a taste for them.
I have already shown in what way the equality of conditions leads
every man to investigate truths for himself. It may readily be
perceived that a method of this kind must insensibly beget a
tendency to general ideas in the human mind. When I repudiate the
traditions of rank, profession, and birth; when I escape from the
authority of example, to seek out, by the single effort of my
reason, the path to be followed, I am inclined to derive the motives
of my opinions from human nature itself; which leads me necessarily,
and almost unconsciously, to adopt a great number of very general
notions.
All that I have here said explains the reasons for which the English
display much less readiness and taste or the generalization of ideas
than their American progeny, and still less again than their French
neighbors; and likewise the reason for which the English of the
present day display more of these qualities than their forefathers
did. The English have long been a very enlightened and a very
aristocratic nation; their enlightened condition urged them
constantly to generalize, and their aristocratic habits confined
them to particularize. Hence arose that philosophy, at once bold and
timid, broad and narrow, which has hitherto prevailed in England,
and which still obstructs and stagnates in so many minds in that
country.
Independently of the causes I have pointed out in what goes before,
others may be discerned less apparent, but no less efficacious,
which engender amongst almost every democratic people a taste, and
frequently a passion, for general ideas. An accurate distinction
must be taken between ideas of this kind. Some are the result of
slow, minute, and conscientious labor of the mind, and these extend
the sphere of human knowledge; others spring up at once from the
first rapid exercise of the wits, and beget none but very
superficial and very uncertain notions. Men who live in ages of
equality have a great deal of curiosity and very little leisure;
their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so active, that
but little time remains to them for thought. Such men are prone to
general ideas because they spare them the trouble of studying
particulars; they contain, if I may so speak, a great deal in a
little compass, and give, in a little time, a great return. If then,
upon a brief and inattentive investigation, a common relation is
thought to be detected between certain obtects, inquiry is not
pushed any further; and without examining in detail how far these
different objects differ or agree, they are hastily arranged under
one formulary, in order to pass to another subject.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is
the taste all men have at such ties for easy success and present
enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect as well as
in all others. Most of those who live at a time of equality are full
of an ambition at once aspiring and relaxed: they would fain succeed
brilliantly and at once, but they would be dispensed from great
efforts to obtain success. These conflicting tendencies lead
straight to the research of general ideas, by aid of which they
flatter themselves that they can figure very importantly at a small
expense, and draw the attention of the public with very little
trouble. And I know not whether they be wrong in thinking thus. For
their readers are as much averse to investigating anything to the
bottom as they can be themselves; and what is generally sought in
the productions of the mind is easy pleasure and information without
labor.
If aristocratic nations do not make sufficient use of general ideas,
and frequently treat them with inconsiderate disdain, it is true, on
the other hand, that a democratic people is ever ready to carry
ideas of this kind to excess, and to espouse the with injudicious
warmth.
Chapter IV: Why The Americans Have Never Been So Eager As The French
For General Ideas In Political Matters
I observed in the last chapter, that the Americans show a less
decided taste for general ideas than the French; this is more
especially true in political matters. Although the Americans infuse
into their legislation infinitely more general ideas than the
English, and although they pay much more attention than the latter
people to the adjustment of the practice of affairs to theory, no
political bodies in the United States have ever shown so warm an
attachment to general ideas as the Constituent Assembly and the
Convention in France. At no time has the American people laid hold
on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French
people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind
confidence in the value and absolute truth of any theory. This
difference between the Americans and the French originates in
several causes, but principally in the following one. The Americans
form a democratic people, which has always itself directed public
affairs. The French are a democratic people, who, for a long time,
could only speculate on the best manner of conducting them. The
social condition of France led that people to conceive very general
ideas on the subject of government, whilst its political
constitution prevented it from correcting those ideas by
experiment,and from gradually detecting their insufficiency; whereas
in America the two things constantly balance and correct each other.
It may seem, at first sight, that this is very much opposed to what
I have said before, that democratic nations derive their love of
theory from the excitement of their active life. A more attentive
examination will show that there is nothing contradictory in the
proposition. Men living in democratic countries eagerly lay hold of
general ideas because they have but little leisure, and because
these ideas spare them the trouble of studying particulars. This is
true; but it is only to be understood to apply to those matters
which are not the necessary and habitual subjects of their thoughts.
Mercantile men will take up very eagerly, and without any very close
scrutiny, all the general ideas on philosophy, politics, science, or
the arts, which may be presented to them; but for such as relate to
commerce, they will not receive them without inquiry, or adopt them
without reserve. The same thing applies to statesmen with regard to
general ideas in politics. If, then, there be a subject upon which a
democratic people is peculiarly liable to abandon itself, blindly
and extravagantly, to general ideas, the best corrective that can be
used will be to make that subject a part of the daily practical
occupation of that people. The people will then be compelled to
enter upon its details, and the details will teach them the weak
points of the theory. This remedy may frequently be a painful one,
but its effect is certain.
Thus it happens, that the democratic institutions which compel every
citizen to take a practical part in the government, moderate that
excessive taste for general theories in politics which the principle
of equality suggests.
Chapter V: Of The Manner In Which Religion In The United States
Avails Itself Of Democratic Tendencies
I have laid it down in a preceding chapter that men cannot do
without dogmatical belief; and even that it is very much to be
desired that such belief should exist amongst them. I now add, that
of all the kinds of dogmatical belief the most desirable appears to
me to be dogmatical belief in matters of religion; and this is a
very clear inference, even from no higher consideration than the
interests of this world. There is hardly any human action, however
particular a character be assigned to it, which does not originate
in some very general idea men have conceived of the Deity, of his
relation to mankind, of the nature of their own souls, and of their
duties to their fellow-creatures. Nor can anything prevent these
ideas from being the common spring from which everything else
emanates. Men are therefore immeasurably interested in acquiring
fixed ideas of God, of the soul, and of their common duties to their
Creator and to their fellow-men; for doubt on these first principles
would abandon all their actions to the impulse of chance, and would
condemn them to live, to a certain extent, powerless and
undisciplined.
This is then the subject on which it is most important for each of
us to entertain fixed ideas; and unhappily it is also the subject on
which it is most difficult for each of us, left to himself, to
settle his opinions by the sole force of his reason. None but minds
singularly free from the ordinary anxieties of life - minds at once
penetrating, subtle, and trained by thinking - can even with the
assistance of much time and care, sound the depth of these most
necessary truths. And, indeed, we see that these philosophers are
themselves almost always enshrouded in uncertainties; that at every
step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and
less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as
yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which
the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years,
without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty
even in its errors. Studies of this nature are far above the average
capacity of men; and even if the majority of mankind were capable of
such pursuits, it is evident that leisure to cultivate them would
still be wanting. Fixed ideas of God and human nature are
indispensable to the daily practice of men's lives; but the practice
of their lives prevents them from acquiring such ideas.
The difficulty appears to me to be without a parallel. Amongst the
sciences there are some which are useful to the mass of mankind, and
which are within its reach; others can only be approached by the
few, and are not cultivated by the many, who require nothing beyond
their more remote applications: but the daily practice of the
science I speak of is indispensable to all, although the study of it
is inaccessible to the far greater number.
General ideas respecting God and human nature are therefore the
ideas above all others which it is most suitable to withdraw from
the habitual action of private judgment, and in which there is most
to gain and least to lose by recognizing a principle of authority.
The first object and one of the principal advantages of religions,
is to furnish to each of these fundamental questions a solution
which is at once clear, precise, intelligible to the mass of
mankind, and lasting. There are religions which are very false and
very absurd; but it may be affirmed, that any religion which remains
within the circle I have just traced, without aspiring to go beyond
it (as many religions have attempted to do, for the purpose of
enclosing on every side the free progress of the human mind),
imposes a salutary restraint on the intellect; and it must be
admitted that, if it do not save men in another world, such religion
is at least very conducive to their happiness and their greatness in
this. This is more especially true of men living in free countries.
When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the
highest portions of the intellect, and half paralyzes all the rest
of its powers. Every man accustoms himself to entertain none but
confused and changing notions on the subjects most interesting to
his fellow-creatures and himself. His opinions are ill-defended and
easily abandoned: and, despairing of ever resolving by himself the
hardest problems of the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think
no more about them. Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul,
relax the springs of the will, and prepare a people for servitude.
Nor does it only happen, in such a case, that they allow their
freedom to be wrested from them; they frequently themselves
surrender it. When there is no longer any principle of authority in
religion any more than in politics, men are speedily frightened at
the aspect of this unbounded independence. The constant agitation of
all surrounding things alarms and exhausts them. As everything is at
sea in the sphere of the intellect, they determine at least that the
mechanism of society should be firm and fixed; and as they cannot
resume their ancient belief, they assume a master.
For my own part, I doubt whether man can ever support at the same
time complete religious independence and entire public freedom. And
I am inclined to think, that if faith be wanting in him, he must
serve; and if he be free, he must believe.
Perhaps, however, this great utility of religions is still more
obvious amongst nations where equality of conditions prevails than
amongst others. It must be acknowledged that equality, which brings
great benefits into the world, nevertheless suggests to men (as will
be shown hereafter) some very dangerous propensities. It tends to
isolate them from each other, to concentrate every man's attention
upon himself; and it lays open the soul to an inordinate love of
material gratification. The greatest advantage of religion is to
inspire diametrically contrary principles. There is no religion
which does not place the object of man's desires above and beyond
the treasures of earth, and which does not naturally raise his soul
to regions far above those of the senses. Nor is there any which
does not impose on man some sort of duties to his kind, and thus
draws him at times from the contemplation of himself. This occurs in
religions the most false and dangerous. Religious nations are
therefore naturally strong on the very point on which democratic
nations are weak; which shows of what importance it is for men to
preserve their religion as their conditions become more equal.
I have neither the right nor the intention of examining the
supernatural means which God employs to infuse religious belief into
the heart of man. I am at this moment considering religions in a
purely human point of view: my object is to inquire by what means
they may most easily retain their sway in the democratic ages upon
which we are entering. It has been shown that, at times of general
cultivation and equality, the human mind does not consent to adopt
dogmatical opinions without reluctance, and feels their necessity
acutely in spiritual matters only. This proves, in the first place,
that at such times religions ought, more cautiously than at any
other, to confine themselves within their own precincts; for in
seeking to extend their power beyond religious matters, they incur a
risk of not being believed at all. The circle within which they seek
to bound the human intellect ought therefore to be carefully traced,
and beyond its verge the mind should be left in entire freedom to
its own guidance. Mahommed professed to derive from Heaven, and he
has inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines,
but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of
science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general
relations of men to God and to each other - beyond which it
inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a
thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of
these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and
democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway at
these as at all other periods.
But in continuation of this branch of the subject, I find that in
order for religions to maintain their authority, humanly speaking,
in democratic ages, they must not only confine themselves strictly
within the circle of spiritual matters: their power also depends
very much on the nature of the belief they inculcate, on the
external forms they assume, and on the obligations they impose. The
preceding observation, that equality leads men to very general and
very extensive notions, is principally to be understood as applied
to the question of religion. Men living in a similar and equal
condition in the world readily conceive the idea of the one God,
governing every man by the same laws, and granting to every man
future happiness on the same conditions. The idea of the unity of
mankind constantly leads them back to the idea of the unity of the
Creator; whilst, on the contrary, in a state of society where men
are broken up into very unequal ranks, they are apt to devise as
many deities as there are nations, castes, classes, or families, and
to trace a thousand private roads to heaven.
It cannot be denied that Christianity itself has felt, to a certain
extent, the influence which social and political conditions exercise
on religious opinions. At the epoch at which the Christian religion
appeared upon earth, Providence, by whom the world was doubtless
prepared for its coming, had gathered a large portion of the human
race, like an immense flock, under the sceptre of the Caesars. The
men of whom this multitude was composed were distinguished by
numerous differences; but they had thus much in common, that they
all obeyed the same laws, and that every subject was so weak and
insignificant in relation to the imperial potentate, that all
appeared equal when their condition was contrasted with his. This
novel and peculiar state of mankind necessarily predisposed men to
listen to the general truths which Christianity teaches, and may
serve to explain the facility and rapidity with which they then
penetrated into the human mind. The counterpart of this state of
things was exhibited after the destruction of the empire. The Roman
world being then as it were shattered into a thousand fragments,
each nation resumed its pristine individuality. An infinite scale of
ranks very soon grew up in the bosom of these nations; the different
races were more sharply defined, and each nation was divided by
castes into several peoples. In the midst of this common effort,
which seemed to be urging human society to the greatest conceivable
amount of voluntary subdivision, Christianity did not lose sight of
the leading general ideas which it had brought into the world. But
it appeared, nevertheless, to lend itself, as much as was possible,
to those new tendencies to which the fractional distribution of
mankind had given birth. Men continued to worship an only God, the
Creator and Preserver of all things; but every people, every city,
and, so to speak, every man, thought to obtain some distinct
privilege, and win the favor of an especial patron at the foot of
the Throne of Grace. Unable to subdivide the Deity, they multiplied
and improperly enhanced the importance of the divine agents. The
homage due to saints and angels became an almost idolatrous worship
amongst the majority of the Christian world; and apprehensions might
be entertained for a moment lest the religion of Christ should
retrograde towards the superstitions which it had subdued. It seems
evident, that the more the barriers are removed which separate
nation from nation amongst mankind, and citizen from citizen amongst
a people, the stronger is the bent of the human mind, as if by its
own impulse, towards the idea of an only and all-powerful Being,
dispensing equal laws in the same manner to every man. In democratic
ages, then, it is more particularly important not to allow the
homage paid to secondary agents to be confounded with the worship
due to the Creator alone.
Another truth is no less clear - that religions ought to assume
fewer external observances in democratic periods than at any others.
In speaking of philosophical method among the Americans, I have
shown that nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of
equality than the idea of subjection to forms. Men living at such
times are impatient of figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be
the puerile artifice which is used to conceal or to set off truths,
which should more naturally be bared to the light of open day: they
are unmoved by ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to
attach a secondary importance to the details of public worship.
Those whose care it is to regulate the external forms of religion in
a democratic age should pay a close attention to these natural
propensities of the human mind, in order not unnecessarily to run
counter to them. I firmly believe in the necessity of forms, which
fix the human mind in the contemplation of abstract truths, and
stimulate its ardor in the pursuit of them, whilst they invigorate
its powers of retaining them steadfastly. Nor do I suppose that it
is possible to maintain a religion without external observances;
but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that, in the ages upon which
we are entering, it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply them
beyond measure; and that they ought rather to be limited to as much
as is absolutely necessary to perpetuate the doctrine itself, which
is the substance of religions of which the ritual is only the form.
*a A religion which should become more minute, more peremptory, and
more surcharged with small observances at a time in which men are
becoming more equal, would soon find itself reduced to a band of
fanatical zealots in the midst of an infidel people.
[Footnote a: In all religions there are some ceremonies which are
inherent in the substance of the faith itself, and in these nothing
should, on any account, be changed. This is especially the case with
Roman Catholicism, in which the doctrine and the form are frequently
so closely united as to form one point of belief.]
I anticipate the objection, that as all religions have general and
eternal truths for their object, they cannot thus shape themselves
to the shifting spirit of every age without forfeiting their claim
to certainty in the eyes of mankind. To this I reply again, that the
principal opinions which constitute belief, and which theologians
call articles of faith, must be very carefully distinguished from
the accessories connected with them. Religions are obliged to hold
fast to the former, whatever be the peculiar spirit of the age; but
they should take good care not to bind themselves in the same manner
to the latter at a time when everything is in transition, and when
the mind, accustomed to the moving pageant of human affairs,
reluctantly endures the attempt to fix it to any given point. The
fixity of external and secondary things can only afford a chance of
duration when civil society is itself fixed; under any other
circumstances I hold it to be perilous.
We shall have occasion to see that, of all the passions which
originate in, or are fostered by, equality, there is one which it
renders peculiarly intense, and which it infuses at the same time
into the heart of every man: I mean the love of well-being. The
taste for well-being is the prominent and indelible feature of
democratic ages. It may be believed that a religion which should
undertake to destroy so deep seated a passion, would meet its own
destruction thence in the end; and if it attempted to wean men
entirely from the contemplation of the good things of this world, in
order to devote their faculties exclusively to the thought of
another, it may be foreseen that the soul would at length escape
from its grasp, to plunge into the exclusive enjoyment of present
and material pleasures. The chief concern of religions is to purify,
to regulate, and to restrain the excessive and exclusive taste for
well-being which men feel at periods of equality; but they would err
in attempting to control it completely or to eradicate it. They will
not succeed in curing men of the love of riches: but they may still
persuade men to enrich themselves by none but honest means.
This brings me to a final consideration, which comprises, as it
were, all the others. The more the conditions of men are equalized
and assimilated to each other, the more important is it for
religions, whilst they carefully abstain from the daily turmoil of
secular affairs, not needlessly to run counter to the ideas which
generally prevail, and the permanent interests which exist in the
mass of the people. For as public opinion grows to be more and more
evidently the first and most irresistible of existing powers, the
religious principle has no external support strong enough to enable
it long to resist its attacks. This is not less true of a democratic
people, ruled by a despot, than in a republic. In ages of equality,
kings may often command obedience, but the majority always commands
belief: to the majority, therefore, deference is to be paid in
whatsoever is not contrary to the faith.
I showed in my former volumes how the American clergy stand aloof
from secular affairs. This is the most obvious, but it is not the
only, example of their self-restraint. In America religion is a
distinct sphere, in which the priest is sovereign, but out of which
he takes care never to go. Within its limits he is the master of the
mind; beyond them, he leaves men to themselves, and surrenders them
to the independence and instability which belong to their nature and
their age. I have seen no country in which Christianity is clothed
with fewer forms, figures, and observances than in the United
States; or where it presents more distinct, more simple, or more
general notions to the mind. Although the Christians of America are
divided into a multitude of sects, they all look upon their religion
in the same light. This applies to Roman Catholicism as well as to
the other forms of belief. There are no Romish priests who show less
taste for the minute individual observances for extraordinary or
peculiar means of salvation, or who cling more to the spirit, and
less to the letter of the law, than the Roman Catholic priests of
the United States. Nowhere is that doctrine of the Church, which
prohibits the worship reserved to God alone from being offered to
the saints, more clearly inculcated or more generally followed. Yet
the Roman Catholics of America are very submissive and very sincere.
Another remark is applicable to the clergy of every communion. The
American ministers of the gospel do not attempt to draw or to fix
all the thoughts of man upon the life to come; they are willing to
surrender a portion of his heart to the cares of the present;
seeming to consider the goods of this world as important, although
as secondary, objects. If they take no part themselves in productive
labor, they are at least interested in its progression, and ready to
applaud its results; and whilst they never cease to point to the
other world as the great object of the hopes and fears of the
believer, they do not forbid him honestly to court prosperity in
this. Far from attempting to show that these things are distinct and
contrary to one another, they study rather to find out on what point
they are most nearly and closely connected.
All the American clergy know and respect the intellectual supremacy
exercised by the majority; they never sustain any but necessary
conflicts with it. They take no share in the altercations of
parties, but they readily adopt the general opinions of their
country and their age; and they allow themselves to be borne away
without opposition in the current of feeling and opinion by which
everything around them is carried along. They endeavor to amend
their contemporaries, but they do not quit fellowship with them.
Public opinion is therefore never hostile to them; it rather
supports and protects them; and their belief owes its authority at
the same time to the strength which is its own, and to that which
they borrow from the opinions of the majority. Thus it is that, by
respecting all democratic tendencies not absolutely contrary to
herself, and by making use of several of them for her own purposes,
religion sustains an advantageous struggle with that spirit of
individual independence which is her most dangerous antagonist.
Book One - Chapters VI-IX
Chapter VI: Of The Progress Of Roman Catholicism In The United
States
America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at
the same time (according to reports worthy of belief) the country in
which the Roman Catholic religion makes most progress. At first
sight this is surprising. Two things must here be accurately
distinguished: equality inclines men to wish to form their own
opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues them with the taste and
the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power which
governs society. Men living in democratic ages are therefore very
prone to shake off all religious authority; but if they consent to
subject themselves to any authority of this kind, they choose at
least that it should be single and uniform. Religious powers not
radiating from a common centre are naturally repugnant to their
minds; and they almost as readily conceive that there should be no
religion, as that there should be several. At the present time, more
than in any preceding one, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into
infidelity, and Protestants to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If
the Roman Catholic faith be considered within the pale of the
church, it would seem to be losing ground; without that pale, to be
gaining it. Nor is this circumstance difficult of explanation. The
men of our days are naturally disposed to believe; but, as soon as
they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent
propensity which urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism. Many
of the doctrines and the practices of the Romish Church astonish
them; but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its
great unity attracts them. If Catholicism could at length withdraw
itself from the political animosities to which it has given rise, I
have hardly any doubt but that the same spirit of the age, which
appears to be so opposed to it, would become so favorable as to
admit of its great and sudden advancement. One of the most ordinary
weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary
principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic. Thus
there have ever been, and will ever be, men who, after having
submitted some portion of their religious belief to the principle of
authority, will seek to exempt several other parts of their faith
from its influence, and to keep their minds floating at random
between liberty and obedience. But I am inclined to believe that the
number of these thinkers will be less in democratic than in other
ages; and that our posterity will tend more and more to a single
division into two parts - some relinquishing Christianity entirely,
and others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome.
Chapter VII: Of The Cause Of A Leaning To Pantheism Amongst
Democratic Nations
I shall take occasion hereafter to show under what form the
preponderating taste of a democratic people for very general ideas
manifests itself in politics; but I would point out, at the present
stage of my work, its principal effect on philosophy. It cannot be
denied that pantheism has made great progress in our age. The
writings of a part of Europe bear visible marks of it: the Germans
introduce it into philosophy, and the French into literature. Most
of the works of imagination published in France contain some
opinions or some tinge caught from pantheistical doctrines, or they
disclose some tendency to such doctrines in their authors. This
appears to me not only to proceed from an accidental, but from a
permanent cause.
When the conditions of society are becoming more equal, and each
individual man becomes more like all the rest, more weak and more
insignificant, a habit grows up of ceasing to notice the citizens to
consider only the people, and of overlooking individuals to think
only of their kind. At such times the human mind seeks to embrace a
multitude of different objects at once; and it constantly strives to
succeed in connecting a variety of consequences with a single cause.
The idea of unity so possesses itself of man, and is sought for by
him so universally, that if he thinks he has found it, he readily
yields himself up to repose in that belief. Nor does he content
himself with the discovery that nothing is in the world but a
creation and a Creator; still embarrassed by this primary division
of things, he seeks to expand and to simplify his conception by
including God and the universe in one great whole. If there be a
philosophical system which teaches that all things material and
immaterial, visible and invisible, which the world contains, are
only to be considered as the several parts of an immense Being,
which alone remains unchanged amidst the continual change and
ceaseless transformation of all that constitutes it, we may readily
infer that such a system, although it destroy the individuality of
man - nay, rather because it destroys that individuality - will have
secret charms for men living in democracies. All their habits of
thought prepare them to conceive it, and predispose them to adopt
it. It naturally attracts and fixes their imagination; it fosters
the pride, whilst it soothes the indolence, of their minds. Amongst
the different systems by whose aid philosophy endeavors to explain
the universe, I believe pantheism to be one of those most fitted to
seduce the human mind in democratic ages. Against it all who abide
in their attachment to the true greatness of man should struggle and
combine.
Chapter VIII: The Principle Of Equality Suggests To The Americans
The Idea Of The Indefinite Perfectibility Of Man
Equality suggests to the human mind several ideas which would not
have originated from any other source, and it modifies almost all
those previously entertained. I take as an example the idea of human
perfectibility, because it is one of the principal notions that the
intellect can conceive, and because it constitutes of itself a great
philosophical theory, which is every instant to be traced by its
consequences in the practice of human affairs. Although man has many
points of resemblance with the brute creation, one characteristic is
peculiar to himself - he improves: they are incapable of
improvement. Mankind could not fail to discover this difference from
its earliest period. The idea of perfectibility is therefore as old
as the world; equality did not give birth to it, although it has
imparted to it a novel character.
When the citizens of a community are classed according to their
rank, their profession, or their birth, and when all men are
constrained to follow the career which happens to open before them,
everyone thinks that the utmost limits of human power are to be
discerned in proximity to himself, and none seeks any longer to
resist the inevitable law of his destiny. Not indeed that an
aristocratic people absolutely contests man's faculty of self-
improvement, but they do not hold it to be indefinite; amelioration
they conceive, but not change: they imagine that the future
condition of society may be better, but not essentially different;
and whilst they admit that mankind has made vast strides in
improvement, and may still have some to make, they assign to it
beforehand certain impassable limits. Thus they do not presume that
they have arrived at the supreme good or at absolute truth (what
people or what man was ever wild enough to imagine it?) but they
cherish a persuasion that they have pretty nearly reached that
degree of greatness and knowledge which our imperfect nature admits
of; and as nothing moves about them they are willing to fancy that
everything is in its fit place. Then it is that the legislator
affects to lay down eternal laws; that kings and nations will raise
none but imperishable monuments; and that the present generation
undertakes to spare generations to come the care of regulating their
destinies.
In proportion as castes disappear and the classes of society
approximate - as manners, customs, and laws vary, from the
tumultuous intercourse of men -as new facts arise - as new truths
are brought to light - as ancient opinions are dissipated, and
others take their place -the image of an ideal perfection, forever
on the wing, presents itself to the human mind. Continual changes
are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man:
the position of some is rendered worse; and he learns but too well,
that no people and no individual, how enlightened soever they may
be, can lay claim to infallibility; - the condition of others is
improved; whence he infers that man is endowed with an indefinite
faculty of improvement. His reverses teach him that none may hope to
have discovered absolute good - his success stimulates him to the
never-ending pursuit of it. Thus, forever seeking -forever falling,
to rise again - often disappointed, but not discouraged - he tends
unceasingly towards that unmeasured greatness so indistinctly
visible at the end of the long track which humanity has yet to
tread. It can hardly be believed how many facts naturally flow from
the philosophical theory of the indefinite perfectibility of man, or
how strong an influence it exercises even on men who, living
entirely for the purposes of action and not of thought, seem to
conform their actions to it, without knowing anything about it. I
accost an American sailor, and I inquire why the ships of his
country are built so as to last but for a short time; he answers
without hesitation that the art of navigation is every day making
such rapid progress, that the finest vessel would become almost
useless if it lasted beyond a certain number of years. In these
words, which fell accidentally and on a particular subject from a
man of rude attainments, I recognize the general and systematic idea
upon which a great people directs all its concerns.
Aristocratic nations are naturally too apt to narrow the scope of
human perfectibility; democratic nations to expand it beyond
compass.
Chapter IX: The Example Of The Americans Does Not Prove That A
Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude And No Taste For Science,
Literature, Or Art
It must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of
our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the
United States; and in few have great artists, fine poets, or
celebrated writers been more rare. Many Europeans, struck by this
fact, have looked upon it as a natural and inevitable result of
equality; and they have supposed that if a democratic state of
society and democratic institutions were ever to prevail over the
whole earth, the human mind would gradually find its beacon-lights
grow dim, and men would relapse into a period of darkness. To reason
thus is, I think, to confound several ideas which it is important to
divide and to examine separately: it is to mingle, unintentionally,
what is democratic with what is only American.
The religion professed by the first emigrants, and bequeathed by
them to their descendants, simple in its form of worship, austere
and almost harsh in its principles, and hostile to external symbols
and to ceremonial pomp, is naturally unfavorable to the fine arts,
and only yields a reluctant sufferance to the pleasures of
literature. The Americans are a very old and a very enlightened
people, who have fallen upon a new and unbounded country, where they
may extend themselves at pleasure, and which they may fertilize
without difficulty. This state of things is without a parallel in
the history of the world. In America, then, every one finds
facilities, unknown elsewhere, for making or increasing his fortune.
The spirit of gain is always on the stretch, and the human mind,
constantly diverted from the pleasures of imagination and the labors
of the intellect, is there swayed by no impulse but the pursuit of
wealth. Not only are manufacturing and commercial classes to be
found in the United States, as they are in all other countries; but
what never occurred elsewhere, the whole community is simultaneously
engaged in productive industry and commerce. I am convinced that, if
the Americans had been alone in the world, with the freedom and the
knowledge acquired by their forefathers, and the passions which are
their own, they would not have been slow to discover that progress
cannot long be made in the application of the sciences without
cultivating the theory of them; that all the arts are perfected by
one another: and, however absorbed they might have been by the
pursuit of the principal object of their desires, they would
speedily have admitted, that it is necessary to turn aside from it
occasionally, in order the better to attain it in the end.
The taste for the pleasures of the mind is moreover so natural to
the heart of civilized man, that amongst the polite nations, which
are least disposed to give themselves up to these pursuits, a
certain number of citizens are always to be found who take part in
them. This intellectual craving, when once felt, would very soon
have been satisfied. But at the very time when the Americans were
naturally inclined to require nothing of science but its special
applications to the useful arts and the means of rendering life
comfortable, learned and literary Europe was engaged in exploring
the common sources of truth, and in improving at the same time all
that can minister to the pleasures or satisfy the wants of man. At
the head of the enlightened nations of the Old World the inhabitants
of the United States more particularly distinguished one, to which
they were closely united by a common origin and by kindred habits.
Amongst this people they found distinguished men of science, artists
of skill, writers of eminence, and they were enabled to enjoy the
treasures of the intellect without requiring to labor in amassing
them. I cannot consent to separate America from Europe, in spite of
the ocean which intervenes. I consider the people of the United
States as that portion of the English people which is commissioned
to explore the wilds of the New World; whilst the rest of the
nation, enjoying more leisure and less harassed by the drudgery of
life, may devote its energies to thought, and enlarge in all
directions the empire of the mind. The position of the Americans is
therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no
democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their
strictly Puritanical origin - their exclusively commercial habits -
even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds
from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts - the
proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits
without relapsing into barbarism - a thousand special causes, of
which I have only been able to point out the most important - have
singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely
practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and
everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the
United States earthward: his religion alone bids him turn, from time
to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease
then to view all democratic nations under the mask of the American
people, and let us attempt to survey them at length with their own
proper features.
It is possible to conceive a people not subdivided into any castes
or scale of ranks; in which the law, recognizing no privileges,
should divide inherited property into equal shares; but which, at
the same time, should be without knowledge and without freedom. Nor
is this an empty hypothesis: a despot may find that it is his
interest to render his subjects equal and to leave them ignorant, in
order more easily to keep them slaves. Not only would a democratic
people of this kind show neither aptitude nor taste for science,
literature, or art, but it would probably never arrive at the
possession of them. The law of descent would of itself provide for
the destruction of fortunes at each succeeding generation; and new
fortunes would be acquired by none. The poor man, without either
knowledge or freedom, would not so much as conceive the idea of
raising himself to wealth; and the rich man would allow himself to
be degraded to poverty, without a notion of self-defence. Between
these two members of the community complete and invincible equality
would soon be established.
No one would then have time or taste to devote himself to the
pursuits or pleasures of the intellect; but all men would remain
paralyzed by a state of common ignorance and equal servitude. When I
conceive a democratic society of this kind, I fancy myself in one of
those low, close, and gloomy abodes, where the light which breaks in
from without soon faints and fades away. A sudden heaviness
overpowers me, and I grope through the surrounding darkness, to find
the aperture which will restore me to daylight and the air.
But all this is not applicable to men already enlightened who retain
their freedom, after having abolished from amongst them those
peculiar and hereditary rights which perpetuated the tenure of
property in the hands of certain individuals or certain bodies. When
men living in a democratic state of society are enlightened, they
readily discover that they are confined and fixed within no limits
which constrain them to take up with their present fortune. They all
therefore conceive the idea of increasing it; if they are free, they
all attempt it, but all do not succeed in the same manner. The
legislature, it is true, no longer grants privileges, but they are
bestowed by nature. As natural inequality is very great, fortunes
become unequal as soon as every man exerts all his faculties to get
rich. The law of descent prevents the establishment of wealthy
families; but it does not prevent the existence of wealthy
individuals. It constantly brings back the members of the community
to a common level, from which they as constantly escape: and the
inequality of fortunes augments in proportion as knowledge is
diffused and liberty increased.
A sect which arose in our time, and was celebrated for its talents
and its extravagance, proposed to concentrate all property into the
hands of a central power, whose function it should afterwards be to
parcel it out to individuals, according to their capacity. This
would have been a method of escaping from that complete and eternal
equality which seems to threaten democratic society. But it would be
a simpler and less dangerous remedy to grant no privilege to any,
giving to all equal cultivation and equal independence, and leaving
everyone to determine his own position. Natural inequality will very
soon make way for itself, and wealth will spontaneously pass into
the hands of the most capable.
Free and democratic communities, then, will always contain a
considerable number of people enjoying opulence or competency. The
wealthy will not be so closely linked to each other as the members
of the former aristocratic class of society: their propensities will
be different, and they will scarcely ever enjoy leisure as secure or
as complete: but they will be far more numerous than those who
belonged to that class of society could ever be. These persons will
not be strictly confined to the cares of practical life, and they
will still be able, though in different degrees, to indulge in the
pursuits and pleasures of the intellect. In those pleasures they
will indulge; for if it be true that the human mind leans on one
side to the narrow, the practical, and the useful, it naturally
rises on the other to the infinite, the spiritual, and the
beautiful. Physical wants confine it to the earth; but, as soon as
the tie is loosened, it will unbend itself again.
Not only will the number of those who can take an interest in the
productions of the mind be enlarged, but the taste for intellectual
enjoyment will descend, step by step, even to those who, in
aristocratic societies, seem to have neither time nor ability to in
indulge in them. When hereditary wealth, the privileges of rank, and
the prerogatives of birth have ceased to be, and when every man
derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the
chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind.
Whatever tends to invigorate, to extend, or to adorn the mind,
instantly rises to great value. The utility of knowledge becomes
singularly conspicuous even to the eyes of the multitude: those who
have no taste for its charms set store upon its results, and make
some efforts to acquire it. In free and enlightened democratic ages,
there is nothing to separate men from each other or to retain them
in their peculiar sphere; they rise or sink with extreme rapidity.
All classes live in perpetual intercourse from their great proximity
to each other. They communicate and intermingle every day -they
imitate and envy one other: this suggests to the people many ideas,
notions, and desires which it would never have entertained if the
distinctions of rank had been fixed and society at rest. In such
nations the servant never considers himself as an entire stranger to
the pleasures and toils of his master, nor the poor man to those of
the rich; the rural population assimilates itself to that of the
towns, and the provinces to the capital. No one easily allows
himself to be reduced to the mere material cares of life; and the
humblest artisan casts at times an eager and a furtive glance into
the higher regions of the intellect. People do not read with the
same notions or in the same manner as they do in an aristocratic
community; but the circle of readers is unceasingly expanded, till
it includes all the citizens.
As soon as the multitude begins to take an interest in the labors of
the mind, it finds out that to excel in some of them is a powerful
method of acquiring fame, power, or wealth. The restless ambition
which equality begets instantly takes this direction as it does all
others. The number of those who cultivate science, letters, and the
arts, becomes immense. The intellectual world starts into prodigious
activity: everyone endeavors to open for himself a path there, and
to draw the eyes of the public after him. Something analogous occurs
to what happens in society in the United States, politically
considered. What is done is often imperfect, but the attempts are
innumerable; and, although the results of individual effort are
commonly very small, the total amount is always very large.
It is therefore not true to assert that men living in democratic
ages are naturally indifferent to science, literature, and the arts:
only it must be acknowledged that they cultivate them after their
own fashion, and bring to the task their own peculiar qualifications
and deficiencies.
Book One - Chapters X-XII
Chapter X: Why The Americans Are More Addicted To Practical Than To
Theoretical Science
If a democratic state of society and democratic institutions do not
stop the career of the human mind, they incontestably guide it in
one direction in preference to another. Their effects, thus
circumscribed, are still exceedingly great; and I trust I may be
pardoned if I pause for a moment to survey them. We had occasion, in
speaking of the philosophical method of the American people, to make
several remarks which must here be turned to account.
Equality begets in man the desire of judging of everything for
himself: it gives him, in all things, a taste for the tangible and
the real, a contempt for tradition and for forms. These general
tendencies are principally discernible in the peculiar subject of
this chapter. Those who cultivate the sciences amongst a democratic
people are always afraid of losing their way in visionary
speculation. They mistrust systems; they adhere closely to facts and
the study of facts with their own senses. As they do not easily
defer to the mere name of any fellow-man, they are never inclined to
rest upon any man's authority; but, on the contrary, they are
unremitting in their efforts to point out the weaker points of their
neighbors' opinions. Scientific precedents have very little weight
with them; they are never long detained by the subtility of the
schools, nor ready to accept big words for sterling coin; they
penetrate, as far as they can, into the principal parts of the
subject which engages them, and they expound them in the vernacular
tongue. Scientific pursuits then follow a freer and a safer course,
but a less lofty one.
The mind may, as it appears to me, divide science into three parts.
The first comprises the most theoretical principles, and those more
abstract notions whose application is either unknown or very remote.
The second is composed of those general truths which still belong to
pure theory, but lead, nevertheless, by a straight and short road to
practical results. Methods of application and means of execution
make up the third. Each of these different portions of science may
be separately cultivated, although reason and Experience show that
none of them can prosper long, if it be absolutely cut off from the
two others.
In America the purely practical part of science is admirably
understood, and careful attention is paid to the theoretical portion
which is immediately requisite to application. On this head the
Americans always display a clear, free, original, and inventive
power of mind. But hardly anyone in the United States devotes
himself to the essentially theoretical and abstract portion of human
knowledge. In this respect the Americans carry to excess a tendency
which is, I think, discernible, though in a less degree, amongst all
democratic nations.
Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or
of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and
nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of
democratic society. We do not find there, as amongst an aristocratic
people, one class which clings to a state of repose because it is
well off; and another which does not venture to stir because it
despairs of improving its condition. Everyone is actively in motion:
some in quest of power, others of gain. In the midst of this
universal tumult - this incessant conflict of jarring interests -
this continual stride of men after fortune - where is that calm to
be found which is necessary for the deeper combinations of the
intellect? How can the mind dwell upon any single point, when
everything whirls around it, and man himself is swept and beaten
onwards by the heady current which rolls all things in its course?
But the permanent agitation which subsists in the bosom of a
peaceable and established democracy, must be distinguished from the
tumultuous and revolutionary movements which almost always attend
the birth and growth of democratic society. When a violent
revolution occurs amongst a highly civilized people, it cannot fail
to give a sudden impulse to their feelings and their opinions. This
is more particularly true of democratic revolutions, which stir up
all the classes of which a people is composed, and beget, at the
same time, inordinate ambition in the breast of every member of the
community. The French made most surprising advances in the exact
sciences at the very time at which they were finishing the
destruction of the remains of their former feudal society; yet this
sudden fecundity is not to be attributed to democracy, but to the
unexampled revolution which attended its growth. What happened at
that period was a special incident, and it would be unwise to regard
it as the test of a general principle. Great revolutions are not
more common amongst democratic nations than amongst others: I am
even inclined to believe that they are less so. But there prevails
amongst those populations a small distressing motion -a sort of
incessant jostling of men - which annoys and disturbs the mind,
without exciting or elevating it. Men who live in democratic
communities not only seldom indulge in meditation, but they
naturally entertain very little esteem for it. A democratic state of
society and democratic institutions plunge the greater part of men
in constant active life; and the habits of mind which are suited to
an active life, are not always suited to a contemplative one. The
man of action is frequently obliged to content himself with the best
he can get, because he would never accomplish his purpose if he
chose to carry every detail to perfection. He has perpetually
occasion to rely on ideas which he has not had leisure to search to
the bottom; for he is much more frequently aided by the opportunity
of an idea than by its strict accuracy; and, in the long run, he
risks less in making use of some false principles, than in spending
his time in establishing all his principles on the basis of truth.
The world is not led by long or learned demonstrations; a rapid
glance at particular incidents, the daily study of the fleeting
passions of the multitude, the accidents of the time, and the art of
turning them to account, decide all its affairs.
In the ages in which active life is the condition of almost
everyone, men are therefore generally led to attach an excessive
value to the rapid bursts and superficial conceptions of the
intellect; and, on the other hand, to depreciate below their true
standard its slower and deeper labors. This opinion of the public
influences the judgment of the men who cultivate the sciences; they
are persuaded that they may succeed in those pursuits without
meditation, or deterred from such pursuits as demand it.
There are several methods of studying the sciences. Amongst a
multitude of men you will find a selfish, mercantile, and trading
taste for the discoveries of the mind, which must not be confounded
with that disinterested passion which is kindled in the heart of the
few. A desire to utilize knowledge is one thing; the pure desire to
know is another. I do not doubt that in a few minds and far between,
an ardent, inexhaustible love of truth springs up, self-supported,
and living in ceaseless fruition without ever attaining the
satisfaction which it seeks. This ardent love it is - this proud,
disinterested love of what is true - which raises men to the
abstract sources of truth, to draw their mother-knowledge thence. If
Pascal had had nothing in view but some large gain, or even if he
had been stimulated by the love of fame alone, I cannot conceive
that he would ever have been able to rally all the powers of his
mind, as he did, for the better discovery of the most hidden things
of the Creator. When I see him, as it were, tear his soul from the
midst of all the cares of life to devote it wholly to these
researches, and, prematurely snapping the links which bind the frame
to life, die of old age before forty, I stand amazed, and I perceive
that no ordinary cause is at work to produce efforts so
extra-ordinary.
The future will prove whether these passions, at once so rare and so
productive, come into being and into growth as easily in the midst
of democratic as in aristocratic communities. For myself, I confess
that I am slow to believe it. In aristocratic society, the class
which gives the tone to opinion, and has the supreme guidance of
affairs, being permanently and hereditarily placed above the
multitude, naturally conceives a lofty idea of itself and of man. It
loves to invent for him noble pleasures, to carve out splendid
objects for his ambition. Aristocracies often commit very tyrannical
and very inhuman actions; but they rarely entertain grovelling
thoughts; and they show a kind of haughty contempt of little
pleasures, even whilst they indulge in them. The effect is greatly
to raise the general pitch of society. In aristocratic ages vast
ideas are commonly entertained of the dignity, the power, and the
greatness of man. These opinions exert their influence on those who
cultivate the sciences, as well as on the rest of the community.
They facilitate the natural impulse of the mind to the highest
regions of thought, and they naturally prepare it to conceive a
sublime - nay, almost a divine - love of truth. Men of science at
such periods are consequently carried away by theory; and it even
happens that they frequently conceive an inconsiderate contempt for
the practical part of learning. "Archimedes," says Plutarch, "was of
so lofty a spirit, that he never condescended to write any treatise
on the manner of constructing all these engines of offence and
defence. And as he held this science of inventing and putting
together engines, and all arts generally speaking which tended to
any usetul end in practice, to be vile, low, and mercenary, he spent
his talents and his studious hours in writing of those things only
whose beauty and subtilty had in them no admixture of necessity."
Such is the aristocratic aim of science; in democratic nations it
cannot be the same.
The greater part of the men who constitute these nations are
extremely eager in the pursuit of actual and physical gratification.
As they are always dissatisfied with the position which they occupy,
and are always free to leave it, they think of nothing but the means
of changing their fortune, or of increasing it. To minds thus
predisposed, every new method which leads by a shorter road to
wealth, every machine which spares labor, every instrument which
diminishes the cost of production, every discovery which facilitates
pleasures or augments them, seems to be the grandest effort of the
human intellect. It is chiefly from these motives that a democratic
people addicts itself to scientific pursuits - that it understands,
and that it respects them. In aristocratic ages, science is more
particularly called upon to furnish gratification to the mind; in
democracies, to the body. You may be sure that the more a nation is
democratic, enlightened, and free, the greater will be the number of
these interested promoters of scientific genius, and the more will
discoveries immediately applicable to productive industry confer
gain, fame, and even power on their authors. For in democracies the
working class takes a part in public affairs; and public honors, as
well as pecuniary remuneration, may be awarded to those who deserve
them. In a community thus organized it may easily be conceived that
the human mind may be led insensibly to the neglect of theory; and
that it is urged, on the contrary, with unparalleled vehemence to
the applications of science, or at least to that portion of
theoretical science which is necessary to those who make such
applications. In vain will some innate propensity raise the mind
towards the loftier spheres of the intellect; interest draws it down
to the middle zone. There it may develop all its energy and restless
activity, there it may engender all its wonders. These very
Americans, who have not discovered one of the general laws of
mechanics, have introduced into navigation an engine which changes
the aspect of the world.
Assuredly I do not content that the democratic nations of our time
are destined to witness the extinction of the transcendent
luminaries of man's intelligence, nor even that no new lights will
ever start into existence. At the age at which the world has now
arrived, and amongst so many cultivated nations, perpetually excited
by the fever of productive industry, the bonds which connect the
different parts of science together cannot fail to strike the
observation; and the taste for practical science itself, if it be
enlightened, ought to lead men not to neglect theory. In the midst
of such numberless attempted applications of so many experiments,
repeated every day, it is almost impossible that general laws should
not frequently be brought to light; so that great discoveries would
be frequent, though great inventors be rare. I believe, moreover, in
the high calling of scientific minds. If the democratic principle
does not, on the one hand, induce men to cultivate science for its
own sake, on the other it enormously increases the number of those
who do cultivate it. Nor is it credible that, from amongst so great
a multitude no speculative genius should from time to time arise,
inflamed by the love of truth alone. Such a one, we may be sure,
would dive into the deepest mysteries of nature, whatever be the
spirit of his country or his age. He requires no assistance in his
course - enough that he be not checked in it.
All that I mean to say is this: - permanent inequality of conditions
leads men to confine themselves to the arrogant and sterile research
of abstract truths; whilst the social condition and the institutions
of democracy prepare them to seek the immediate and useful practical
results of the sciences. This tendency is natural and inevitable: it
is curious to be acquainted with it, and it may be necessary to
point it out. If those who are called upon to guide the nations of
our time clearly discerned from afar off these new tendencies, which
will soon be irresistible, they would understand that, possessing
education and freedom, men living in democratic ages cannot fail to
improve the industrial part of science; and that henceforward all
the efforts of the constituted authorities ought to be directed to
support the highest branches of learning, and to foster the nobler
passion for science itself. In the present age the human mind must
be coerced into theoretical studies; it runs of its own accord to
practical applications; and, instead of perpetually referring it to
the minute examination of secondary effects, it is well to divert it
from them sometimes, in order to raise it up to the contemplation of
primary causes. Because the civilization of ancient Rome perished in
consequence of the invasion of the barbarians, we are perhaps too
apt to think that civilization cannot perish in any other manner. If
the light by which we are guided is ever extinguished, it will
dwindle by degrees, and expire of itself. By dint of close adherence
to mere applications, principles would be lost sight of; and when
the principles were wholly forgotten, the methods derived from them
would be ill-pursued. New methods could no longer be invented, and
men would continue to apply, without intelligence, and without art,
scientific processes no longer understood.
When Europeans first arrived in China, three hundred years ago, they
found that almost all the arts had reached a certain degree of
perfection there; and they were surprised that a people which had
attained this point should not have gone beyond it. At a later
period they discovered some traces of the higher branches of science
which were lost. The nation was absorbed in productive industry: the
greater part of its scientific processes had been preserved, but
science itself no longer existed there. This served to explain the
strangely motionless state in which they found the minds of this
people. The Chinese, in following the track of their forefathers,
had forgotten the reasons by which the latter had been guided. They
still used the formula, without asking for its meaning: they
retained the instrument, but they no longer possessed the art of
altering or renewing it. The Chinese, then, had lost the power of
change; for them to improve was impossible. They were compelled, at
all times and in all points, to imitate their predecessors, lest
they should stray into utter darkness, by deviating for an instant
from the path already laid down for them. The source of human
knowledge was all but dry; and though the stream still ran on, it
could neither swell its waters nor alter its channel.
Notwithstanding this, China had subsisted peaceably for centuries.
The invaders who had conquered the country assumed the manners of
the inhabitants, and order prevailed there. A sort of physical
prosperity was everywhere discernible: revolutions were rare, and
war was, so to speak, unknown.
It is then a fallacy to flatter ourselves with the reflection that
the barbarians are still far from us; for if there be some nations
which allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are
others who trample it themselves under their feet.
Chapter XI: Of The Spirit In Which The Americans Cultivate The Arts
It would be to waste the time of my readers and my own if I strove
to demonstrate how the general mediocrity of fortunes, the absence
of superfluous wealth, the universal desire of comfort, and the
constant efforts by which everyone attempts to procure it, make the
taste for the useful predominate over the love of the beautiful in
the heart of man. Democratic nations, amongst which all these things
exist, will therefore cultivate the arts which serve to render life
easy, in preference to those whose object is to adorn it. They will
habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful, and they will require
that the beautiful should be useful. But I propose to go further;
and after having pointed out this first feature, to sketch several
others.
It commonly happens that in the ages of privilege the practice of
almost all the arts becomes a privilege; and that every profession
is a separate walk, upon which it is not allowable for everyone to
enter. Even when productive industry is free, the fixed character
which belongs to aristocratic nations gradually segregates all the
persons who practise the same art, till they form a distinct class,
always composed of the same families, whose members are all known to
each other, and amongst whom a public opinion of their own and a
species of corporate pride soon spring up. In a class or guild of
this kind, each artisan has not only his fortune to make, but his
reputation to preserve. He is not exclusively swayed by his own
interest, or even by that of his customer, but by that of the body
to which he belongs; and the interest of that body is, that each
artisan should produce the best possible workmanship. In
aristocratic ages, the object of the arts is therefore to
manufacture as well as possible - not with the greatest despatch, or
at the lowest rate.
When, on the contrary, every profession is open to all - when a
multitude of persons are constantly embracing and abandoning it -
and when its several members are strangers to each other,
indifferent, and from their numbers hardly seen amongst themselves;
the social tie is destroyed, and each workman, standing alone,
endeavors simply to gain the greatest possible quantity of money at
the least possible cost. The will of the customer is then his only
limit. But at the same time a corresponding revolution takes place
in the customer also. In countries in which riches as well as power
are concentrated and retained in the hands of the few, the use of
the greater part of this world's goods belongs to a small number of
individuals, who are always the same. Necessity, public opinion, or
moderate desires exclude all others from the enjoyment of them. As
this aristocratic class remains fixed at the pinnacle of greatness
on which it stands, without diminution or increase, it is always
acted upon by the same wants and affected by them in the same
manner. The men of whom it is composed naturally derive from their
superior and hereditary position a taste for what is extremely well
made and lasting. This affects the general way of thinking of the
nation in relation to the arts. It often occurs, among such a
people, that even the peasant will rather go without the object he
covets, than procure it in a state of imperfection. In
aristocracies, then, the handicraftsmen work for only a limited
number of very fastidious customers: the profit they hope to make
depends principally on the perfection of their workmanship.
Such is no longer the case when, all privileges being abolished,
ranks are intermingled, and men are forever rising or sinking upon
the ladder of society. Amongst a democratic people a number of
citizens always exist whose patrimony is divided and decreasing.
They have contracted, under more prosperous circumstances, certain
wants, which remain after the means of satisfying such wants are
gone; and they are anxiously looking out for some surreptitious
method of providing for them. On the other hand, there are always in
democracies a large number of men whose fortune is upon the
increase, but whose desires grow much faster than their fortunes:
and who gloat upon the gifts of wealth in anticipation, long before
they have means to command them. Such men eager to find some short
cut to these gratifications, already almost within their reach. From
the combination of these causes the result is, that in democracies
there are always a multitude of individuals whose wants are above
their means, and who are very willing to take up with imperfect
satisfaction rather than abandon the object of their desires.
The artisan readily understands these passions, for he himself
partakes in them: in an aristocracy he would seek to sell his
workmanship at a high price to the few; he now conceives that the
more expeditious way of getting rich is to sell them at a low price
to all. But there are only two ways of lowering the price of
commodities. The first is to discover some better, shorter, and more
ingenious method of producing them: the second is to manufacture a
larger quantity of goods, nearly similar, but of less value. Amongst
a democratic population, all the intellectual faculties of the
workman are directed to these two objects: he strives to invent
methods which may enable him not only to work better, but quicker
and cheaper; or, if he cannot succeed in that, to diminish the
intrinsic qualities of the thing he makes, without rendering it
wholly unfit for the use for which it is intended. When none but the
wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones: few are
now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket.
Thus the democratic principle not only tends to direct the human
mind to the useful arts, but it induces the artisan to produce with
greater rapidity a quantity of imperfect commodities, and the
consumer to content himself with these commodities.
Not that in democracies the arts are incapable of producing very
commendable works, if such be required. This may occasionally be the
case, if customers appear who are ready to pay for time and trouble.
In this rivalry of every kind of industry - in the midst of this
immense competition and these countless experiments, some excellent
workmen are formed who reach the utmost limits of their craft. But
they have rarely an opportunity of displaying what they can do; they
are scrupulously sparing of their powers; they remain in a state of
accomplished mediocrity, which condemns itself, and, though it be
very well able to shoot beyond the mark before it, aims only at what
it hits. In aristocracies, on the contrary, workmen always do all
they can; and when they stop, it is because they have reached the
limit of their attainments.
When I arrive in a country where I find some of the finest
productions of the arts, I learn from this fact nothing of the
social condition or of the political constitution of the country.
But if I perceive that the productions of the arts are generally of
an inferior quality, very abundant and very cheap, I am convinced
that, amongst the people where this occurs, privilege is on the
decline, and that ranks are beginning to intermingle, and will soon
be confounded together.
The handicraftsmen of democratic ages endeavor not only to bring
their useful productions within the reach of the whole community,
but they strive to give to all their commodities attractive
qualities which they do not in reality possess. In the confusion of
all ranks everyone hopes to appear what he is not, and makes great
exertions to succeed in this object. This sentiment indeed, which is
but too natural to the heart of man, does not originate in the
democratic principle; but that principle applies it to material
objects. To mimic virtue is of every age; but the hypocrisy of
luxury belongs more particularly to the ages of democracy.
To satisfy these new cravings of human vanity the arts have recourse
to every species of imposture: and these devices sometimes go so far
as to defeat their own purpose. Imitation diamonds are now made
which may be easily mistaken for real ones; as soon as the art of
fabricating false diamonds shall have reached so high a degree of
perfection that they cannot be distinguished from real ones, it is
probable that both one and the other will be abandoned, and become
mere pebbles again.
This leads me to speak of those arts which are called the fine arts,
by way of distinction. I do not believe that it is a necessary
effect of a democratic social condition and of democratic
institutions to diminish the number of men who cultivate the fine
arts; but these causes exert a very powerful influence on the manner
in which these arts are cultivated. Many of those who had already
contracted a taste for the fine arts are impoverished: on the other
hand, many of those who are not yet rich begin to conceive that
taste, at least by imitation; and the number of consumers increases,
but opulent and fastidious consumers become more scarce. Something
analogous to what I have already pointed out in the useful arts then
takes place in the fine arts; the productions of artists are more
numerous, but the merit of each production is diminished. No longer
able to soar to what is great, they cultivate what is pretty and
elegant; and appearance is more attended to than reality. In
aristocracies a few great pictures are produced; in democratic
countries, a vast number of insignificant ones. In the former,
statues are raised of bronze; in the latter, they are modelled in
plaster.
When I arrived for the first time at New York, by that part of the
Atlantic Ocean which is called the Narrows, I was surprised to
perceive along the shore, at some distance from the city, a
considerable number of little palaces of white marble, several of
which were built after the models of ancient architecture. When I
went the next day to inspect more closely the building which had
particularly attracted my notice, I found that its walls were of
whitewashed brick, and its columns of painted wood. All the edifices
which I had admired the night before were of the same kind.
The social condition and the institutions of democracy impart,
moreover, certain peculiar tendencies to all the imitative arts,
which it is easy to point out. They frequently withdraw them from
the delineation of the soul to fix them exclusively on that of the
body: and they substitute the representation of motion and sensation
for that of sentiment and thought: in a word, they put the real in
the place of the ideal. I doubt whether Raphael studied the minutest
intricacies of the mechanism of the human body as thoroughly as the
draughtsmen of our own time. He did not attach the same importance
to rigorous accuracy on this point as they do, because he aspired to
surpass nature. He sought to make of man something which should be
superior to man, and to embellish beauty's self. David and his
scholars were, on the contrary, as good anatomists as they were good
painters. They wonderfully depicted the models which they had before
their eyes, but they rarely imagined anything beyond them: they
followed nature with fidelity: whilst Raphael sought for something
better than nature. They have left us an exact portraiture of man;
but he discloses in his works a glimpse of the Divinity. This remark
as to the manner of treating a subject is no less applicable to the
choice of it. The painters of the Middle Ages generally sought far
above themselves, and away from their own time, for mighty subjects,
which left to their imagination an unbounded range. Our painters
frequently employ their talents in the exact imitation of the
details of private life, which they have always before their eyes;
and they are forever copying trivial objects, the originals of which
are only too abundant in nature.
Chapter XII: Why The Americans Raise Some Monuments So
Insignificant, And Others So Important
I have just observed, that in democratic ages monuments of the arts
tend to become more numerous and less important. I now hasten to
point out the exception to this rule. In a democratic community
individuals are very powerless; but the State which represents them
all, and contains them all in its grasp, is very powerful. Nowhere
do citizens appear so insignificant as in a democratic nation;
nowhere does the nation itself appear greater, or does the mind more
easily take in a wide general survey of it. In democratic
communities the imagination is compressed when men consider
themselves; it expands indefinitely when they think of the State.
Hence it is that the same men who live on a small scale in narrow
dwellings, frequently aspire to gigantic splendor in the erection of
their public monuments.
The Americans traced out the circuit of an immense city on the site
which they intended to make their capital, but which, up to the
present time, is hardly more densely peopled than Pontoise, though,
according to them, it will one day contain a million of inhabitants.
They have already rooted up trees for ten miles round, lest they
should interfere with the future citizens of this imaginary
metropolis. They have erected a magnificent palace for Congress in
the centre of the city, and have given it the pompous name of the
Capitol. The several States of the Union are every day planning and
erecting for themselves prodigious undertakings, which would
astonish the engineers of the great European nations. Thus democracy
not only leads men to a vast number of inconsiderable productions;
it also leads them to raise some monuments on the largest scale: but
between these two extremes there is a blank. A few scattered remains
of enormous buildings can therefore teach us nothing of the social
condition and the institutions of the people by whom they were
raised. I may add, though the remark leads me to step out of my
subject, that they do not make us better acquainted with its
greatness, its civilization, and its real prosperity. Whensoever a
power of any kind shall be able to make a whole people co-operate in
a single undertaking, that power, with a little knowledge and a
great deal of time, will succeed in obtaining something enormous
from the co-operation of efforts so multiplied. But this does not
lead to the conclusion that the people was very happy, very
enlightened, or even very strong.
The Spaniards found the City of Mexico full of magnificent temples
and vast palaces; but that did not prevent Cortes from conquering
the Mexican Empire with 600 foot soldiers and sixteen horses. If the
Romans had been better acquainted with the laws of hydraulics, they
would not have constructed all the aqueducts which surround the
ruins of their cities - they would have made a better use of their
power and their wealth. If they had invented the steam-engine,
perhaps they would not have extended to the extremities of their
empire those long artificial roads which are called Roman roads.
These things are at once the splendid memorials of their ignorance
and of their greatness. A people which should leave no other vestige
of its track than a few leaden pipes in the earth and a few iron
rods upon its surface, might have been more the master of nature
than the Romans.
Book One - Chapters XIII-XV
Chapter XIII: Literary Characteristics Of Democratic Ages
When a traveller goes into a bookseller's shop in the United States,
and examines the American books upon the shelves, the number of
works appears extremely great; whilst that of known authors appears,
on the contrary, to be extremely small. He will first meet with a
number of elementary treatises, destined to teach the rudiments of
human knowledge. Most of these books are written in Europe; the
Americans reprint them, adapting them to their own country. Next
comes an enormous quantity of religious works, Bibles, sermons,
edifying anecdotes, controversial divinity, and reports of
charitable societies; lastly, appears the long catalogue of
political pamphlets. In America, parties do not write books to
combat each others' opinions, but pamphlets which are circulated for
a day with incredible rapidity, and then expire. In the midst of all
these obscure productions of the human brain are to be found the
more remarkable works of that small number of authors, whose names
are, or ought to be, known to Europeans.
Although America is perhaps in our days the civilized country in
which literature is least attended to, a large number of persons are
nevertheless to be found there who take an interest in the
productions of the mind, and who make them, if not the study of
their lives, at least the charm of their leisure hours. But England
supplies these readers with the larger portion of the books which
they require. Almost all important English books are republished in
the United States. The literary genius of Great Britain still darts
its rays into the recesses of the forests of the New World. There is
hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of
Shakespeare. I remember that I read the feudal play of Henry V for
the first time in a loghouse.
Not only do the Americans constantly draw upon the treasures of
English literature, but it may be said with truth that they find the
literature of England growing on their own soil. The larger part of
that small number of men in the United States who are engaged in the
composition of literary works are English in substance, and still
more so in form. Thus they transport into the midst of democracy the
ideas and literary fashions which are current amongst the
aristocratic nation they have taken for their model. They paint with
colors borrowed from foreign manners; and as they hardly ever
represent the country they were born in as it really is, they are
seldom popular there. The citizens of the United States are
themselves so convinced that it is not for them that books are
published, that before they can make up their minds upon the merit
of one of their authors, they generally wait till his fame has been
ratified in England, just as in pictures the author of an original
is held to be entitled to judge of the merit of a copy. The
inhabitants of the United States have then at present, properly
speaking, no literature. The only authors whom I acknowledge as
American are the journalists. They indeed are not great writers, but
they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves
heard by them. Other authors are aliens; they are to the Americans
what the imitators of the Greeks and Romans were to us at the
revival of learning - an object of curiosity, not of general
sympathy. They amuse the mind, but they do not act upon the manners
of the people.
I have already said that this state of things is very far from
originating in democracy alone, and that the causes of it must be
sought for in several peculiar circumstances independent of the
democratic principle. If the Americans, retaining the same laws and
social condition, had had a different origin, and had been
transported into another country, I do not question that they would
have had a literature. Even as they now are, I am convinced that
they will ultimately have one; but its character will be different
from that which marks the American literary productions of our time,
and that character will be peculiarly its own. Nor is it impossible
to trace this character beforehand.
I suppose an aristocratic people amongst whom letters are
cultivated; the labors of the mind, as well as the affairs of state,
are conducted by a ruling class in society. The literary as well as
the political career is almost entirely confined to this class, or
to those nearest to it in rank. These premises suffice to give me a
key to all the rest. When a small number of the same men are engaged
at the same time upon the same objects, they easily concert with one
another, and agree upon certain leading rules which are to govern
them each and all. If the object which attracts the attention of
these men is literature, the productions of the mind will soon be
subjected by them to precise canons, from which it will no longer be
allowable to depart. If these men occupy a hereditary position in
the country, they will be naturally inclined, not only to adopt a
certain number of fixed rules for themselves, but to follow those
which their forefathers laid down for their own guidance; their code
will be at once strict and traditional. As they are not necessarily
engrossed by the cares of daily life - as they have never been so,
any more than their fathers were before them - they have learned to
take an interest, for several generations back, in the labors of the
mind. They have learned to understand literature as an art, to love
it in the end for its own sake, and to feel a scholar-like
satisfaction in seeing men conform to its rules. Nor is this all:
the men of whom I speak began and will end their lives in easy or in
affluent circumstances; hence they have naturally conceived a taste
for choice gratifications, and a love of refined and delicate
pleasures. Nay more, a kind of indolence of mind and heart, which
they frequently contract in the midst of this long and peaceful
enjoyment of so much welfare, leads them to put aside, even from
their pleasures, whatever might be too startling or too acute. They
had rather be amused than intensely excited; they wish to be
interested, but not to be carried away.
Now let us fancy a great number of literary performances executed by
the men, or for the men, whom I have just described, and we shall
readily conceive a style of literature in which everything will be
regular and prearranged. The slightest work will be carefully
touched in its least details; art and labor will be conspicuous in
everything; each kind of writing will have rules of its own, from
which it will not be allowed to swerve, and which distinguish it
from all others. Style will be thought of almost as much importance
as thought; and the form will be no less considered than the matter:
the diction will be polished, measured, and uniform. The tone of the
mind will be always dignified, seldom very animated; and writers
will care more to perfect what they produce than to multiply their
productions. It will sometimes happen that the members of the
literary class, always living amongst themselves and writing for
themselves alone, will lose sight of the rest of the world, which
will infect them with a false and labored style; they will lay down
minute literary rules for their exclusive use, which will insensibly
lead them to deviate from common-sense, and finally to transgress
the bounds of nature. By dint of striving after a mode of parlance
different from the vulgar, they will arrive at a sort of
aristocratic jargon, which is hardly less remote from pure language
than is the coarse dialect of the people. Such are the natural
perils of literature amongst aristocracies. Every aristocracy which
keeps itself entirely aloof from the people becomes impotent - a
fact which is as true in literature as it is in politics. *a
[Footnote a: All this is especially true of the aristocratic
countries which have been long and peacefully subject to a
monarchical government. When liberty prevails in an aristocracy, the
higher ranks are constantly obliged to make use of the lower
classes; and when they use, they approach them. This frequently
introduces something of a democratic spirit into an aristocratic
community. There springs up, moreover, in a privileged body,
governing with energy and an habitually bold policy, a taste for
stir and excitement which must infallibly affect all literary
performances.]
Let us now turn the picture and consider the other side of it; let
us transport ourselves into the midst of a democracy, not unprepared
by ancient traditions and present culture to partake in the
pleasures of the mind. Ranks are there intermingled and confounded;
knowledge and power are both infinitely subdivided, and, if I may
use the expression, scattered on every side. Here then is a motley
multitude, whose intellectual wants are to be supplied. These new
votaries of the pleasures of the mind have not all received the same
education; they do not possess the same degree of culture as their
fathers, nor any resemblance to them - nay, they perpetually differ
from themselves, for they live in a state of incessant change of
place, feelings, and fortunes. The mind of each member of the
community is therefore unattached to that of his fellow-citizens by
tradition or by common habits; and they have never had the power,
the inclination, nor the time to concert together. It is, however,
from the bosom of this heterogeneous and agitated mass that authors
spring; and from the same source their profits and their fame are
distributed. I can without difficulty understand that, under these
circumstances, I must expect to meet in the literature of such a
people with but few of those strict conventional rules which are
admitted by readers and by writers in aristocratic ages. If it
should happen that the men of some one period were agreed upon any
such rules, that would prove nothing for the following period; for
amongst democratic nations each new generation is a new people.
Amongst such nations, then, literature will not easily be subjected
to strict rules, and it is impossible that any such rules should
ever be permanent.
In democracies it is by no means the case that all the men who
cultivate literature have received a literary education; and most of
those who have some tinge of belles-lettres are either engaged in
politics, or in a profession which only allows them to taste
occasionally and by stealth the pleasures of the mind. These
pleasures, therefore, do not constitute the principal charm of their
lives; but they are considered as a transient and necessary
recreation amidst the serious labors of life. Such man can never
acquire a sufficiently intimate knowledge of the art of literature
to appreciate its more delicate beauties; and the minor shades of
expression must escape them. As the time they can devote to letters
is very short, they seek to make the best use of the whole of it.
They prefer books which may be easily procured, quickly read, and
which require no learned researches to be understood. They ask for
beauties, self-proffered and easily enjoyed; above all, they must
have what is unexpected and new. Accustomed to the struggle, the
crosses, and the monotony of practical life, they require rapid
emotions, startling passages -truths or errors brilliant enough to
rouse them up, and to plunge them at once, as if by violence, into
the midst of a subject.
Why should I say more? or who does not understand what is about to
follow, before I have expressed it? Taken as a whole, literature in
democratic ages can never present, as it does in the periods of
aristocracy, an aspect of order, regularity, science, and art; its
form will, on the contrary, ordinarily be slighted, sometimes
despised. Style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect,
overburdened, and loose - almost always vehement and bold. Authors
will aim at rapidity of execution, more than at perfection of
detail. Small productions will be more common than bulky books;
there will be more wit than erudition, more imagination than
profundity; and literary performances will bear marks of an
untutored and rude vigor of thought -frequently of great variety and
singular fecundity. The object of authors will be to astonish rather
than to please, and to stir the passions more than to charm the
taste. Here and there, indeed, writers will doubtless occur who will
choose a different track, and who will, if they are gifted with
superior abilities, succeed in finding readers, in spite of their
defects or their better qualities; but these exceptions will be
rare, and even the authors who shall so depart from the received
practice in the main subject of their works, will always relapse
into it in some lesser details.
I have just depicted two extreme conditions: the transition by which
a nation passes from the former to the latter is not sudden but
gradual, and marked with shades of very various intensity. In the
passage which conducts a lettered people from the one to the other,
there is almost always a moment at which the literary genius of
democratic nations has its confluence with that of aristocracies,
and both seek to establish their joint sway over the human mind.
Such epochs are transient, but very brilliant: they are fertile
without exuberance, and animated without confusion. The French
literature of the eighteenth century may serve as an example.
I should say more than I mean if I were to assert that the
literature of a nation is always subordinate to its social condition
and its political constitution. I am aware that, independently of
these causes, there are several others which confer certain
characteristics on literary productions; but these appear to me to
be the chief. The relations which exist between the social and
political condition of a people and the genius of its authors are
always very numerous: whoever knows the one is never completely
ignorant of the other.
Chapter XIV: The Trade Of Literature
Democracy not only infuses a taste for letters among the trading
classes, but introduces a trading spirit into literature. In
aristocracies, readers are fastidious and few in number; in
democracies, they are far more numerous and far less difficult to
please. The consequence is, that among aristocratic nations, no one
can hope to succeed without immense exertions, and that these
exertions may bestow a great deal of fame, but can never earn much
money; whilst among democratic nations, a writer may flatter himself
that he will obtain at a cheap rate a meagre reputation and a large
fortune. For this purpose he need not be admired; it is enough that
he is liked. The ever-increasing crowd of readers, and their
continual craving for something new, insure the sale of books which
nobody much esteems.
In democratic periods the public frequently treat authors as kings
do their courtiers; they enrich, and they despise them. What more is
needed by the venal souls which are born in courts, or which are
worthy to live there? Democratic literature is always infested with
a tribe of writers who look upon letters as a mere trade: and for
some few great authors who adorn it you may reckon thousands of
idea-mongers.
Chapter XV: The Study Of Greek And Latin Literature Peculiarly
Useful In Democratic Communities
What was called the People in the most democratic republics of
antiquity, was very unlike what we designate by that term. In
Athens, all the citizens took part in public affairs; but there were
only 20,000 citizens to more than 350,000 inhabitants. All the rest
were slaves, and discharged the greater part of those duties which
belong at the present day to the lower or even to the middle
classes. Athens, then, with her universal suffrage, was after all
merely an aristocratic republic in which all the nobles had an equal
right to the government. The struggle between the patricians and
plebeians of Rome must be considered in the same light: it was
simply an intestine feud between the elder and younger branches of
the same family. All the citizens belonged, in fact, to the
aristocracy, and partook of its character.
It is moreover to be remarked, that amongst the ancients books were
always scarce and dear; and that very great difficulties impeded
their publication and circulation. These circumstances concentrated
literary tastes and habits amongst a small number of men, who formed
a small literary aristocracy out of the choicer spirits of the great
political aristocracy. Accordingly nothing goes to prove that
literature was ever treated as a trade amongst the Greeks and
Romans.
These peoples, which not only constituted aristocracies, but very
polished and free nations, of course imparted to their literary
productions the defects and the merits which characterize the
literature of aristocratic ages. And indeed a very superficial
survey of the literary remains of the ancients will suffice to
convince us, that if those writers were sometimes deficient in
variety, or fertility in their subjects, or in boldness, vivacity,
or power of generalization in their thoughts, they always displayed
exquisite care and skill in their details. Nothing in their works
seems to be done hastily or at random: every line is written for the
eye of the connoisseur, and is shaped after some conception of ideal
beauty. No literature places those fine qualities, in which the
writers of democracies are naturally deficient, in bolder relief
than that of the ancients; no literature, therefore, ought to be
more studied in democratic ages. This study is better suited than
any other to combat the literary defects inherent in those ages; as
for their more praiseworthy literary qualities, they will spring up
of their own accord, without its being necessary to learn to acquire
them.
It is important that this point should be clearly understood. A
particular study may be useful to the literature of a people,
without being appropriate to its social and political wants. If men
were to persist in teaching nothing but the literature of the dead
languages in a community where everyone is habitually led to make
vehement exertions to augment or to maintain his fortune, the result
would be a very polished, but a very dangerous, race of citizens.
For as their social and political condition would give them every
day a sense of wants which their education would never teach them to
supply, they would perturb the State, in the name of the Greeks and
Romans, instead of enriching it by their productive industry.
It is evident that in democratic communities the interest of
individuals, as well as the security of the commonwealth, demands
that the education of the greater number should be scientific,
commercial, and industrial, rather than literary. Greek and Latin
should not be taught in all schools; but it is important that those
who by their natural disposition or their fortune are destined to
cultivate letters or prepared to relish them, should find schools
where a complete knowledge of ancient literature may be acquired,
and where the true scholar may be formed. A few excellent
universities would do more towards the attainment of this object
than a vast number of bad grammar schools, where superfluous
matters, badly learned, stand in the way of sound instruction in
necessary studies.
All who aspire to literary excellence in democratic nations, ought
frequently to refresh themselves at the springs of ancient
literature: there is no more wholesome course for the mind. Not that
I hold the literary productions of the ancients to be
irreproachable; but I think that they have some especial merits,
admirably calculated to counterbalance our peculiar defects. They
are a prop on the side on which we are in most danger of falling.
Book One - Chapters XVI-XVIII
Chapter XVI: The Effect Of Democracy On Language
If the reader has rightly understood what I have already said on the
subject of literature in general, he will have no difficulty in
comprehending that species of influence which a democratic social
condition and democratic institutions may exercise over language
itself, which is the chief instrument of thought.
American authors may truly be said to live more in England than in
their own country; since they constantly study the English writers,
and take them every day for their models. But such is not the case
with the bulk of the population, which is more immediately subjected
to the peculiar causes acting upon the United States. It is not then
to the written, but to the spoken language that attention must be
paid, if we would detect the modifications which the idiom of an
aristocratic people may undergo when it becomes the language of a
democracy.
Englishmen of education, and more competent judges than I can be
myself of the nicer shades of expression, have frequently assured me
that the language of the educated classes in the United States is
notably different from that of the educated classes in Great
Britain. They complain not only that the Americans have brought into
use a number of new words - the difference and the distance between
the two countries might suffice to explain that much - but that
these new words are more especially taken from the jargon of
parties, the mechanical arts, or the language of trade. They assert,
in addition to this, that old English words are often used by the
Americans in new acceptations; and lastly, that the inhabitants of
the United States frequently intermingle their phraseology in the
strangest manner, and sometimes place words together which are
always kept apart in the language of the mother- country. These
remarks, which were made to me at various times by persons who
appeared to be worthy of credit, led me to reflect upon the subject;
and my reflections brought me, by theoretical reasoning, to the same
point at which my informants had arrived by practical observation.
In aristocracies, language must naturally partake of that state of
repose in which everything remains. Few new words are coined,
because few new things are made; and even if new things were made,
they would be designated by known words, whose meaning has been
determined by tradition. If it happens that the human mind bestirs
itself at length, or is roused by light breaking in from without,
the novel expressions which are introduced are characterized by a
degree of learning, intelligence, and philosophy, which shows that
they do not originate in a democracy. After the fall of
Constantinople had turned the tide of science and literature towards
the west, the French language was almost immediately invaded by a
multitude of new words, which had all Greek or Latin roots. An
erudite neologism then sprang up in France which was confined to the
educated classes, and which produced no sensible effect, or at least
a very gradual one, upon the people. All the nations of Europe
successively exhibited the same change. Milton alone introduced more
than six hundred words into the English language, almost all derived
from the Latin, the Greek, or the Hebrew. The constant agitation
which prevails in a democratic community tends unceasingly, on the
contrary, to change the character of the language, as it does the
aspect of affairs. In the midst of this general stir and competition
of minds, a great number of new ideas are formed, old ideas are
lost, or reappear, or are subdivided into an infinite variety of
minor shades. The consequence is, that many words must fall into
desuetude, and others must be brought into use.
Democratic nations love change for its own sake; and this is seen in
their language as much as in their politics. Even when they do not
need to change words, they sometimes feel a wish to transform them.
The genius of a democratic people is not only shown by the great
number of words they bring into use, but also by the nature of the
ideas these new words represent. Amongst such a people the majority
lays down the law in language as well as in everything else; its
prevailing spirit is as manifest in that as in other respects. But
the majority is more engaged in business than in study - in
political and commercial interests than in philosophical speculation
or literary pursuits. Most of the words coined or adopted for its
use will therefore bear the mark of these habits; they will mainly
serve to express the wants of business, the passions of party, or
the details of the public administration. In these departments the
language will constantly spread, whilst on the other hand it will
gradually lose ground in metaphysics and theology.
As to the source from which democratic nations are wont to derive
their new expressions, and the manner in which they go to work to
coin them, both may easily be described. Men living in democratic
countries know but little of the language which was spoken at Athens
and at Rome, and they do not care to dive into the lore of antiquity
to find the expression they happen to want. If they have sometimes
recourse to learned etymologies, vanity will induce them to search
at the roots of the dead languages; but erudition does not naturally
furnish them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes
happens, will use them most. The eminently democratic desire to get
above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to dignify a
vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling
is, and the more remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite
is its appellation. Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed
themselves into acrobates and funambules.
In the absence of knowledge of the dead languages, democratic
nations are apt to borrow words from living tongues; for their
mutual intercourse becomes perpetual, and the inhabitants of
different countries imitate each other the more readily as they grow
more like each other every day.
But it is principally upon their own languages that democratic
nations attempt to perpetrate innovations. From time to time they
resume forgotten expressions in their vocabulary, which they restore
to use; or they borrow from some particular class of the community a
term peculiar to it, which they introduce with a figurative meaning
into the language of daily life. Many expressions which originally
belonged to the technical language of a profession or a party, are
thus drawn into general circulation.
The most common expedient employed by democratic nations to make an
innovation in language consists in giving some unwonted meaning to
an expression already in use. This method is very simple, prompt,
and convenient; no learning is required to use it aright, and
ignorance itself rather facilitates the practice; but that practice
is most dangerous to the language. When a democratic people doubles
the meaning of a word in this way, they sometimes render the
signification which it retains as ambiguous as that which it
acquires. An author begins by a slight deflection of a known
expression from its primitive meaning, and he adapts it, thus
modified, as well as he can to his subject. A second writer twists
the sense of the expression in another way; a third takes possession
of it for another purpose; and as there is no common appeal to the
sentence of a permanent tribunal which may definitely settle the
signification of the word, it remains in an ambiguous condition. The
consequence is that writers hardly ever appear to dwell upon a
single thought, but they always seem to point their aim at a knot of
ideas, leaving the reader to judge which of them has been hit. This
is a deplorable consequence of democracy. I had rather that the
language should be made hideous with words imported from the
Chinese, the Tartars, or the Hurons, than that the meaning of a word
in our own language should become indeterminate. Harmony and
uniformity are only secondary beauties in composition; many of these
things are conventional, and, strictly speaking, it is possible to
forego them; but without clear phraseology there is no good
language.
The principle of equality necessarily introduces several other
changes into language. In aristocratic ages, when each nation tends
to stand aloof from all others and likes to have distinct
characteristics of its own, it often happens that several peoples
which have a common origin become nevertheless estranged from each
other, so that, without ceasing to understand the same language,
they no longer all speak it in the same manner. In these ages each
nation is divided into a certain number of classes, which see but
little of each other, and do not intermingle. Each of these classes
contracts, and invariably retains, habits of mind peculiar to
itself, and adopts by choice certain words and certain terms, which
afterwards pass from generation to generation, like their estates.
The same idiom then comprises a language of the poor and a language
of the rich - a language of the citizen and a language of the
nobility - a learned language and a vulgar one. The deeper the
divisions, and the more impassable the barriers of society become,
the more must this be the case. I would lay a wager, that amongst
the castes of India there are amazing variations of language, and
that there is almost as much difference between the language of the
pariah and that of the Brahmin as there is in their dress. When, on
the contrary, men, being no longer restrained by ranks, meet on
terms of constant intercourse - when castes are destroyed, and the
classes of society are recruited and intermixed with each other, all
the words of a language are mingled. Those which are unsuitable to
the greater number perish; the remainder form a common store, whence
everyone chooses pretty nearly at random. Almost all the different
dialects which divided the idioms of European nations are manifestly
declining; there is no patois in the New World, and it is
disappearing every day from the old countries.
The influence of this revolution in social conditions is as much
felt in style as it is in phraseology. Not only does everyone use
the same words, but a habit springs up of using them without
discrimination. The rules which style had set up are almost
abolished: the line ceases to be drawn between expressions which
seem by their very nature vulgar, and other which appear to be
refined. Persons springing from different ranks of society carry the
terms and expressions they are accustomed to use with them, into
whatever circumstances they may pass; thus the origin of words is
lost like the origin of individuals, and there is as much confusion
in language as there is in society.
I am aware that in the classification of words there are rules which
do not belong to one form of society any more than to another, but
which are derived from the nature of things. Some expressions and
phrases are vulgar, because the ideas they are meant to express are
low in themselves; others are of a higher character, because the
objects they are intended to designate are naturally elevated. No
intermixture of ranks will ever efface these differences. But the
principle of equality cannot fail to root out whatever is merely
conventional and arbitrary in the forms of thought. Perhaps the
necessary classification which I pointed out in the last sentence
will always be less respected by a democratic people than by any
other, because amongst such a people there are no men who are
permanently disposed by education, culture, and leisure to study the
natural laws of language, and who cause those laws to be respected
by their own observance of them.
I shall not quit this topic without touching on a feature of
democratic languages, which is perhaps more characteristic of them
than any other. It has already been shown that democratic nations
have a taste, and sometimes a passion, for general ideas, and that
this arises from their peculiar merits and defects. This liking for
general ideas is displayed in democratic languages by the continual
use of generic terms or abstract expressions, and by the manner in
which they are employed. This is the great merit and the great
imperfection of these languages. Democratic nations are passionately
addicted to generic terms or abstract expressions, because these
modes of speech enlarge thought, and assist the operations of the
mind by enabling it to include several objects in a small compass. A
French democratic writer will be apt to say capacites in the
abstract for men of capacity, and without particularizing the
objects to which their capacity is applied: he will talk about
actualites to designate in one word the things passing before his
eyes at the instant; and he will comprehend under the term
eventualites whatever may happen in the universe, dating from the
moment at which he speaks. Democratic writers are perpetually
coining words of this kind, in which they sublimate into further
abstraction the abstract terms of the language. Nay, more, to render
their mode of speech more succinct, they personify the subject of
these abstract terms, and make it act like a real entity. Thus they
would say in French, "La force des choses veut que les capacites
gouvernent."
I cannot better illustrate what I mean than by my own example. I
have frequently used the word "equality" in an absolute sense - nay,
I have personified equality in several places; thus I have said that
equality does such and such things, or refrains from doing others.
It may be affirmed that the writers of the age of Louis XIV would
not have used these expressions: they would never have thought of
using the word "equality" without applying it to some particular
object; and they would rather have renounced the term altogether
than have consented to make a living personage of it.
These abstract terms which abound in democratic languages, and which
are used on every occasion without attaching them to any particular
fact, enlarge and obscure the thoughts they are intended to convey;
they render the mode of speech more succinct, and the idea contained
in it less clear. But with regard to language, democratic nations
prefer obscurity to labor. I know not indeed whether this loose
style has not some secret charm for those who speak and write
amongst these nations. As the men who live there are frequently left
to the efforts of their individual powers of mind, they are almost
always a prey to doubt; and as their situation in life is forever
changing, they are never held fast to any of their opinions by the
certain tenure of their fortunes. Men living in democratic countries
are, then, apt to entertain unsettled ideas, and they require loose
expressions to convey them. As they never know whether the idea they
express to-day will be appropriate to the new position they may
occupy to-morrow, they naturally acquire a liking for abstract
terms. An abstract term is like a box with a false bottom: you may
put in it what ideas you please, and take them out again without
being observed.
Amongst all nations, generic and abstract terms form the basis of
language. I do not, therefore, affect to expel these terms from
democratic languages; I simply remark that men have an especial
tendency, in the ages of democracy, to multiply words of this kind -
to take them always by themselves in their most abstract
acceptation, and to use them on all occasions, even when the nature
of the discourse does not require them.
Chapter XVII: Of Some Of The Sources Of Poetry Amongst Democratic
Nations
Various different significations have been given to the word
"poetry." It would weary my readers if I were to lead them into a
discussion as to which of these definitions ought to be selected: I
prefer telling them at once that which I have chosen. In my opinion,
poetry is the search and the delineation of the ideal. The poet is
he who, by suppressing a part of what exists, by adding some
imaginary touches to the picture, and by combining certain real
circumstances, but which do not in fact concurrently happen,
completes and extends the work of nature. Thus the object of poetry
is not to represent what is true, but to adorn it, and to present to
the mind some loftier imagery. Verse, regarded as the ideal beauty
of language, may be eminently poetical; but verse does not, of
itself, constitute poetry.
I now proceed to inquire whether, amongst the actions, the
sentiments, and the opinions of democratic nations, there are any
which lead to a conception of ideal beauty, and which may for this
reason be considered as natural sources of poetry. It must in the
first place, be acknowledged that the taste for ideal beauty, and
the pleasure derived from the expression of it, are never so intense
or so diffused amongst a democratic as amongst an aristocratic
people. In aristocratic nations it sometimes happens that the body
goes on to act as it were spontaneously, whilst the higher faculties
are bound and burdened by repose. Amongst these nations the people
will very often display poetic tastes, and sometimes allow their
fancy to range beyond and above what surrounds them. But in
democracies the love of physical gratification, the notion of
bettering one's condition, the excitement of competition, the charm
of anticipated success, are so many spurs to urge men onwards in the
active professions they have embraced, without allowing them to
deviate for an instant from the track. The main stress of the
faculties is to this point. The imagination is not extinct; but its
chief function is to devise what may be useful, and to represent
what is real.
The principle of equality not only diverts men from the description
of ideal beauty - it also diminishes the number of objects to be
described. Aristocracy, by maintaining society in a fixed position,
is favorable to the solidity and duration of positive religions, as
well as to the stability of political institutions. It not only
keeps the human mind within a certain sphere of belief, but it
predisposes the mind to adopt one faith rather than another. An
aristocratic people will always be prone to place intermediate
powers between God and man. In this respect it may be said that the
aristocratic element is favorable to poetry. When the universe is
peopled with supernatural creatures, not palpable to the senses but
discovered by the mind, the imagination ranges freely, and poets,
finding a thousand subjects to delineate, also find a countless
audience to take an interest in their productions. In democratic
ages it sometimes happens, on the contrary, that men are as much
afloat in matters of belief as they are in their laws. Scepticism
then draws the imagination of poets back to earth, and confines them
to the real and visible world. Even when the principle of equality
does not disturb religious belief, it tends to simplify it, and to
divert attention from secondary agents, to fix it principally on the
Supreme Power. Aristocracy naturally leads the human mind to the
contemplation of the past, and fixes it there. Democracy, on the
contrary, gives men a sort of instinctive distaste for what is
ancient. In this respect aristocracy is far more favorable to
poetry; for things commonly grow larger and more obscure as they are
more remote; and for this twofold reason they are better suited to
the delineation of the ideal.
After having deprived poetry of the past, the principle of equality
robs it in part of the present. Amongst aristocratic nations there
are a certain number of privileged personages, whose situation is,
as it were, without and above the condition of man; to these, power,
wealth, fame, wit, refinement, and distinction in all things appear
peculiarly to belong. The crowd never sees them very closely, or
does not watch them in minute details; and little is needed to make
the description of such men poetical. On the other hand, amongst the
same people, you will meet with classes so ignorant, low, and
enslaved, that they are no less fit objects for poetry from the
excess of their rudeness and wretchedness, than the former are from
their greatness and refinement. Besides, as the different classes of
which an aristocratic community is composed are widely separated,
and imperfectly acquainted with each other, the imagination may
always represent them with some addition to, or some subtraction
from, what they really are. In democratic communities, where men are
all insignificant and very much alike, each man instantly sees all
his fellows when he surveys himself. The poets of democratic ages
can never, therefore, take any man in particular as the subject of a
piece; for an object of slender importance, which is distinctly seen
on all sides, will never lend itself to an ideal conception. Thus
the principle of equality; in proportion as it has established
itself in the world, has dried up most of the old springs of poetry.
Let us now attempt to show what new ones it may disclose.
When scepticism had depopulated heaven, and the progress of equality
had reduced each individual to smaller and better known proportions,
the poets, not yet aware of what they could substitute for the great
themes which were departing together with the aristocracy, turned
their eyes to inanimate nature. As they lost sight of gods and
heroes, they set themselves to describe streams and mountains.
Thence originated in the last century, that kind of poetry which has
been called, by way of distinction, the descriptive. Some have
thought that this sort of delineation, embellished with all the
physical and inanimate objects which cover the earth, was the kind
of poetry peculiar to democratic ages; but I believe this to be an
error, and that it only belongs to a period of transition.
I am persuaded that in the end democracy diverts the imagination
from all that is external to man, and fixes it on man alone.
Democratic nations may amuse themselves for a while with considering
the productions of nature; but they are only excited in reality by a
survey of themselves. Here, and here alone, the true sources of
poetry amongst such nations are to be found; and it may be believed
that the poets who shall neglect to draw their inspirations hence,
will lose all sway over the minds which they would enchant, and will
be left in the end with none but unimpassioned spectators of their
transports. I have shown how the ideas of progression and of the
indefinite perfectibility of the human race belong to democratic
ages. Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they
are haunted by visions of what will be; in this direction their
unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all measure. Here
then is the wildest range open to the genius of poets, which allows
them to remove their performances to a sufficient distance from the
eye. Democracy shuts the past against the poet, but opens the future
before him. As all the citizens who compose a democratic community
are nearly equal and alike, the poet cannot dwell upon any one of
them; but the nation itself invites the exercise of his powers. The
general similitude of individuals, which renders any one of them
taken separately an improper subject of poetry, allows poets to
include them all in the same imagery, and to take a general survey
of the people itself. Democractic nations have a clearer perception
than any others of their own aspect; and an aspect so imposing is
admirably fitted to the delineation of the ideal.
I readily admit that the Americans have no poets; I cannot allow
that they have no poetic ideas. In Europe people talk a great deal
of the wilds of America, but the Americans themselves never think
about them: they are insensible to the wonders of inanimate nature,
and they may be said not to perceive the mighty forests which
surround them till they fall beneath the hatchet. Their eyes are
fixed upon another sight: the American people views its own march
across these wilds - drying swamps, turning the course of rivers,
peopling solitudes, and subduing nature. This magnificent image of
themselves does not meet the gaze of the Americans at intervals
only; it may be said to haunt every one of them in his least as well
as in his most important actions, and to be always flitting before
his mind. Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded
with paltry interests, in one word so anti-poetic, as the life of a
man in the United States. But amongst the thoughts which it suggests
there is always one which is full of poetry, and that is the hidden
nerve which gives vigor to the frame.
In aristocratic ages each people, as well as each individual, is
prone to stand separate and aloof from all others. In democratic
ages, the extreme fluctuations of men and the impatience of their
desires keep them perpetually on the move; so that the inhabitants
of different countries intermingle, see, listen to, and borrow from
each other's stores. It is not only then the members of the same
community who grow more alike; communities are themselves
assimilated to one another, and the whole assemblage presents to the
eye of the spectator one vast democracy, each citizen of which is a
people. This displays the aspect of mankind for the first time in
the broadest light. All that belongs to the existence of the human
race taken as a whole, to its vicissitudes and to its future,
becomes an abundant mine of poetry. The poets who lived in
aristocratic ages have been eminently successful in their
delineations of certain incidents in the life of a people or a man;
but none of them ever ventured to include within his performances
the destinies of mankind - a task which poets writing in democratic
ages may attempt. At that same time at which every man, raising his
eyes above his country, begins at length to discern mankind at
large, the Divinity is more and more manifest to the human mind in
full and entire majesty. If in democratic ages faith in positive
religions be often shaken, and the belief in intermediate agents, by
whatever name they are called, be overcast; on the other hand men
are disposed to conceive a far broader idea of Providence itself,
and its interference in human affairs assumes a new and more
imposing appearance to their eyes. Looking at the human race as one
great whole, they easily conceive that its destinies are regulated
by the same design; and in the actions of every individual they are
led to acknowledge a trace of that universal and eternal plan on
which God rules our race. This consideration may be taken as another
prolific source of poetry which is opened in democratic ages.
Democratic poets will always appear trivial and frigid if they seek
to invest gods, demons, or angels, with corporeal forms, and if they
attempt to draw them down from heaven to dispute the supremacy of
earth. But if they strive to connect the great events they
commemorate with the general providential designs which govern the
universe, and, without showing the finger of the Supreme Governor,
reveal the thoughts of the Supreme Mind, their works will be admired
and understood, for the imagination of their contemporaries takes
this direction of its own accord.
It may be foreseen in the like manner that poets living in
democratic ages will prefer the delineation of passions and ideas to
that of persons and achievements. The language, the dress, and the
daily actions of men in democracies are repugnant to ideal
conceptions. These things are not poetical in themselves; and, if it
were otherwise, they would cease to be so, because they are too
familiar to all those to whom the poet would speak of them. This
forces the poet constantly to search below the external surface
which is palpable to the senses, in order to read the inner soul:
and nothing lends itself more to the delineation of the ideal than
the scrutiny of the hidden depths in the immaterial nature of man. I
need not to ramble over earth and sky to discover a wondrous object
woven of contrasts, of greatness and littleness infinite, of intense
gloom and of amazing brightness - capable at once of exciting pity,
admiration, terror, contempt. I find that object in myself. Man
springs out of nothing, crosses time, and disappears forever in the
bosom of God; he is seen but for a moment, staggering on the verge
of the two abysses, and there he is lost. If man were wholly
ignorant of himself, he would have no poetry in him; for it is
impossible to describe what the mind does not conceive. If man
clearly discerned his own nature, his imagination would remain idle,
and would have nothing to add to the picture. But the nature of man
is sufficiently disclosed for him to apprehend something of himself;
and sufficiently obscure for all the rest to be plunged in thick
darkness, in which he gropes forever - and forever in vain - to lay
hold on some completer notion of his being.
Amongst a democratic people poetry will not be fed with legendary
lays or the memorials of old traditions. The poet will not attempt
to people the universe with supernatural beings in whom his readers
and his own fancy have ceased to believe; nor will he present
virtues and vices in the mask of frigid personification, which are
better received under their own features. All these resources fail
him; but Man remains, and the poet needs no more. The destinies of
mankind - man himself, taken aloof from his age and his country, and
standing in the presence of Nature and of God, with his passions,
his doubts, his rare prosperities, and inconceivable wretchedness -
will become the chief, if not the sole theme of poetry amongst these
nations. Experience may confirm this assertion, if we consider the
productions of the greatest poets who have appeared since the world
has been turned to democracy. The authors of our age who have so
admirably delineated the features of Faust, Childe Harold, Rene, and
Jocelyn, did not seek to record the actions of an individual, but to
enlarge and to throw light on some of the obscurer recesses of the
human heart. Such are the poems of democracy. The principle of
equality does not then destroy all the subjects of poetry: it
renders them less numerous, but more vast.
Chapter XVIII: Of The Inflated Style Of American Writers And Orators
I have frequently remarked that the Americans, who generally treat
of business in clear, plain language, devoid of all ornament, and so
extremely simple as to be often coarse, are apt to become inflated
as soon as they attempt a more poetical diction. They then vent
their pomposity from one end of a harangue to the other; and to hear
them lavish imagery on every occasion, one might fancy that they
never spoke of anything with simplicity. The English are more rarely
given to a similar failing. The cause of this may be pointed out
without much difficulty. In democratic communities each citizen is
habitually engaged in the contemplation of a very puny object,
namely himself. If he ever raises his looks higher, he then
perceives nothing but the immense form of society at large, or the
still more imposing aspect of mankind. His ideas are all either
extremely minute and clear, or extremely general and vague: what
lies between is an open void. When he has been drawn out of his own
sphere, therefore, he always expects that some amazing object will
be offered to his attention; and it is on these terms alone that he
consents to tear himself for an instant from the petty complicated
cares which form the charm and the excitement of his life. This
appears to me sufficiently to explain why men in democracies, whose
concerns are in general so paltry, call upon their poets for
conceptions so vast and descriptions so unlimited.
The authors, on their part, do not fail to obey a propensity of
which they themselves partake; they perpetually inflate their
imaginations, and expanding them beyond all bounds, they not
unfrequently abandon the great in order to reach the gigantic. By
these means they hope to attract the observation of the multitude,
and to fix it easily upon themselves: nor are their hopes
disappointed; for as the multitude seeks for nothing in poetry but
subjects of very vast dimensions, it has neither the time to measure
with accuracy the proportions of all the subjects set before it, nor
a taste sufficiently correct to perceive at once in what respect
they are out of proportion. The author and the public at once
vitiate one another.
We have just seen that amongst democratic nations, the sources of
poetry are grand, but not abundant. They are soon exhausted: and
poets, not finding the elements of the ideal in what is real and
true, abandon them entirely and create monsters. I do not fear that
the poetry of democratic nations will prove too insipid, or that it
will fly too near the ground; I rather apprehend that it will be
forever losing itself in the clouds, and that it will range at last
to purely imaginary regions. I fear that the productions of
democratic poets may often be surcharged with immense and incoherent
imagery, with exaggerated descriptions and strange creations; and
that the fantastic beings of their brain may sometimes make us
regret the world of reality.
Book One -Chapters XIX-XXI
Chapter XIX: Some Observations On The Drama Amongst Democratic
Nations
When the revolution which subverts the social and political state of
an aristocratic people begins to penetrate into literature, it
generally first manifests itself in the drama, and it always remains
conspicuous there. The spectator of a dramatic piece is, to a
certain extent, taken by surprise by the impression it conveys. He
has no time to refer to his memory, or to consult those more able to
judge than himself. It does not occur to him to resist the new
literary tendencies which begin to be felt by him; he yields to them
before he knows what they are. Authors are very prompt in
discovering which way the taste of the public is thus secretly
inclined. They shape their productions accordingly; and the
literature of the stage, after having served to indicate the
approaching literary revolution, speedily completes its
accomplishment. If you would judge beforehand of the literature of a
people which is lapsing into democracy, study its dramatic
productions.
The literature of the stage, moreover, even amongst aristocratic
nations, constitutes the most democratic part of their literature.
No kind of literary gratification is so much within the reach of the
multitude as that which is derived from theatrical representations.
Neither preparation nor study is required to enjoy them: they lay
hold on you in the midst of your prejudices and your ignorance. When
the yet untutored love of the pleasures of the mind begins to affect
a class of the community, it instantly draws them to the stage. The
theatres of aristocratic nations have always been filled with
spectators not belonging to the aristocracy. At the theatre alone
the higher ranks mix with the middle and the lower classes; there
alone do the former consent to listen to the opinion of the latter,
or at least to allow them to give an opinion at all. At the theatre,
men of cultivation and of literary attainments have always had more
difficulty than elsewhere in making their taste prevail over that of
the people, and in preventing themselves from being carried away by
the latter. The pit has frequently made laws for the boxes.
If it be difficult for an aristocracy to prevent the people from
getting the upper hand in the theatre, it will readily be understood
that the people will be supreme there when democratic principles
have crept into the laws and manners - when ranks are intermixed -
when minds, as well as fortunes, are brought more nearly together -
and when the upper class has lost, with its hereditary wealth, its
power, its precedents, and its leisure. The tastes and propensities
natural to democratic nations, in respect to literature, will
therefore first be discernible in the drama, and it may be foreseen
that they will break out there with vehemence. In written
productions, the literary canons of aristocracy will be gently,
gradually, and, so to speak, legally modified; at the theatre they
will be riotously overthrown. The drama brings out most of the good
qualities, and almost all the defects, inherent in democratic
literature. Democratic peoples hold erudition very cheap, and care
but little for what occurred at Rome and Athens; they want to hear
something which concerns themselves, and the delineation of the
present age is what they demand.
When the heroes and the manners of antiquity are frequently brought
upon the stage, and dramatic authors faithfully observe the rules of
antiquated precedent, that is enough to warrant a conclusion that
the democratic classes have not yet got the upper hand of the
theatres. Racine makes a very humble apology in the preface to the
"Britannicus" for having disposed of Junia amongst the Vestals, who,
according to Aulus Gellius, he says, "admitted no one below six
years of age nor above ten." We may be sure that he would neither
have accused himself of the offence, nor defended himself from
censure, if he had written for our contemporaries. A fact of this
kind not only illustrates the state of literature at the time when
it occurred, but also that of society itself. A democratic stage
does not prove that the nation is in a state of democracy, for, as
we have just seen, even in aristocracies it may happen that
democratic tastes affect the drama; but when the spirit of
aristocracy reigns exclusively on the stage, the fact irrefragably
demonstrates that the whole of society is aristocratic; and it may
be boldly inferred that the same lettered and learned class which
sways the dramatic writers commands the people and governs the
country.
The refined tastes and the arrogant bearing of an aristocracy will
rarely fail to lead it, when it manages the stage, to make a kind of
selection in human nature. Some of the conditions of society claim
its chief interest; and the scenes which delineate their manners are
preferred upon the stage. Certain virtues, and even certain vices,
are thought more particularly to deserve to figure there; and they
are applauded whilst all others are excluded. Upon the stage, as
well as elsewhere, an aristocratic audience will only meet
personages of quality, and share the emotions of kings. The same
thing applies to style: an aristocracy is apt to impose upon
dramatic authors certain modes of expression which give the key in
which everything is to be delivered. By these means the stage
frequently comes to delineate only one side of man, or sometimes
even to represent what is not to be met with in human nature at all
- to rise above nature and to go beyond it.
In democratic communities the spectators have no such partialities,
and they rarely display any such antipathies: they like to see upon
the stage that medley of conditions, of feelings, and of opinions,
which occurs before their eyes. The drama becomes more striking,
more common, and more true. Sometimes, however, those who write for
the stage in democracies also transgress the bounds of human nature
- but it is on a different side from their predecessors. By seeking
to represent in minute detail the little singularities of the moment
and the peculiar characteristics of certain personages, they forget
to portray the general features of the race.
When the democratic classes rule the stage, they introduce as much
license in the manner of treating subjects as in the choice of them.
As the love of the drama is, of all literary tastes, that which is
most natural to democratic nations, the number of authors and of
spectators, as well as of theatrical representations, is constantly
increasing amongst these communities. A multitude composed of
elements so different, and scattered in so many different places,
cannot acknowledge the same rules or submit to the same laws. No
concurrence is possible amongst judges so numerous, who know not
when they may meet again; and therefore each pronounces his own
sentence on the piece. If the effect of democracy is generally to
question the authority of all literary rules and conventions, on the
stage it abolishes them altogether, and puts in their place nothing
but the whim of each author and of each public.
The drama also displays in an especial manner the truth of what I
have said before in speaking more generally of style and art in
democratic literature. In reading the criticisms which were
occasioned by the dramatic productions of the age of Louis XIV, one
is surprised to remark the great stress which the public laid on the
probability of the plot, and the importance which was attached to
the perfect consistency of the characters, and to their doing
nothing which could not be easily explained and understood. The
value which was set upon the forms of language at that period, and
the paltry strife about words with which dramatic authors were
assailed, are no less surprising. It would seem that the men of the
age of Louis XIV attached very exaggerated importance to those
details, which may be perceived in the study, but which escape
attention on the stage. For, after all, the principal object of a
dramatic piece is to be performed, and its chief merit is to affect
the audience. But the audience and the readers in that age were the
same: on quitting the theatre they called up the author for judgment
to their own firesides. In democracies, dramatic pieces are listened
to, but not read. Most of those who frequent the amusements of the
stage do not go there to seek the pleasures of the mind, but the
keen emotions of the heart. They do not expect to hear a fine
literary work, but to see a play; and provided the author writes the
language of his country correctly enough to be understood, and that
his characters excite curiosity and awaken sympathy, the audience
are satisfied. They ask no more of fiction, and immediately return
to real life. Accuracy of style is therefore less required, because
the attentive observance of its rules is less perceptible on the
stage. As for the probability of the plot, it is incompatible with
perpetual novelty, surprise, and rapidity of invention. It is
therefore neglected, and the public excuses the neglect. You may be
sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence
of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you
brought them there; and they will never reproach you for having
excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.
The Americans very broadly display all the different propensities
which I have here described when they go to the theatres; but it
must be acknowledged that as yet a very small number of them go to
theatres at all. Although playgoers and plays have prodigiously
increased in the United States in the last forty years, the
population indulges in this kind of amusement with the greatest
reserve. This is attributable to peculiar causes, which the reader
is already acquainted with, and of which a few words will suffice to
remind him. The Puritans who founded the American republics were not
only enemies to amusements, but they professed an especial
abhorrence for the stage. They considered it as an abominable
pastime; and as long as their principles prevailed with undivided
sway, scenic performances were wholly unknown amongst them. These
opinions of the first fathers of the colony have left very deep
marks on the minds of their descendants. The extreme regularity of
habits and the great strictness of manners which are observable in
the United States, have as yet opposed additional obstacles to the
growth of dramatic art. There are no dramatic subjects in a country
which has witnessed no great political catastrophes, and in which
love invariably leads by a straight and easy road to matrimony.
People who spend every day in the week in making money, and the
Sunday in going to church, have nothing to invite the muse of
Comedy.
A single fact suffices to show that the stage is not very popular in
the United States. The Americans, whose laws allow of the utmost
freedom and even license of language in all other respects, have
nevertheless subjected their dramatic authors to a sort of
censorship. Theatrical performances can only take place by
permission of the municipal authorities. This may serve to show how
much communities are like individuals; they surrender themselves
unscrupulously to their ruling passions, and afterwards take the
greatest care not to yield too much to the vehemence of tastes which
they do not possess.
No portion of literature is connected by closer or more numerous
ties with the present condition of society than the drama. The drama
of one period can never be suited to the following age, if in the
interval an important revolution has changed the manners and the
laws of the nation. The great authors of a preceding age may be
read; but pieces written for a different public will not be
followed. The dramatic authors of the past live only in books. The
traditional taste of certain individuals, vanity, fashion, or the
genius of an actor may sustain or resuscitate for a time the
aristocratic drama amongst a democracy; but it will speedily fall
away of itself - not overthrown, but abandoned.
Chapter XX: Characteristics Of Historians In Democratic Ages
Historians who write in aristocratic ages are wont to refer all
occurrences to the particular will or temper of certain individuals;
and they are apt to attribute the most important revolutions to very
slight accidents. They trace out the smallest causes with sagacity,
and frequently leave the greatest unperceived. Historians who live
in democratic ages exhibit precisely opposite characteristics. Most
of them attribute hardly any influence to the individual over the
destiny of the race, nor to citizens over the fate of a people; but,
on the other hand, they assign great general causes to all petty
incidents. These contrary tendencies explain each other.
When the historian of aristocratic ages surveys the theatre of the
world, he at once perceives a very small number of prominent actors,
who manage the whole piece. These great personages, who occupy the
front of the stage, arrest the observation, and fix it on
themselves; and whilst the historian is bent on penetrating the
secret motives which make them speak and act, the rest escape his
memory. The importance of the things which some men are seen to do,
gives him an exaggerated estimate of the influence which one man may
possess; and naturally leads him to think, that in order to explain
the impulses of the multitude, it is necessary to refer them to the
particular influence of some one individual.
When, on the contrary, all the citizens are independent of one
another, and each of them is individually weak, no one is seen to
exert a great, or still less a lasting power, over the community. At
first sight, individuals appear to be absolutely devoid of any
influence over it; and society would seem to advance alone by the
free and voluntary concurrence of all the men who compose it. This
naturally prompts the mind to search for that general reason which
operates upon so many men's faculties at the same time, and turns
them simultaneously in the same direction.
I am very well convinced that even amongst democratic nations, the
genius, the vices, or the virtues of certain individuals retard or
accelerate the natural current of a people's history: but causes of
this secondary and fortuitous nature are infinitely more various,
more concealed, more complex, less powerful, and consequently less
easy to trace in periods of equality than in ages of aristocracy,
when the task of the historian is simply to detach from the mass of
general events the particular influences of one man or of a few men.
In the former case the historian is soon wearied by the toil; his
mind loses itself in this labyrinth; and, in his inability clearly
to discern or conspicuously to point out the influence of
individuals, he denies their existence. He prefers talking about the
characteristics of race, the physical conformation of the country,
or the genius of civilization, which abridges his own labors, and
satisfies his reader far better at less cost.
M. de Lafayette says somewhere in his "Memoirs" that the exaggerated
system of general causes affords surprising consolations to
second-rate statesmen. I will add, that its effects are not less
consolatory to second-rate historians; it can always furnish a few
mighty reasons to extricate them from the most difficult part of
their work, and it indulges the indolence or incapacity of their
minds, whilst it confers upon them the honors of deep thinking.
For myself, I am of opinion that at all times one great portion of
the events of this world are attributable to general facts, and
another to special influences. These two kinds of cause are always
in operation: their proportion only varies. General facts serve to
explain more things in democratic than in aristocratic ages, and
fewer things are then assignable to special influences. At periods
of aristocracy the reverse takes place: special influences are
stronger, general causes weaker - unless indeed we consider as a
general cause the fact itself of the inequality of conditions, which
allows some individuals to baffle the natural tendencies of all the
rest. The historians who seek to describe what occurs in democratic
societies are right, therefore, in assigning much to general causes,
and in devoting their chief attention to discover them; but they are
wrong in wholly denying the special influence of individuals,
because they cannot easily trace or follow it.
The historians who live in democratic ages are not only prone to
assign a great cause to every incident, but they are also given to
connect incidents together, so as to deduce a system from them. In
aristocratic ages, as the attention of historians is constantly
drawn to individuals, the connection of events escapes them; or
rather, they do not believe in any such connection. To them the clew
of history seems every instant crossed and broken by the step of
man. In democratic ages, on the contrary, as the historian sees much
more of actions than of actors, he may easily establish some kind of
sequency and methodical order amongst the former. Ancient
literature, which is so rich in fine historical compositions, does
not contain a single great historical system, whilst the poorest of
modern literatures abound with them. It would appear that the
ancient historians did not make sufficient use of those general
theories which our historical writers are ever ready to carry to
excess.
Those who write in democratic ages have another more dangerous
tendency. When the traces of individual action upon nations are
lost, it often happens that the world goes on to move, though the
moving agent is no longer discoverable. As it becomes extremely
difficult to discern and to analyze the reasons which, acting
separately on the volition of each member of the community, concur
in the end to produce movement in the old mass, men are led to
believe that this movement is involuntary, and that societies
unconsciously obey some superior force ruling over them. But even
when the general fact which governs the private volition of all
individuals is supposed to be discovered upon the earth, the
principle of human free-will is not secure. A cause sufficiently
extensive to affect millions of men at once, and sufficiently strong
to bend them all together in the same direction, may well seem
irresistible: having seen that mankind do yield to it, the mind is
close upon the inference that mankind cannot resist it.
Historians who live in democratic ages, then, not only deny that the
few have any power of acting upon the destiny of a people, but they
deprive the people themselves of the power of modifying their own
condition, and they subject them either to an inflexible Providence,
or to some blind necessity. According to them, each nation is
indissolubly bound by its position, its origin, its precedents, and
its character, to a certain lot which no efforts can ever change.
They involve generation in generation, and thus, going back from age
to age, and from necessity to necessity, up to the origin of the
world, they forge a close and enormous chain, which girds and binds
the human race. To their minds it is not enough to show what events
have occurred: they would fain show that events could not have
occurred otherwise. They take a nation arrived at a certain stage of
its history, and they affirm that it could not but follow the track
which brought it thither. It is easier to make such an assertion
than to show by what means the nation might have adopted a better
course.
In reading the historians of aristocratic ages, and especially those
of antiquity, it would seem that, to be master of his lot, and to
govern his fellow-creatures, man requires only to be master of
himself. In perusing the historical volumes which our age has
produced, it would seem that man is utterly powerless over himself
and over all around him. The historians of antiquity taught how to
command: those of our time teach only how to obey; in their writings
the author often appears great, but humanity is always diminutive.
If this doctrine of necessity, which is so attractive to those who
write history in democratic ages, passes from authors to their
readers, till it infects the whole mass of the community and gets
possession of the public mind, it will soon paralyze the activity of
modern society, and reduce Christians to the level of the Turks. I
would moreover observe, that such principles are peculiarly
dangerous at the period at which we are arrived. Our contemporaries
are but too prone to doubt of the human free-will, because each of
them feels himself confined on every side by his own weakness; but
they are still willing to acknowledge the strength and independence
of men united in society. Let not this principle be lost sight of;
for the great object in our time is to raise the faculties of men,
not to complete their prostration. Chapter XXI: Of Parliamentary
Eloquence In The United States Amongst aristocratic nations all the
members of the community are connected with and dependent upon each
other; the graduated scale of different ranks acts as a tie, which
keeps everyone in his proper place and the whole body in
subordination. Something of the same kind always occurs in the
political assemblies of these nations. Parties naturally range
themselves under certain leaders, whom they obey by a sort of
instinct, which is only the result of habits contracted elsewhere.
They carry the manners of general society into the lesser
assemblage.
In democratic countries it often happens that a great number of
citizens are tending to the same point; but each one only moves
thither, or at least flatters himself that he moves, of his own
accord. Accustomed to regulate his doings by personal impulse alone,
he does not willingly submit to dictation from without. This taste
and habit of independence accompany him into the councils of the
nation. If he consents to connect himself with other men in the
prosecution of the same purpose, at least he chooses to remain free
to contribute to the common success after his own fashion. Hence it
is that in democratic countries parties are so impatient of control,
and are never manageable except in moments of great public danger.
Even then, the authority of leaders, which under such circumstances
may be able to make men act or speak, hardly ever reaches the extent
of making them keep silence.
Amongst aristocratic nations the members of political assemblies are
at the same time members of the aristocracy. Each of them enjoys
high established rank in his own right, and the position which he
occupies in the assembly is often less important in his eyes than
that which he fills in the country. This consoles him for playing no
part in the discussion of public affairs, and restrains him from too
eagerly attempting to play an insignificant one.
In America, it generally happens that a Representative only becomes
somebody from his position in the Assembly. He is therefore
perpetually haunted by a craving to acquire importance there, and he
feels a petulant desire to be constantly obtruding his opinions upon
the House. His own vanity is not the only stimulant which urges him
on in this course, but that of his constituents, and the continual
necessity of propitiating them. Amongst aristocratic nations a
member of the legislature is rarely in strict dependence upon his
constituents: he is frequently to them a sort of unavoidable
representative; sometimes they are themselves strictly dependent
upon him; and if at length they reject him, he may easily get
elected elsewhere, or, retiring from public life, he may still enjoy
the pleasures of splendid idleness. In a democratic country like the
United States a Representative has hardly ever a lasting hold on the
minds of his constituents. However small an electoral body may be,
the fluctuations of democracy are constantly changing its aspect; it
must, therefore, be courted unceasingly. He is never sure of his
supporters, and, if they forsake him, he is left without a resource;
for his natural position is not sufficiently elevated for him to be
easily known to those not close to him; and, with the complete state
of independence prevailing among the people, he cannot hope that his
friends or the government will send him down to be returned by an
electoral body unacquainted with him. The seeds of his fortune are,
therefore, sown in his own neighborhood; from that nook of earth he
must start, to raise himself to the command of a people and to
influence the destinies of the world. Thus it is natural that in
democratic countries the members of political assemblies think more
of their constituents than of their party, whilst in aristocracies
they think more of their party than of their constituents.
But what ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what
ought to be said in order to serve the party to which
Representatives profess to belong. The general interest of a party
frequently demands that members belonging to it should not speak on
great questions which they understand imperfectly; that they should
speak but little on those minor questions which impede the great
ones; lastly, and for the most part, that they should not speak at
all. To keep silence is the most useful service that an indifferent
spokesman can render to the commonwealth. Constituents, however, do
not think so. The population of a district sends a representative to
take a part in the government of a country, because they entertain a
very lofty notion of his merits. As men appear greater in proportion
to the littleness of the objects by which they are surrounded, it
may be assumed that the opinion entertained of the delegate will be
so much the higher as talents are more rare among his constituents.
It will therefore frequently happen that the less constituents have
to expect from their representative, the more they will anticipate
from him; and, however incompetent he may be, they will not fail to
call upon him for signal exertions, corresponding to the rank they
have conferred upon him.
Independently of his position as a legislator of the State, electors
also regard their Representative as the natural patron of the
constituency in the Legislature; they almost consider him as the
proxy of each of his supporters, and they flatter themselves that he
will not be less zealous in defense of their private interests than
of those of the country. Thus electors are well assured beforehand
that the Representative of their choice will be an orator; that he
will speak often if he can, and that in case he is forced to
refrain, he will strive at any rate to compress into his less
frequent orations an inquiry into all the great questions of state,
combined with a statement of all the petty grievances they have
themselves to complain to; so that, though he be not able to come
forward frequently, he should on each occasion prove what he is
capable of doing; and that, instead of perpetually lavishing his
powers, he should occasionally condense them in a small compass, so
as to furnish a sort of complete and brilliant epitome of his
constituents and of himself. On these terms they will vote for him
at the next election. These conditions drive worthy men of humble
abilities to despair, who, knowing their own powers, would never
voluntarily have come forward. But thus urged on, the Representative
begins to speak, to the great alarm of his friends; and rushing
imprudently into the midst of the most celebrated orators, he
perplexes the debate and wearies the House.
All laws which tend to make the Representative more dependent on the
elector, not only affect the conduct of the legislators, as I have
remarked elsewhere, but also their language. They exercise a
simultaneous influence on affairs themselves, and on the manner in
which affairs are discussed.
There is hardly a member of Congress who can make up his mind to go
home without having despatched at least one speech to his
constituents; nor who will endure any interruption until he has
introduced into his harangue whatever useful suggestions may be made
touching the four-and-twenty States of which the Union is composed,
and especially the district which he represents. He therefore
presents to the mind of his auditors a succession of great general
truths (which he himself only comprehends, and expresses,
confusedly), and of petty minutia, which he is but too able to
discover and to point out. The consequence is that the debates of
that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, and that
they seem rather to drag their slow length along than to advance
towards a distinct object. Some such state of things will, I
believe, always arise in the public assemblies of democracies.
Propitious circumstances and good laws might succeed in drawing to
the legislature of a democratic people men very superior to those
who are returned by the Americans to Congress; but nothing will ever
prevent the men of slender abilities who sit there from obtruding
themselves with complacency, and in all ways, upon the public. The
evil does not appear to me to be susceptible of entire cure, because
it not only originates in the tactics of that assembly, but in its
constitution and in that of the country. The inhabitants of the
United States seem themselves to consider the matter in this light;
and they show their long Experience of parliamentary life not by
abstaining from making bad speeches, but by courageously submitting
to hear them made. They are resigned to it, as to an evil which they
know to be inevitable.
We have shown the petty side of political debates in democratic
assemblies - let us now exhibit the more imposing one. The
proceedings within the Parliament of England for the last one
hundred and fifty years have never occasioned any great sensation
out of that country; the opinions and feelings expressed by the
speakers have never awakened much sympathy, even amongst the nations
placed nearest to the great arena of British liberty; whereas Europe
was excited by the very first debates which took place in the small
colonial assemblies of America at the time of the Revolution. This
was attributable not only to particular and fortuitous
circumstances, but to general and lasting causes. I can conceive
nothing more admirable or more powerful than a great orator debating
on great questions of state in a democratic assembly. As no
particular class is ever represented there by men commissioned to
defend its own interests, it is always to the whole nation, and in
the name of the whole nation, that the orator speaks. This expands
his thoughts, and heightens his power of language. As precedents
have there but little weight -as there are no longer any privileges
attached to certain property, nor any rights inherent in certain
bodies or in certain individuals, the mind must have recourse to
general truths derived from human nature to resolve the particular
question under discussion. Hence the political debates of a
democratic people, however small it may be, have a degree of breadth
which frequently renders them attractive to mankind. All men are
interested by them, because they treat of man, who is everywhere the
same. Amongst the greatest aristocratic nations, on the contrary,
the most general questions are almost always argued on some special
grounds derived from the practice of a particular time, or the
rights of a particular class; which interest that class alone, or at
most the people amongst whom that class happens to exist. It is
owing to this, as much as to the greatness of the French people, and
the favorable disposition of the nations who listen to them, that
the great effect which the French political debates sometimes
produce in the world, must be attributed. The orators of France
frequently speak to mankind, even when they are addressing their
countrymen only.
Book 2
Influence Of Democracy On The Feelings Of Americans
Chapter I: Why Democratic Nations Show A More Ardent And Enduring
Love Of Equality Than Of Liberty
The first and most intense passion which is engendered by the
equality of conditions is, I need hardly say, the love of that same
equality. My readers will therefore not be surprised that I speak of
its before all others. Everybody has remarked that in our time, and
especially in France, this passion for equality is every day gaining
ground in the human heart. It has been said a hundred times that our
contemporaries are far more ardently and tenaciously attached to
equality than to freedom; but as I do not find that the causes of
the fact have been sufficiently analyzed, I shall endeavor to point
them out.
It is possible to imagine an extreme point at which freedom and
equality would meet and be confounded together. Let us suppose that
all the members of the community take a part in the government, and
that each of them has an equal right to take a part in it. As none
is different from his fellows, none can exercise a tyrannical power:
men will be perfectly free, because they will all be entirely equal;
and they will all be perfectly equal, because they will be entirely
free. To this ideal state democratic nations tend. Such is the
completest form that equality can assume upon earth; but there are a
thousand others which, without being equally perfect, are not less
cherished by those nations.
The principle of equality may be established in civil society,
without prevailing in the political world. Equal rights may exist of
indulging in the same pleasures, of entering the same professions,
of frequenting the same places - in a word, of living in the same
manner and seeking wealth by the same means, although all men do not
take an equal share in the government. A kind of equality may even
be established in the political world, though there should be no
political freedom there. A man may be the equal of all his
countrymen save one, who is the master of all without distinction,
and who selects equally from among them all the agents of his power.
Several other combinations might be easily imagined, by which very
great equality would be united to institutions more or less free, or
even to institutions wholly without freedom. Although men cannot
become absolutely equal unless they be entirely free, and
consequently equality, pushed to its furthest extent, may be
confounded with freedom, yet there is good reason for distinguishing
the one from the other. The taste which men have for liberty, and
that which they feel for equality, are, in fact, two different
things; and I am not afraid to add that, amongst democratic nations,
they are two unequal things.
Upon close inspection, it will be seen that there is in every age
some peculiar and preponderating fact with which all others are
connected; this fact almost always gives birth to some pregnant idea
or some ruling passion, which attracts to itself, and bears away in
its course, all the feelings and opinions of the time: it is like a
great stream, towards which each of the surrounding rivulets seems
to flow. Freedom has appeared in the world at different times and
under various forms; it has not been exclusively bound to any social
condition, and it is not confined to democracies. Freedom cannot,
therefore, form the distinguishing characteristic of democratic
ages. The peculiar and preponderating fact which marks those ages as
its own is the equality of conditions; the ruling passion of men in
those periods is the love of this equality. Ask not what singular
charm the men of democratic ages find in being equal, or what
special reasons they may have for clinging so tenaciously to
equality rather than to the other advantages which society holds out
to them: equality is the distinguishing characteristic of the age
they live in; that, of itself, is enough to explain that they prefer
it to all the rest. But independently of this reason there are
several others, which will at all times habitually lead men to
prefer equality to freedom. If a people could ever succeed in
destroying, or even in diminishing, the equality which prevails in
its own body, this could only be accomplished by long and laborious
efforts. Its social condition must be modified, its laws abolished,
its opinions superseded, its habits changed, its manners corrupted.
But political liberty is more easily lost; to neglect to hold it
fast is to allow it to escape. Men therefore not only cling to
equality because it is dear to them; they also adhere to it because
they think it will last forever.
That political freedom may compromise in its excesses the
tranquillity, the property, the lives of individuals, is obvious to
the narrowest and most unthinking minds. But, on the contrary, none
but attentive and clear-sighted men perceive the perils with which
equality threatens us, and they commonly avoid pointing them out.
They know that the calamities they apprehend are remote, and flatter
themselves that they will only fall upon future generations, for
which the present generation takes but little thought. The evils
which freedom sometimes brings with it are immediate; they are
apparent to all, and all are more or less affected by them. The
evils which extreme equality may produce are slowly disclosed; they
creep gradually into the social frame; they are only seen at
intervals, and at the moment at which they become most violent habit
already causes them to be no longer felt. The advantages which
freedom brings are only shown by length of time; and it is always
easy to mistake the cause in which they originate. The advantages of
equality are instantaneous, and they may constantly be traced from
their source. Political liberty bestows exalted pleasures, from time
to time, upon a certain number of citizens. Equality every day
confers a number of small enjoyments on every man. The charms of
equality are every instant felt, and are within the reach of all;
the noblest hearts are not insensible to them, and the most vulgar
souls exult in them. The passion which equality engenders must
therefore be at once strong and general. Men cannot enjoy political
liberty unpurchased by some sacrifices, and they never obtain it
without great exertions. But the pleasures of equality are
self-proffered: each of the petty incidents of life seems to
occasion them, and in order to taste them nothing is required but to
live.
Democratic nations are at all times fond of equality, but there are
certain epochs at which the passion they entertain for it swells to
the height of fury. This occurs at the moment when the old social
system, long menaced, completes its own destruction after a last
intestine struggle, and when the barriers of rank are at length
thrown down. At such times men pounce upon equality as their booty,
and they cling to it as to some precious treasure which they fear to
lose. The passion for equality penetrates on every side into men's
hearts, expands there, and fills them entirely. Tell them not that
by this blind surrender of themselves to an exclusive passion they
risk their dearest interests: they are deaf. Show them not freedom
escaping from their grasp, whilst they are looking another way: they
are blind - or rather, they can discern but one sole object to be
desired in the universe.
What I have said is applicable to all democratic nations: what I am
about to say concerns the French alone. Amongst most modern nations,
and especially amongst all those of the Continent of Europe, the
taste and the idea of freedom only began to exist and to extend
themselves at the time when social conditions were tending to
equality, and as a consequence of that very equality. Absolute kings
were the most efficient levellers of ranks amongst their subjects.
Amongst these nations equality preceded freedom: equality was
therefore a fact of some standing when freedom was still a novelty:
the one had already created customs, opinions, and laws belonging to
it, when the other, alone and for the first time, came into actual
existence. Thus the latter was still only an affair of opinion and
of taste, whilst the former had already crept into the habits of the
people, possessed itself of their manners, and given a particular
turn to the smallest actions of their lives. Can it be wondered that
the men of our own time prefer the one to the other?
I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for
freedom: left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view
any privation of it with regret. But for equality, their passion is
ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in
freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for
equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism
- but they will not endure aristocracy. This is true at all times,
and especially true in our own. All men and all powers seeking to
cope with this irresistible passion, will be overthrown and
destroyed by it. In our age, freedom cannot be established without
it, and despotism itself cannot reign without its support.
Chapter II: Of Individualism In Democratic Countries
I have shown how it is that in ages of equality every man seeks for
his opinions within himself: I am now about to show how it is that,
in the same ages, all his feelings are turned towards himselfalone.
Individualism *a is a novel expression, to which a novel idea has
given birth. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism. Egotism
is a passionate and exaggerated love of self, which leads a man to
connect everything with his own person, and to prefer himself to
everything in the world. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling,
which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from
the mass of his fellow-creatures; and to draw apart with his family
and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle
of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Egotism
originates in blind instinct: individualism proceeds from erroneous
judgment more than from depraved feelings; it originates as much in
the deficiencies of the mind as in the perversity of the heart.
Egotism blights the germ of all virtue; individualism, at first,
only saps the virtues of public life; but, in the long run, it
attacks and destroys all others, and is at length absorbed in
downright egotism. Egotism is a vice as old as the world, which does
not belong to one form of society more than to another:
individualism is of democratic origin, and it threatens to spread in
the same ratio as the equality of conditions.
[Footnote a: [I adopt the expression of the original, however
strange it may seem to the English ear, partly because it
illustrates the remark on the introduction of general terms into
democratic language which was made in a preceding chapter, and
partly because I know of no English word exactly equivalent to the
expression. The chapter itself defines the meaning attached to it by
the author. - Translator's Note.]]
Amongst aristocratic nations, as families remain for centuries in
the same condition, often on the same spot, all generations become
as it were contemporaneous. A man almost always knows his
forefathers, and respects them: he thinks he already sees his remote
descendants, and he loves them. He willingly imposes duties on
himself towards the former and the latter; and he will frequently
sacrifice his personal gratifications to those who went before and
to those who will come after him. Aristocratic institutions have,
moreover, the effect of closely binding every man to several of his
fellow-citizens. As the classes of an aristocratic people are
strongly marked and permanent, each of them is regarded by its own
members as a sort of lesser country, more tangible and more
cherished than the country at large. As in aristocratic communities
all the citizens occupy fixed positions, one above the other, the
result is that each of them always sees a man above himself whose
patronage is necessary to him, and below himself another man whose
co-operation he may claim. Men living in aristocratic ages are
therefore almost always closely attached to something placed out of
their own sphere, and they are often disposed to forget themselves.
It is true that in those ages the notion of human fellowship is
faint, and that men seldom think of sacrificing themselves for
mankind; but they often sacrifice themselves for other men. In
democratic ages, on the contrary, when the duties of each individual
to the race are much more clear, devoted service to any one man
becomes more rare; the bond of human affection is extended, but it
is relaxed.
Amongst democratic nations new families are constantly springing up,
others are constantly falling away, and all that remain change their
condition; the woof of time is every instant broken, and the track
of generations effaced. Those who went before are soon forgotten; of
those who will come after no one has any idea: the interest of man
is confined to those in close propinquity to himself. As each class
approximates to other classes, and intermingles with them, its
members become indifferent and as strangers to one another.
Aristocracy had made a chain of all the members of the community,
from the peasant to the king: democracy breaks that chain, and
severs every link of it. As social conditions become more equal, the
number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich
enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over
their fellow-creatures, have nevertheless acquired or retained
sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They
owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they
acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing
alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in
their own hands. Thus not only does democracy make every man forget
his ancestors, but it hides his descendants, and separates his
contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself
alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the
solitude of his own heart. Chapter III: Individualism Stronger At
The Close Of A Democratic Revolution Than At Other Periods
The period when the construction of democratic society upon the
ruins of an aristocracy has just been completed, is especially that
at which this separation of men from one another, and the egotism
resulting from it, most forcibly strike the observation. Democratic
communities not only contain a large number of independent citizens,
but they are constantly filled with men who, having entered but
yesterday upon their independent condition, are intoxicated with
their new power. They entertain a presumptuous confidence in their
strength, and as they do not suppose that they can henceforward ever
have occasion to claim the assistance of their fellow-creatures,
they do not scruple to show that they care for nobody but
themselves.
An aristocracy seldom yields without a protracted struggle, in the
course of which implacable animosities are kindled between the
different classes of society. These passions survive the victory,
and traces of them may be observed in the midst of the democratic
confusion which ensues. Those members of the community who were at
the top of the late gradations of rank cannot immediately forget
their former greatness; they will long regard themselves as aliens
in the midst of the newly composed society. They look upon all those
whom this state of society has made their equals as oppressors,
whose destiny can excite no sympathy; they have lost sight of their
former equals, and feel no longer bound by a common interest to
their fate: each of them, standing aloof, thinks that he is reduced
to care for himself alone. Those, on the contrary, who were formerly
at the foot of the social scale, and who have been brought up to the
common level by a sudden revolution, cannot enjoy their newly
acquired independence without secret uneasiness; and if they meet
with some of their former superiors on the same footing as
themselves, they stand aloof from them with an expression of triumph
and of fear. It is, then, commonly at the outset of democratic
society that citizens are most disposed to live apart. Democracy
leads men not to draw near to their fellow- creatures; but
democratic revolutions lead them to shun each other, and perpetuate
in a state of equality the animosities which the state of inequality
engendered. The great advantage of the Americans is that they have
arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a
democratic revolution; and that they are born equal, instead of
becoming so.
Chapter IV: That The Americans Combat The Effects Of Individualism
By Free Institutions
Despotism, which is of a very timorous nature, is never more secure
of continuance than when it can keep men asunder; and all is
influence is commonly exerted for that purpose. No vice of the human
heart is so acceptable to it as egotism: a despot easily forgives
his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each
other. He does not ask them to assist him in governing the State; it
is enough that they do not aspire to govern it themselves. He
stigmatizes as turbulent and unruly spirits those who would combine
their exertions to promote the prosperity of the community, and,
perverting the natural meaning of words, he applauds as good
citizens those who have no sympathy for any but themselves. Thus the
vices which despotism engenders are precisely those which equality
fosters. These two things mutually and perniciously complete and
assist each other. Equality places men side by side, unconnected by
any common tie; despotism raises barriers to keep them asunder; the
former predisposes them not to consider their fellow-creatures, the
latter makes general indifference a sort of public virtue.
Despotism then, which is at all times dangerous, is more
particularly to be feared in democratic ages. It is easy to see that
in those same ages men stand most in need of freedom. When the
members of a community are forced to attend to public affairs, they
are necessarily drawn from the circle of their own interests, and
snatched at times from self-observation. As soon as a man begins to
treat of public affairs in public, he begins to perceive that he is
not so independent of his fellow-men as he had at first imagined,
and that, in order to obtain their support, he must often lend them
his co-operation.
When the public is supreme, there is no man who does not feel the
value of public goodwill, or who does not endeavor to court it by
drawing to himself the esteem and affection of those amongst whom he
is to live. Many of the passions which congeal and keep asunder
human hearts, are then obliged to retire and hide below the surface.
Pride must be dissembled; disdain dares not break out; egotism fears
its own self. Under a free government, as most public offices are
elective, the men whose elevated minds or aspiring hopes are too
closely circumscribed in private life, constantly feel that they
cannot do without the population which surrounds them. Men learn at
such times to think of their fellow- men from ambitious motives; and
they frequently find it, in a manner, their interest to forget
themselves.
I may here be met by an objection derived from electioneering
intrigues, the meannesses of candidates, and the calumnies of their
opponents. These are opportunities for animosity which occur the
oftener the more frequent elections become. Such evils are doubtless
great, but they are transient; whereas the benefits which attend
them remain. The desire of being elected may lead some men for a
time to violent hostility; but this same desire leads all men in the
long run mutually to support each other; and if it happens that an
election accidentally severs two friends, the electoral system
brings a multitude of citizens permanently together, who would
always have remained unknown to each other. Freedom engenders
private animosities, but despotism gives birth to general
indifference.
The Americans have combated by free institutions the tendency of
equality to keep men asunder, and they have subdued it. The
legislators of America did not suppose that a general representation
of the whole nation would suffice to ward off a disorder at once so
natural to the frame of democratic society, and so fatal: they also
thought that it would be well to infuse political life into each
portion of the territory, in order to multiply to an infinite extent
opportunities of acting in concert for all the members of the
community, and to make them constantly feel their mutual dependence
on each other. The plan was a wise one. The general affairs of a
country only engage the attention of leading politicians, who
assemble from time to time in the same places; and as they often
lose sight of each other afterwards, no lasting ties are established
between them. But if the object be to have the local affairs of a
district conducted by the men who reside there, the same persons are
always in contact, and they are, in a manner, forced to be
acquainted, and to adapt themselves to one another.
It is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him
in the destiny of the State, because he does not clearly understand
what influence the destiny of the State can have upon his own lot.
But if it be proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate, he
will see at a glance that there is a connection between this small
public affair and his greatest private affairs; and he will
discover, without its being shown to him, the close tie which unites
private to general interest. Thus, far more may be done by
intrusting to the citizens the administration of minor affairs than
by surrendering to them the control of important ones, towards
interesting them in the public welfare, and convincing them that
they constantly stand in need one of the other in order to provide
for it. A brilliant achievement may win for you the favor of a
people at one stroke; but to earn the love and respect of the
population which surrounds you, a long succession of little services
rendered and of obscure good deeds -a constant habit of kindness,
and an established reputation for disinterestedness - will be
required. Local freedom, then, which leads a great number of
citizens to value the affection of their neighbors and of their
kindred, perpetually brings men together, and forces them to help
one another, in spite of the propensities which sever them.
In the United States the more opulent citizens take great care not
to stand aloof from the people; on the contrary, they constantly
keep on easy terms with the lower classes: they listen to them, they
speak to them every day. They know that the rich in democracies
always stand in need of the poor; and that in democratic ages you
attach a poor man to you more by your manner than by benefits
conferred. The magnitude of such benefits, which sets off the
difference of conditions, causes a secret irritation to those who
reap advantage from them; but the charm of simplicity of manners is
almost irresistible: their affability carries men away, and even
their want of polish is not always displeasing. This truth does not
take root at once in the minds of the rich. They generally resist it
as long as the democratic revolution lasts, and they do not
acknowledge it immediately after that revolution is accomplished.
They are very ready to do good to the people, but they still choose
to keep them at arm's length; they think that is sufficient, but
they are mistaken. They might spend fortunes thus without warming
the hearts of the population around them; - that population does not
ask them for the sacrifice of their money, but of their pride.
It would seem as if every imagination in the United States were upon
the stretch to invent means of increasing the wealth and satisfying
the wants of the public. The best-informed inhabitants of each
district constantly use their information to discover new truths
which may augment the general prosperity; and if they have made any
such discoveries, they eagerly surrender them to the mass of the
people.
When the vices and weaknesses, frequently exhibited by those who
govern in America, are closely examined, the prosperity of the
people occasions - but improperly occasions - surprise. Elected
magistrates do not make the American democracy flourish; it
flourishes because the magistrates are elective.
It would be unjust to suppose that the patriotism and the zeal which
every American displays for the welfare of his fellow- citizens are
wholly insincere. Although private interest directs the greater part
of human actions in the United States as well as elsewhere, it does
not regulate them all. I must say that I have often seen Americans
make great and real sacrifices to the public welfare; and I have
remarked a hundred instances in which they hardly ever failed to
lend faithful support to each other. The free institutions which the
inhabitants of the United States possess, and the political rights
of which they make so much use, remind every citizen, and in a
thousand ways, that he lives in society. They every instant impress
upon his mind the notion that it is the duty, as well as the
interest of men, to make themselves useful to their
fellow-creatures; and as he sees no particular ground of animosity
to them, since he is never either their master or their slave, his
heart readily leans to the side of kindness. Men attend to the
interests of the public, first by necessity, afterwards by choice:
what was intentional becomes an instinct; and by dint of working for
the good of one's fellow citizens, the habit and the taste for
serving them is at length acquired.
Many people in France consider equality of conditions as one evil,
and political freedom as a second. When they are obliged to yield to
the former, they strive at least to escape from the latter. But I
contend that in order to combat the evils which equality may
produce, there is only one effectual remedy - namely, political
freedom.
Book Two - Chapters V-VII
Chapter V: Of The Use Which The Americans Make Of Public
Associations In Civil Life
I do not propose to speak of those political associations - by the
aid of which men endeavor to defend themselves against the despotic
influence of a majority - or against the aggressions of regal power.
That subject I have already treated. If each citizen did not learn,
in proportion as he individually becomes more feeble, and
consequently more incapable of preserving his freedom single-handed,
to combine with his fellow-citizens for the purpose of defending it,
it is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with
equality.
Those associations only which are formed in civil life, without
reference to political objects, are here adverted to. The political
associations which exist in the United States are only a single
feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of associations in
that country. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all
dispositions, constantly form associations. They have not only
commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but
associations of a thousand other kinds - religious, moral, serious,
futile, extensive, or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The
Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found
establishments for education, to build inns, to construct churches,
to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; and in this
manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it be proposed
to advance some truth, or to foster some feeling by the
encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever, at
the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France,
or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure
to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in
America, of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have
often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the
United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions
of a great many men, and in getting them voluntarily to pursue it. I
have since travelled over England, whence the Americans have taken
some of their laws and many of their customs; and it seemed to me
that the principle of association was by no means so constantly or
so adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great
things singly; whereas the Americans form associations for the
smallest undertakings. It is evident that the former people consider
association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to
regard it as the only means they have of acting.
Thus the most democratic country on the face of the earth is that in
which men have in our time carried to the highest perfection the art
of pursuing in common the object of their common desires, and have
applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes. Is this
the result of accident? or is there in reality any necessary
connection between the principle of association and that of
equality? Aristocratic communities always contain, amongst a
multitude of persons who by themselves are powerless, a small number
of powerful and wealthy citizens, each of whom can achieve great
undertakings single-handed. In aristocratic societies men do not
need to combine in order to act, because they are strongly held
together. Every wealthy and powerful citizen constitutes the head of
a permanent and compulsory association, composed of all those who
are dependent upon him, or whom he makes subservient to the
execution of his designs. Amongst democratic nations, on the
contrary, all the citizens are independent and feeble; they can do
hardly anything by themselves, and none of them can oblige his
fellow-men to lend him their assistance. They all, therefore, fall
into a state of incapacity, if they do not learn voluntarily to help
each other. If men living in democratic countries had no right and
no inclination to associate for political purposes, their
independence would be in great jeopardy; but they might long
preserve their wealth and their cultivation: whereas if they never
acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary life,
civilization itself would be endangered. A people amongst which
individuals should lose the power of achieving great things
single-handed, without acquiring the means of producing them by
united exertions, would soon relapse into barbarism.
Unhappily, the same social condition which renders associations so
necessary to democratic nations, renders their formation more
difficult amongst those nations than amongst all others. When
several members of an aristocracy agree to combine, they easily
succeed in doing so; as each of them brings great strength to the
partnership, the number of its members may be very limited; and when
the members of an association are limited in number, they may easily
become mutually acquainted, understand each other, and establish
fixed regulations. The same opportunities do not occur amongst
democratic nations, where the associated members must always be very
numerous for their association to have any power.
I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least
embarrassed by this difficulty. They contend that the more enfeebled
and incompetent the citizens become, the more able and active the
government ought to be rendered, in order that society at large may
execute what individuals can no longer accomplish. They believe this
answers the whole difficulty, but I think they are mistaken. A
government might perform the part of some of the largest American
companies; and several States, members of the Union, have already
attempted it; but what political power could ever carry on the vast
multitude of lesser undertakings which the American citizens perform
every day, with the assistance of the principle of association? It
is easy to foresee that the time is drawing near when man will be
less and less able to produce, of himself alone, the commonest
necessaries of life. The task of the governing power will therefore
perpetually increase, and its very efforts will extend it every day.
The more it stands in the place of associations, the more will
individuals, losing the notion of combining together, require its
assistance: these are causes and effects which unceasingly engender
each other. Will the administration of the country ultimately assume
the management of all the manufacturers, which no single citizen is
able to carry on? And if a time at length arrives, when, in
consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property, the soil
is split into an infinite number of parcels, so that it can only be
cultivated by companies of husbandmen, will it be necessary that the
head of the government should leave the helm of state to follow the
plough? The morals and the intelligence of a democratic people would
be as much endangered as its business and manufactures, if the
government ever wholly usurped the place of private companies.
Feelings and opinions are recruited, the heart is enlarged, and the
human mind is developed by no other means than by the reciprocal
influence of men upon each other. I have shown that these influences
are almost null in democratic countries; they must therefore be
artificially created, and this can only be accomplished by
associations.
When the members of an aristocratic community adopt a new opinion,
or conceive a new sentiment, they give it a station, as it were,
beside themselves, upon the lofty platform where they stand; and
opinions or sentiments so conspicuous to the eyes of the multitude
are easily introduced into the minds or hearts of all around. In
democratic countries the governing power alone is naturally in a
condition to act in this manner; but it is easy to see that its
action is always inadequate, and often dangerous. A government can
no more be competent to keep alive and to renew the circulation of
opinions and feelings amongst a great people, than to manage all the
speculations of productive industry. No sooner does a government
attempt to go beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new
track, than it exercises, even unintentionally, an insupportable
tyranny; for a government can only dictate strict rules, the
opinions which it favors are rigidly enforced, and it is never easy
to discriminate between its advice and its commands. Worse still
will be the case if the government really believes itself interested
in preventing all circulation of ideas; it will then stand
motionless, and oppressed by the heaviness of voluntary torpor.
Governments therefore should not be the only active powers:
associations ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of those
powerful private individuals whom the equality of conditions has
swept away.
As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have
taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the
world, they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as they have
found each other out, they combine. From that moment they are no
longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve
for an example, and whose language is listened to. The first time I
heard in the United States that 100,000 men had bound themselves
publicly to abstain from spirituous liquors, it appeared to me more
like a joke than a serious engagement; and I did not at once
perceive why these temperate citizens could not content themselves
with drinking water by their own firesides. I at last understood
that 300,000 Americans, alarmed by the progress of drunkenness
around them, had made up their minds to patronize temperance. They
acted just in the same way as a man of high rank who should dress
very plainly, in order to inspire the humbler orders with a contempt
of luxury. It is probable that if these 100,000 men had lived in
France, each of them would singly have memorialized the government
to watch the publichouses all over the kingdom.
Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the
intellectual and moral associations of America. The political and
industrial associations of that country strike us forcibly; but the
others elude our observation, or if we discover them, we understand
them imperfectly, because we have hardly ever seen anything of the
kind. It must, however, be acknowledged that they are as necessary
to the American people as the former, and perhaps more so. In
democratic countries the science of association is the mother of
science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it
has made. Amongst the laws which rule human societies there is one
which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are
to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating
together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the
equality of conditions is increased.
Chapter VI: Of The Relation Between Public Associations And
Newspapers
When men are no longer united amongst themselves by firm and lasting
ties, it is impossible to obtain the cooperation of any great number
of them, unless you can persuade every man whose concurrence you
require that this private interest obliges him voluntarily to unite
his exertions to the exertions of all the rest. This can only be
habitually and conveniently effected by means of a newspaper;
nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand
minds at the same moment. A newspaper is an adviser who does not
require to be sought, but who comes of his own accord, and talks to
you briefly every day of the common weal, without distracting you
from your private affairs.
Newspapers therefore become more necessary in proportion as men
become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. To suppose
that they only serve to protect freedom would be to diminish their
importance: they maintain civilization. I shall not deny that in
democratic countries newspapers frequently lead the citizens to
launch together in very ill-digested schemes; but if there were no
newspapers there would be no common activity. The evil which they
produce is therefore much less than that which they cure.
The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same purpose to
a great number of persons, but also to furnish means for executing
in common the designs which they may have singly conceived. The
principal citizens who inhabit an aristocratic country discern each
other from afar; and if they wish to unite their forces, they move
towards each other, drawing a multitude of men after them. It
frequently happens, on the contrary, in democratic countries, that a
great number of men who wish or who want to combine cannot
accomplish it, because as they are very insignificant and lost
amidst the crowd, they cannot see, and know not where to find, one
another. A newspaper then takes up the notion or the feeling which
had occurred simultaneously, but singly, to each of them. All are
then immediately guided towards this beacon; and these wandering
minds, which had long sought each other in darkness, at length meet
and unite.
The newspaper brought them together, and the newspaper is still
necessary to keep them united. In order that an association amongst
a democratic people should have any power, it must be a numerous
body. The persons of whom it is composed are therefore scattered
over a wide extent, and each of them is detained in the place of his
domicile by the narrowness of his income, or by the small
unremitting exertions by which he earns it. Means then must be found
to converse every day without seeing each other, and to take steps
in common without having met. Thus hardly any democratic association
can do without newspapers. There is consequently a necessary
connection between public associations and newspapers: newspapers
make associations, and associations make newspapers; and if it has
been correctly advanced that associations will increase in number as
the conditions of men become more equal, it is not less certain that
the number of newspapers increases in proportion to that of
associations. Thus it is in America that we find at the same time
the greatest number of associations and of newspapers.
This connection between the number of newspapers and that of
associations leads us to the discovery of a further connection
between the state of the periodical press and the form of the
administration in a country; and shows that the number of newspapers
must diminish or increase amongst a democratic people, in proportion
as its administration is more or less centralized. For amongst
democratic nations the exercise of local powers cannot be intrusted
to the principal members of the community as in aristocracies. Those
powers must either be abolished, or placed in the hands of very
large numbers of men, who then in fact constitute an association
permanently established by law for the purpose of administering the
affairs of a certain extent of territory; and they require a
journal, to bring to them every day, in the midst of their own minor
concerns, some intelligence of the state of their public weal. The
more numerous local powers are, the greater is the number of men in
whom they are vested by law; and as this want is hourly felt, the
more profusely do newspapers abound.
The extraordinary subdivision of administrative power has much more
to do with the enormous number of American newspapers than the great
political freedom of the country and the absolute liberty of the
press. If all the inhabitants of the Union had the suffrage - but a
suffrage which should only extend to the choice of their legislators
in Congress - they would require but few newspapers, because they
would only have to act together on a few very important but very
rare occasions. But within the pale of the great association of the
nation, lesser associations have been established by law in every
country, every city, and indeed in every village, for the purposes
of local administration. The laws of the country thus compel every
American to co-operate every day of his life with some of his
fellow-citizens for a common purpose, and each one of them requires
a newspaper to inform him what all the others are doing.
I am of opinion that a democratic people, *a without any national
representative assemblies, but with a great number of small local
powers, would have in the end more newspapers than another people
governed by a centralized administration and an elective
legislation. What best explains to me the enormous circulation of
the daily press in the United States, is that amongst the Americans
I find the utmost national freedom combined with local freedom of
every kind. There is a prevailing opinion in France and England that
the circulation of newspapers would be indefinitely increased by
removing the taxes which have been laid upon the press. This is a
very exaggerated estimate of the effects of such a reform.
Newspapers increase in numbers, not according to their cheapness,
but according to the more or less frequent want which a great number
of men may feel for intercommunication and combination.
[Footnote a: I say a democratic people: the administration of an
aristocratic people may be the reverse of centralized, and yet the
want of newspapers be little felt, because local powers are then
vested in the hands of a very small number of men, who either act
apart, or who know each other and can easily meet and come to an
understanding.]
In like manner I should attribute the increasing influence of the
daily press to causes more general than those by which it is
commonly explained. A newspaper can only subsist on the condition of
publishing sentiments or principles common to a large number of men.
A newspaper therefore always represents an association which is
composed of its habitual readers. This association may be more or
less defined, more or less restricted, more or less numerous; but
the fact that the newspaper keeps alive, is a proof that at least
the germ of such an association exists in the minds of its readers.
This leads me to a last reflection, with which I shall conclude this
chapter. The more equal the conditions of men become, and the less
strong men individually are, the more easily do they give way to the
current of the multitude, and the more difficult is it for them to
adhere by themselves to an opinion which the multitude discard. A
newspaper represents an association; it may be said to address each
of its readers in the name of all the others, and to exert its
influence over them in proportion to their individual weakness. The
power of the newspaper press must therefore increase as the social
conditions of men become more equal.
Chapter VII: Connection Of Civil And Political Associations There is
only one country on the face of the earth where the citizens enjoy
unlimited freedom of association for political purposes. This same
country is the only one in the world where the continual exercise of
the right of association has been introduced into civil life, and
where all the advantages which civilization can confer are procured
by means of it. In all the countries where political associations
are prohibited, civil associations are rare. It is hardly probable
that this is the result of accident; but the inference should rather
be, that there is a natural, and perhaps a necessary, connection
between these two kinds of associations. Certain men happen to have
a common interest in some concern - either a commercial undertaking
is to be managed, or some speculation in manufactures to be tried;
they meet, they combine, and thus by degrees they become familiar
with the principle of association. The greater is the multiplicity
of small affairs, the more do men, even without knowing it, acquire
facility in prosecuting great undertakings in common. Civil
associations, therefore, facilitate political association: but, on
the other hand, political association singularly strengthens and
improves associations for civil purposes. In civil life every man
may, strictly speaking, fancy that he can provide for his own wants;
in politics, he can fancy no such thing. When a people, then, have
any knowledge of public life, the notion of association, and the
wish to coalesce, present themselves every day to the minds of the
whole community: whatever natural repugnance may restrain men from
acting in concert, they will always be ready to combine for the sake
of a party. Thus political life makes the love and practice of
association more general; it imparts a desire of union, and teaches
the means of combination to numbers of men who would have always
lived apart.
Politics not only give birth to numerous associations, but to
associations of great extent. In civil life it seldom happens that
any one interest draws a very large number of men to act in concert;
much skill is required to bring such an interest into existence: but
in politics opportunities present themselves every day. Now it is
solely in great associations that the general value of the principle
of association is displayed. Citizens who are individually
powerless, do not very clearly anticipate the strength which they
may acquire by uniting together; it must be shown to them in order
to be understood. Hence it is often easier to collect a multitude
for a public purpose than a few persons; a thousand citizens do not
see what interest they have in combining together - ten thousand
will be perfectly aware of it. In politics men combine for great
undertakings; and the use they make of the principle of association
in important affairs practically teaches them that it is their
interest to help each other in those of less moment. A political
association draws a number of individuals at the same time out of
their own circle: however they may be naturally kept asunder by age,
mind, and fortune, it places them nearer together and brings them
into contact. Once met, they can always meet again.
Men can embark in few civil partnerships without risking a portion
of their possessions; this is the case with all manufacturing and
trading companies. When men are as yet but little versed in the art
of association, and are unacquainted with its principal rules, they
are afraid, when first they combine in this manner, of buying their
Experience dear. They therefore prefer depriving themselves of a
powerful instrument of success to running the risks which attend the
use of it. They are, however, less reluctant to join political
associations, which appear to them to be without danger, because
they adventure no money in them. But they cannot belong to these
associations for any length of time without finding out how order is
maintained amongst a large number of men, and by what contrivance
they are made to advance, harmoniously and methodically, to the same
object. Thus they learn to surrender their own will to that of all
the rest, and to make their own exertions subordinate to the common
impulse - things which it is not less necessary to know in civil
than in political associations. Political associations may therefore
be considered as large free schools, where all the members of the
community go to learn the general theory of association.
But even if political association did not directly contribute to the
progress of civil association, to destroy the former would be to
impair the latter. When citizens can only meet in public for certain
purposes, they regard such meetings as a strange proceeding of rare
occurrence, and they rarely think at all about it. When they are
allowed to meet freely for all purposes, they ultimately look upon
public association as the universal, or in a manner the sole means,
which men can employ to accomplish the different purposes they may
have in view. Every new want instantly revives the notion. The art
of association then becomes, as I have said before, the mother of
action, studied and applied by all.
When some kinds of associations are prohibited and others allowed,
it is difficult to distinguish the former from the latter,
beforehand. In this state of doubt men abstain from them altogether,
and a sort of public opinion passes current which tends to cause any
association whatsoever to be regarded as a bold and almost an
illicit enterprise. *a
[Footnote a: This is more especially true when the executive
government has a discretionary power of allowing or prohibiting
associations. When certain associations are simply prohibited by
law, and the courts of justice have to punish infringements of that
law, the evil is far less considerable. Then every citizen knows
beforehand pretty nearly what he has to expect. He judges himself
before he is judged by the law, and, abstaining from prohibited
associations, he embarks in those which are legally sanctioned. It
is by these restrictions that all free nations have always admitted
that the right of association might be limited. But if the
legislature should invest a man with a power of ascertaining
beforehand which associations are dangerous and which are useful,
and should authorize him to destroy all associations in the bud or
allow them to be formed, as nobody would be able to foresee in what
cases associations might be established and in what cases they would
be put down, the spirit of association would be entirely paralyzed.
The former of these laws would only assail certain associations; the
latter would apply to society itself, and inflict an injury upon it.
I can conceive that a regular government may have recourse to the
former, but I do not concede that any government has the right of
enacting the latter.]
It is therefore chimerical to suppose that the spirit of
association, when it is repressed on some one point, will
nevertheless display the same vigor on all others; and that if men
be allowed to prosecute certain undertakings in common, that is
quite enough for them eagerly to set about them. When the members of
a community are allowed and accustomed to combine for all purposes,
they will combine as readily for the lesser as for the more
important ones; but if they are only allowed to combine for small
affairs, they will be neither inclined nor able to effect it. It is
in vain that you will leave them entirely free to prosecute their
business on joint-stock account: they will hardly care to avail
themselves of the rights you have granted to them; and, after having
exhausted your strength in vain efforts to put down prohibited
associations, you will be surprised that you cannot persuade men to
form the associations you encourage.
I do not say that there can be no civil associations in a country
where political association is prohibited; for men can never live in
society without embarking in some common undertakings: but I
maintain that in such a country civil associations will always be
few in number, feebly planned, unskillfully managed, that they will
never form any vast designs, or that they will fail in the execution
of them.
This naturally leads me to think that freedom of association in
political matters is not so dangerous to public tranquillity as is
supposed; and that possibly, after having agitated society for some
time, it may strengthen the State in the end. In democratic
countries political associations are, so to speak, the only powerful
persons who aspire to rule the State. Accordingly, the governments
of our time look upon associations of this kind just as sovereigns
in the Middle Ages regarded the great vassals of the Crown: they
entertain a sort of instinctive abhorrence of them, and they combat
them on all occasions. They bear, on the contrary, a natural
goodwill to civil associations, because they readily discover that,
instead of directing the minds of the community to public affairs,
these institutions serve to divert them from such reflections; and
that, by engaging them more and more in the pursuit of objects which
cannot be attained without public tranquillity, they deter them from
revolutions. But these governments do not attend to the fact that
political associations tend amazingly to multiply and facilitate
those of a civil character, and that in avoiding a dangerous evil
they deprive themselves of an efficacious remedy.
When you see the Americans freely and constantly forming
associations for the purpose of promoting some political principle,
of raising one man to the head of affairs, or of wresting power from
another, you have some difficulty in understanding that men so
independent do not constantly fall into the abuse of freedom. If, on
the other hand, you survey the infinite number of trading companies
which are in operation in the United States, and perceive that the
Americans are on every side unceasingly engaged in the execution of
important and difficult plans, which the slightest revolution would
throw into confusion, you will readily comprehend why people so well
employed are by no means tempted to perturb the State, nor to
destroy that public tranquillity by which they all profit.
Is it enough to observe these things separately, or should we not
discover the hidden tie which connects them? In their political
associations, the Americans of all conditions, minds, and ages,
daily acquire a general taste for association, and grow accustomed
to the use of it. There they meet together in large numbers, they
converse, they listen to each other, and they are mutually
stimulated to all sorts of undertakings. They afterwards transfer to
civil life the notions they have thus acquired, and make them
subservient to a thousand purposes. Thus it is by the enjoyment of a
dangerous freedom that the Americans learn the art of rendering the
dangers of freedom less formidable.
If a certain moment in the existence of a nation be selected, it is
easy to prove that political associations perturb the State, and
paralyze productive industry; but take the whole life of a people,
and it may perhaps be easy to demonstrate that freedom of
association in political matters is favorable to the prosperity and
even to the tranquillity of the community.
I said in the former part of this work, "The unrestrained liberty of
political association cannot be entirely assimilated to the liberty
of the press. The one is at the same time less necessary and more
dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within certain
limits without ceasing to be mistress of itself; and it may
sometimes be obliged to do so in order to maintain its own
authority." And further on I added: "It cannot be denied that the
unrestrained liberty of association for political purposes is the
last degree of liberty which a people is fit for. If it does not
throw them into anarchy, it perpetually brings them, as it were, to
the verge of it." Thus I do not think that a nation is always at
liberty to invest its citizens with an absolute right of association
for political purposes; and I doubt whether, in any country or in
any age, it be wise to set no limits to freedom of association. A
certain nation, it is said, could not maintain tranquillity in the
community, cause the laws to be respected, or establish a lasting
government, if the right of association were not confined within
narrow limits. These blessings are doubtless invaluable, and I can
imagine that, to acquire or to preserve them, a nation may impose
upon itself severe temporary restrictions: but still it is well that
the nation should know at what price these blessings are purchased.
I can understand that it may be advisable to cut off a man's arm in
order to save his life; but it would be ridiculous to assert that he
will be as dexterous as he was before he lost it.
Book Two - Chapters VII-XIII
Chapter VIII: The Americans Combat Individualism By The Principle Of
Interest Rightly Understood
When the world was managed by a few rich and powerful individuals,
these persons loved to entertain a lofty idea of the duties of man.
They were fond of professing that it is praiseworthy to forget one's
self, and that good should be done without hope of reward, as it is
by the Deity himself. Such were the standard opinions of that time
in morals. I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic
ages than in others; but they were incessantly talking of the
beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret. But
since the imagination takes less lofty flights and every man's
thoughts are centred in himself, moralists are alarmed by this idea
of self-sacrifice, and they no longer venture to present it to the
human mind. They therefore content themselves with inquiring whether
the personal advantage of each member of the community does not
consist in working for the good of all; and when they have hit upon
some point on which private interest and public interest meet and
amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice. Observations of
this kind are gradually multiplied: what was only a single remark
becomes a general principle; and it is held as a truth that man
serves himself in serving his fellow-creatures, and that his private
interest is to do good.
I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means
the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine
their own advantage with that of their fellow-citizens: my present
purpose is to point out the general rule which enables them to do
so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of
virtue; but they maintain that virtue is useful, and prove it every
day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to
sacrifice themselves for their fellow-creatures because it is noble
to make such sacrifices; but they boldly aver that such sacrifices
are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for
whose sake they are made. They have found out that in their country
and their age man is brought home to himself by an irresistible
force; and losing all hope of stopping that force, they turn all
their thoughts to the direction of it. They therefore do not deny
that every man may follow his own interest; but they endeavor to
prove that it is the interest of every man to be virtuous. I shall
not here enter into the reasons they allege, which would divert me
from my subject: suffice it to say that they have convinced their
fellow-countrymen.
Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for
its straightness, I should follow it for having found by Experience
that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track."
The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not, then, new, but
amongst the Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance: it
has become popular there; you may trace it at the bottom of all
their actions, you will remark it in all they say. It is as often to
be met with on the lips of the poor man as of the rich. In Europe
the principle of interest is much grosser than it is in America, but
at the same time it is less common, and especially it is less
avowed; amongst us, men still constantly feign great abnegation
which they no longer feel. The Americans, on the contrary, are fond
of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle
of interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an
enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist
each other, and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of
their time and property to the welfare of the State. In this respect
I think they frequently fail to do themselves justice; for in the
United States, as well as elsewhere, people are sometimes seen to
give way to those disinterested and spontaneous impulses which are
natural to man; but the Americans seldom allow that they yield to
emotions of this kind; they are more anxious to do honor to their
philosophy than to themselves.
I might here pause, without attempting to pass a judgment on what I
have described. The extreme difficulty of the subject would be my
excuse, but I shall not avail myself of it; and I had rather that my
readers, clearly perceiving my object, should refuse to follow me
than that I should leave them in suspense. The principle of interest
rightly understood is not a lofty one, but it is clear and sure. It
does not aim at mighty objects, but it attains without excessive
exertion all those at which it aims. As it lies within the reach of
all capacities, everyone can without difficulty apprehend and retain
it. By its admirable conformity to human weaknesses, it easily
obtains great dominion; nor is that dominion precarious, since the
principle checks one personal interest by another, and uses, to
direct the passions, the very same instrument which excites them.
The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts
of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial.
By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous, but it
disciplines a number of citizens in habits of regularity,
temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command; and, if it does not
lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in
that direction by their habits. If the principle of interest rightly
understood were to sway the whole moral world, extraordinary virtues
would doubtless be more rare; but I think that gross depravity would
then also be less common. The principle of interest rightly
understood perhaps prevents some men from rising far above the level
of mankind; but a great number of other men, who were falling far
below it, are caught and restrained by it. Observe some few
individuals, they are lowered by it; survey mankind, it is raised. I
am not afraid to say that the principle of interest, rightly
understood, appears to me the best suited of all philosophical
theories to the wants of the men of our time, and that I regard it
as their chief remaining security against themselves. Towards it,
therefore, the minds of the moralists of our age should turn; even
should they judge it to be incomplete, it must nevertheless be
adopted as necessary.
I do not think upon the whole that there is more egotism amongst us
than in America; the only difference is, that there it is
enlightened - here it is not. Every American will sacrifice a
portion of his private interests to preserve the rest; we would fain
preserve the whole, and oftentimes the whole is lost. Everybody I
see about me seems bent on teaching his contemporaries, by precept
and example, that what is useful is never wrong. Will nobody
undertake to make them understand how what is right may be useful?
No power upon earth can prevent the increasing equality of
conditions from inclining the human mind to seek out what is useful,
or from leading every member of the community to be wrapped up in
himself. It must therefore be expected that personal interest will
become more than ever the principal, if not the sole, spring of
men's actions; but it remains to be seen how each man will
understand his personal interest. If the members of a community, as
they become more equal, become more ignorant and coarse, it is
difficult to foresee to what pitch of stupid excesses their egotism
may lead them; and no one can foretell into what disgrace and
wretchedness they would plunge themselves, lest they should have to
sacrifice something of their own well-being to the prosperity of
their fellow-creatures. I do not think that the system of interest,
as it is professed in America, is, in all its parts, self-evident;
but it contains a great number of truths so evident that men, if
they are but educated, cannot fail to see them. Educate, then, at
any rate; for the age of implicit self- sacrifice and instinctive
virtues is already flitting far away from us, and the time is fast
approaching when freedom, public peace, and social order itself will
not be able to exist without education.
Chapter IX: That The Americans Apply The Principle Of Interest
Rightly Understood To Religious Matters
If the principle of interest rightly understood had nothing but the
present world in view, it would be very insufficient; for there are
many sacrifices which can only find their recompense in another; and
whatever ingenuity may be put forth to demonstrate the utility of
virtue, it will never be an easy task to make that man live aright
who has no thoughts of dying. It is therefore necessary to ascertain
whether the principle of interest rightly understood is easily
compatible with religious belief. The philosophers who inculcate
this system of morals tell men, that to be happy in this life they
must watch their own passions and steadily control their excess;
that lasting happiness can only be secured by renouncing a thousand
transient gratifications; and that a man must perpetually triumph
over himself, in order to secure his own advantage. The founders of
almost all religions have held the same language. The track they
point out to man is the same, only that the goal is more remote;
instead of placing in this world the reward of the sacrifices they
impose, they transport it to another. Nevertheless I cannot believe
that all those who practise virtue from religious motives are only
actuated by the hope of a recompense. I have known zealous
Christians who constantly forgot themselves, to work with greater
ardor for the happiness of their fellow-men; and I have heard them
declare that all they did was only to earn the blessings of a future
state. I cannot but think that they deceive themselves; I respect
them too much to believe them.
Christianity indeed teaches that a man must prefer his neighbor to
himself, in order to gain eternal life; but Christianity also
teaches that men ought to benefit their fellow- creatures for the
love of God. A sublime expression! Man, searching by his intellect
into the divine conception, and seeing that order is the purpose of
God, freely combines to prosecute the great design; and whilst he
sacrifices his personal interests to this consummate order of all
created things, expects no other recompense than the pleasure of
contemplating it. I do not believe that interest is the sole motive
of religious men: but I believe that interest is the principal means
which religions themselves employ to govern men, and I do not
question that this way they strike into the multitude and become
popular. It is not easy clearly to perceive why the principle of
interest rightly understood should keep aloof from religious
opinions; and it seems to me more easy to show why it should draw
men to them. Let it be supposed that, in order to obtain happiness
in this world, a man combats his instinct on all occasions and
deliberately calculates every action of his life; that, instead of
yielding blindly to the impetuosity of first desires, he has learned
the art of resisting them, and that he has accustomed himself to
sacrifice without an effort the pleasure of a moment to the lasting
interest of his whole life. If such a man believes in the religion
which he professes, it will cost him but little to submit to the
restrictions it may impose. Reason herself counsels him to obey, and
habit has prepared him to endure them. If he should have conceived
any doubts as to the object of his hopes, still he will not easily
allow himself to be stopped by them; and he will decide that it is
wise to risk some of the advantages of this world, in order to
preserve his rights to the great inheritance promised him in
another. "To be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is
true," says Pascal, "is no great loss to anyone; but how dreadful to
be mistaken in believing it to be false!"
The Americans do not affect a brutal indifference to a future state;
they affect no puerile pride in despising perils which they hope to
escape from. They therefore profess their religion without shame and
without weakness; but there generally is, even in their zeal,
something so indescribably tranquil, methodical, and deliberate,
that it would seem as if the head, far more than the heart, brought
them to the foot of the altar. The Americans not only follow their
religion from interest, but they often place in this world the
interest which makes them follow it. In the Middle Ages the clergy
spoke of nothing but a future state; they hardly cared to prove that
a sincere Christian may be a happy man here below. But the American
preachers are constantly referring to the earth; and it is only with
great difficulty that they can divert their attention from it. To
touch their congregations, they always show them how favorable
religious opinions are to freedom and public tranquillity; and it is
often difficult to ascertain from their discourses whether the
principal object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the
other world, or prosperity in this.
Chapter X: Of The Taste For Physical Well-Being In America
In America the passion for physical well-being is not always
exclusive, but it is general; and if all do not feel it in the same
manner, yet it is felt by all. Carefully to satisfy all, even the
least wants of the body, and to provide the little conveniences of
life, is uppermost in every mind. Something of an analogous
character is more and more apparent in Europe. Amongst the causes
which produce these similar consequences in both hemispheres,
several are so connected with my subject as to deserve notice.
When riches are hereditarily fixed in families, there are a great
number of men who enjoy the comforts of life without feeling an
exclusive taste for those comforts. The heart of man is not so much
caught by the undisturbed possession of anything valuable as by the
desire, as yet imperfectly satisfied, of possessing it, and by the
incessant dread of losing it. In aristocratic communities, the
wealthy, never having Experienced a condition different from their
own, entertain no fear of changing it; the existence of such
conditions hardly occurs to them. The comforts of life are not to
them the end of life, but simply a way of living; they regard them
as existence itself - enjoyed, but scarcely thought of. As the
natural and instinctive taste which all men feel for being well off
is thus satisfied without trouble and without apprehension, their
faculties are turned elsewhere, and cling to more arduous and more
lofty undertakings, which excite and engross their minds. Hence it
is that, in the midst of physical gratifications, the members of an
aristocracy often display a haughty contempt of these very
enjoyments, and exhibit singular powers of endurance under the
privation of them. All the revolutions which have ever shaken or
destroyed aristocracies, have shown how easily men accustomed to
superfluous luxuries can do without the necessaries of life; whereas
men who have toiled to acquire a competency can hardly live after
they have lost it.
If I turn my observation from the upper to the lower classes, I find
analogous effects produced by opposite causes. Amongst a nation
where aristocracy predominates in society, and keeps it stationary,
the people in the end get as much accustomed to poverty as the rich
to their opulence. The latter bestow no anxiety on their physical
comforts, because they enjoy them without an effort; the former do
not think of things which they despair of obtaining, and which they
hardly know enough of to desire them. In communities of this kind,
the imagination of the poor is driven to seek another world; the
miseries of real life inclose it around, but it escapes from their
control, and flies to seek its pleasures far beyond. When, on the
contrary, the distinctions of ranks are confounded together and
privileges are destroyed - when hereditary property is subdivided,
and education and freedom widely diffused, the desire of acquiring
the comforts of the world haunts the imagination of the poor, and
the dread of losing them that of the rich. Many scanty fortunes
spring up; those who possess them have a sufficient share of
physical gratifications to conceive a taste for these pleasures -
not enough to satisfy it. They never procure them without exertion,
and they never indulge in them without apprehension. They are
therefore always straining to pursue or to retain gratifications so
delightful, so imperfect, so fugitive.
If I were to inquire what passion is most natural to men who are
stimulated and circumscribed by the obscurity of their birth or the
mediocrity of their fortune, I could discover none more peculiarly
appropriate to their condition than this love of physical
prosperity. The passion for physical comforts is essentially a
passion of the middle classes: with those classes it grows and
spreads, with them it preponderates. From them it mounts into the
higher orders of society, and descends into the mass of the people.
I never met in America with any citizen so poor as not to cast a
glance of hope and envy on the enjoyments of the rich, or whose
imagination did not possess itself by anticipation of those good
things which fate still obstinately withheld from him. On the other
hand, I never perceived amongst the wealthier inhabitants of the
United States that proud contempt of physical gratifications which
is sometimes to be met with even in the most opulent and dissolute
aristocracies. Most of these wealthy persons were once poor; they
have felt the sting of want; they were long a prey to adverse
fortunes; and now that the victory is won, the passions which
accompanied the contest have survived it: their minds are, as it
were, intoxicated by the small enjoyments which they have pursued
for forty years. Not but that in the United States, as elsewhere,
there are a certain number of wealthy persons who, having come into
their property by inheritance, possess, without exertion, an
opulence they have not earned. But even these men are not less
devotedly attached to the pleasures of material life. The love of
well-being is now become the predominant taste of the nation; the
great current of man's passions runs in that channel, and sweeps
everything along in its course.
Chapter XI: Peculiar Effects Of The Love Of Physical Gratifications
In Democratic Ages
It may be supposed, from what has just been said, that the love of
physical gratifications must constantly urge the Americans to
irregularities in morals, disturb the peace of families, and
threaten the security of society at large. Such is not the case: the
passion for physical gratifications produces in democracies effects
very different from those which it occasions in aristocratic
nations. It sometimes happens that, wearied with public affairs and
sated with opulence, amidst the ruin of religious belief and the
decline of the State, the heart of an aristocracy may by degrees be
seduced to the pursuit of sensual enjoyments only. At other times
the power of the monarch or the weakness of the people, without
stripping the nobility of their fortune, compels them to stand aloof
from the administration of affairs, and whilst the road to mighty
enterprise is closed, abandons them to the inquietude of their own
desires; they then fall back heavily upon themselves, and seek in
the pleasures of the body oblivion of their former greatness. When
the members of an aristocratic body are thus exclusively devoted to
the pursuit of physical gratifications, they commonly concentrate in
that direction all the energy which they derive from their long
Experience of power. Such men are not satisfied with the pursuit of
comfort; they require sumptuous depravity and splendid corruption.
The worship they pay the senses is a gorgeous one; and they seem to
vie with each other in the art of degrading their own natures. The
stronger, the more famous, and the more free an aristocracy has
been, the more depraved will it then become; and however brilliant
may have been the lustre of its virtues, I dare predict that they
will always be surpassed by the splendor of its vices.
The taste for physical gratifications leads a democratic people into
no such excesses. The love of well-being is there displayed as a
tenacious, exclusive, universal passion; but its range is confined.
To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack
the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought
of: but to add a few roods of land to your field, to plant an
orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be always making life more
comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the
smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are
small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them
closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the
world, and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven.
This, it may be said, can only be applicable to those members of the
community who are in humble circumstances; wealthier individuals
will display tastes akin to those which belonged to them in
aristocratic ages. I contest the proposition: in point of physical
gratifications, the most opulent members of a democracy will not
display tastes very different from those of the people; whether it
be that, springing from the people, they really share those tastes,
or that they esteem it a duty to submit to them. In democratic
society the sensuality of the public has taken a moderate and
tranquil course, to which all are bound to conform: it is as
difficult to depart from the common rule by one's vices as by one's
virtues. Rich men who live amidst democratic nations are therefore
more intent on providing for their smallest wants than for their
extraordinary enjoyments; they gratify a number of petty desires,
without indulging in any great irregularities of passion: thus they
are more apt to become enervated than debauched. The especial taste
which the men of democratic ages entertain for physical enjoyments
is not naturally opposed to the principles of public order; nay, it
often stands in need of order that it may be gratified. Nor is it
adverse to regularity of morals, for good morals contribute to
public tranquillity and are favorable to industry. It may even be
frequently combined with a species of religious morality: men wish
to be as well off as they can in this world, without foregoing their
chance of another. Some physical gratifications cannot be indulged
in without crime; from such they strictly abstain. The enjoyment of
others is sanctioned by religion and morality; to these the heart,
the imagination, and life itself are unreservedly given up; till, in
snatching at these lesser gifts, men lose sight of those more
precious possessions which constitute the glory and the greatness of
mankind. The reproach I address to the principle of equality, is not
that it leads men away in the pursuit of forbidden enjoyments, but
that it absorbs them wholly in quest of those which are allowed. By
these means, a kind of virtuous materialism may ultimately be
established in the world, which would not corrupt, but enervate the
soul, and noiselessly unbend its springs of action.
Chapter XII: Causes Of Fanatical Enthusiasm In Some Americans
Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world is
the prevailing passion of the American people, certain momentary
outbreaks occur, when their souls seem suddenly to burst the bonds
of matter by which they are restrained, and to soar impetuously
towards heaven. In all the States of the Union, but especially in
the half-peopled country of the Far West, wandering preachers may be
met with who hawk about the word of God from place to place. Whole
families - old men, women, and children - cross rough passes and
untrodden wilds, coming from a great distance, to join a camp-
meeting, where they totally forget for several days and nights, in
listening to these discourses, the cares of business and even the
most urgent wants of the body. Here and there, in the midst of
American society, you meet with men, full of a fanatical and almost
wild enthusiasm, which hardly exists in Europe. From time to time
strange sects arise, which endeavor to strike out extraordinary
paths to eternal happiness. Religious insanity is very common in the
United States.
Nor ought these facts to surprise us. It was not man who implanted
in himself the taste for what is infinite and the love of what is
immortal: those lofty instincts are not the offspring of his
capricious will; their steadfast foundation is fixed in human
nature, and they exist in spite of his efforts. He may cross and
distort them - destroy them he cannot. The soul has wants which must
be satisfied; and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself,
it soon grows weary, restless, and disquieted amidst the enjoyments
of sense. If ever the faculties of the great majority of mankind
were exclusively bent upon the pursuit of material objects, it might
be anticipated that an amazing reaction would take place in the
souls of some men. They would drift at large in the world of
spirits, for fear of remaining shackled by the close bondage of the
body.
It is not then wonderful if, in the midst of a community whose
thoughts tend earthward, a small number of individuals are to be
found who turn their looks to heaven. I should be surprised if
mysticism did not soon make some advance amongst a people solely
engaged in promoting its own worldly welfare. It is said that the
deserts of the Thebaid were peopled by the persecutions of the
emperors and the massacres of the Circus; I should rather say that
it was by the luxuries of Rome and the Epicurean philosophy of
Greece. If their social condition, their present circumstances, and
their laws did not confine the minds of the Americans so closely to
the pursuit of worldly welfare, it is probable that they would
display more reserve and more Experience whenever their attention is
turned to things immaterial, and that they would check themselves
without difficulty. But they feel imprisoned within bounds which
they will apparently never be allowed to pass. As soon as they have
passed these bounds, their minds know not where to fix themselves,
and they often rush unrestrained beyond the range of common-sense.
Chapter XIII: Causes Of The Restless Spirit Of Americans In The
Midst Of Their Prosperity
In certain remote corners of the Old World you may still sometimes
stumble upon a small district which seems to have been forgotten
amidst the general tumult, and to have remained stationary whilst
everything around it was in motion. The inhabitants are for the most
part extremely ignorant and poor; they take no part in the business
of the country, and they are frequently oppressed by the government;
yet their countenances are generally placid, and their spirits
light. In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men, placed
in the happiest circumstances which the world affords: it seemed to
me as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them
serious and almost sad even in their pleasures. The chief reason of
this contrast is that the former do not think of the ills they
endure - the latter are forever brooding over advantages they do not
possess. It is strange to see with what feverish ardor the Americans
pursue their own welfare; and to watch the vague dread that
constantly torments them lest they should not have chosen the
shortest path which may lead to it. A native of the United States
clings to this world's goods as if he were certain never to die; and
he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach, that one would
suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy
them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast, but soon
loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications.
In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years
in it, and he sells it before the roof is on: he plants a garden,
and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing: he brings a
field into tillage, and leaves other men to gather the crops: he
embraces a profession, and gives it up: he settles in a place, which
he soon afterwards leaves, to carry his changeable longings
elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure, he
instantly plunges into the vortex of politics; and if at the end of
a year of unremitting labor he finds he has a few days' vacation,
his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United
States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days, to
shake off his happiness. Death at length overtakes him, but it is
before he is weary of his bootless chase of that complete felicity
which is forever on the wing.
At first sight there is something surprising in this strange unrest
of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance. The
spectacle itself is however as old as the world; the novelty is to
see a whole people furnish an exemplification of it. Their taste for
physical gratifications must be regarded as the original source of
that secret inquietude which the actions of the Americans betray,
and of that inconstancy of which they afford fresh examples every
day. He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of
worldly welfare is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time
at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, and to enjoy it. The
recollection of the brevity of life is a constant spur to him.
Besides the good things which he possesses, he every instant fancies
a thousand others which death will prevent him from trying if he
does not try them soon. This thought fills him with anxiety, fear,
and regret, and keeps his mind in ceaseless trepidation, which leads
him perpetually to change his plans and his abode. If in addition to
the taste for physical well-being a social condition be superadded,
in which the laws and customs make no condition permanent, here is a
great additional stimulant to this restlessness of temper. Men will
then be seen continually to change their track, for fear of missing
the shortest cut to happiness. It may readily be conceived that if
men, passionately bent upon physical gratifications, desire eagerly,
they are also easily discouraged: as their ultimate object is to
enjoy, the means to reach that object must be prompt and easy, or
the trouble of acquiring the gratification would be greater than the
gratification itself. Their prevailing frame of mind then is at once
ardent and relaxed, violent and enervated. Death is often less
dreaded than perseverance in continuous efforts to one end.
The equality of conditions leads by a still straighter road to
several of the effects which I have here described. When all the
privileges of birth and fortune are abolished, when all professions
are accessible to all, and a man's own energies may place him at the
top of any one of them, an easy and unbounded career seems open to
his ambition, and he will readily persuade himself that he is born
to no vulgar destinies. But this is an erroneous notion, which is
corrected by daily Experience. The same equality which allows every
citizen to conceive these lofty hopes, renders all the citizens less
able to realize them: it circumscribes their powers on every side,
whilst it gives freer scope to their desires. Not only are they
themselves powerless, but they are met at every step by immense
obstacles, which they did not at first perceive. They have swept
away the privileges of some of their fellow-creatures which stood in
their way, but they have opened the door to universal competition:
the barrier has changed its shape rather than its position. When men
are nearly alike, and all follow the same track, it is very
difficult for any one individual to walk quick and cleave a way
through the dense throng which surrounds and presses him. This
constant strife between the propensities springing from the equality
of conditions and the means it supplies to satisfy them, harasses
and wearies the mind.
It is possible to conceive men arrived at a degree of freedom which
should completely content them; they would then enjoy their
independence without anxiety and without impatience. But men will
never establish any equality with which they can be contented.
Whatever efforts a people may make, they will never succeed in
reducing all the conditions of society to a perfect level; and even
if they unhappily attained that absolute and complete depression,
the inequality of minds would still remain, which, coming directly
from the hand of God, will forever escape the laws of man. However
democratic then the social state and the political constitution of a
people may be, it is certain that every member of the community will
always find out several points about him which command his own
position; and we may foresee that his looks will be doggedly fixed
in that direction. When inequality of conditions is the common law
of society, the most marked inequalities do not strike the eye: when
everything is nearly on the same level, the slightest are marked
enough to hurt it. Hence the desire of equality always becomes more
insatiable in proportion as equality is more complete.
Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of
conditions: they can never attain the equality they desire. It
perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from
their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they
think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from
their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off
to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights they
die. To these causes must be attributed that strange melancholy
which oftentimes will haunt the inhabitants of democratic countries
in the midst of their abundance, and that disgust at life which
sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy
circumstances. Complaints are made in France that the number of
suicides increases; in America suicide is rare, but insanity is said
to be more common than anywhere else. These are all different
symptoms of the same disease. The Americans do not put an end to
their lives, however disquieted they may be, because their religion
forbids it; and amongst them materialism may be said hardly to
exist, notwithstanding the general passion for physical
gratification. The will resists - reason frequently gives way. In
democratic ages enjoyments are more intense than in the ages of
aristocracy, and especially the number of those who partake in them
is larger: but, on the other hand, it must be admitted that man's
hopes and his desires are oftener blasted, the soul is more stricken
and perturbed, and care itself more keen.
Book Two - Chapters XIV-XIII
Chapter XIV: Taste For Physical Gratifications United In America To
Love Of Freedom And Attention To Public Affairs
When a democratic state turns to absolute monarchy, the activity
which was before directed to public and to private affairs is all at
once centred upon the latter: the immediate consequence is, for some
time, great physical prosperity; but this impulse soon slackens, and
the amount of productive industry is checked. I know not if a single
trading or manufacturing people can be cited, from the Tyrians down
to the Florentines and the English, who were not a free people also.
There is therefore a close bond and necessary relation between these
two elements - freedom and productive industry. This proposition is
generally true of all nations, but especially of democratic nations.
I have already shown that men who live in ages of equality
continually require to form associations in order to procure the
things they covet; and, on the other hand, I have shown how great
political freedom improves and diffuses the art of association.
Freedom, in these ages, is therefore especially favorable to the
production of wealth; nor is it difficult to perceive that despotism
is especially adverse to the same result. The nature of despotic
power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute
and meddling. Despotism of this kind, though it does not trample on
humanity, is directly opposed to the genius of commerce and the
pursuits of industry.
Thus the men of democratic ages require to be free in order more
readily to procure those physical enjoyments for which they are
always longing. It sometimes happens, however, that the excessive
taste they conceive for these same enjoyments abandons them to the
first master who appears. The passion for worldly welfare then
defeats itself, and, without perceiving it, throws the object of
their desires to a greater distance.
There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a
democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications
amongst such a people has grown more rapidly than their education
and their Experience of free institutions, the time will come when
men are carried away, and lose all self-restraint, at the sight of
the new possessions they are about to lay hold upon. In their
intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune, they lose sight of
the close connection which exists between the private fortune of
each of them and the prosperity of all. It is not necessary to do
violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they
enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. The discharge of
political duties appears to them to be a troublesome annoyance,
which diverts them from their occupations and business. If they be
required to elect representatives, to support the Government by
personal service, to meet on public business, they have no time -
they cannot waste their precious time in useless engagements: such
idle amusements are unsuited to serious men who are engaged with the
more important interests of life. These people think they are
following the principle of self-interest, but the idea they
entertain of that principle is a very rude one; and the better to
look after what they call their business, they neglect their chief
business, which is to remain their own masters.
As the citizens who work do not care to attend to public business,
and as the class which might devote its leisure to these duties has
ceased to exist, the place of the Government is, as it were,
unfilled. If at that critical moment some able and ambitious man
grasps the supreme power, he will find the road to every kind of
usurpation open before him. If he does but attend for some time to
the material prosperity of the country, no more will be demanded of
him. Above all he must insure public tranquillity: men who are
possessed by the passion of physical gratification generally find
out that the turmoil of freedom disturbs their welfare, before they
discover how freedom itself serves to promote it. If the slightest
rumor of public commotion intrudes into the petty pleasures of
private life, they are aroused and alarmed by it. The fear of
anarchy perpetually haunts them, and they are always ready to fling
away their freedom at the first disturbance.
I readily admit that public tranquillity is a great good; but at the
same time I cannot forget that all nations have been enslaved by
being kept in good order. Certainly it is not to be inferred that
nations ought to despise public tranquillity; but that state ought
not to content them. A nation which asks nothing of its government
but the maintenance of order is already a slave at heart - the slave
of its own well-being, awaiting but the hand that will bind it. By
such a nation the despotism of faction is not less to be dreaded
than the despotism of an individual. When the bulk of the community
is engrossed by private concerns, the smallest parties need not
despair of getting the upper hand in public affairs. At such times
it is not rare to see upon the great stage of the world, as we see
at our theatres, a multitude represented by a few players, who alone
speak in the name of an absent or inattentive crowd: they alone are
in action whilst all are stationary; they regulate everything by
their own caprice; they change the laws, and tyrannize at will over
the manners of the country; and then men wonder to see into how
small a number of weak and worthless hands a great people may fall.
Hitherto the Americans have fortunately escaped all the perils which
I have just pointed out; and in this respect they are really
deserving of admiration. Perhaps there is no country in the world
where fewer idle men are to be met with than in America, or where
all who work are more eager to promote their own welfare. But if the
passion of the Americans for physical gratifications is vehement, at
least it is not indiscriminating; and reason, though unable to
restrain it, still directs its course. An American attends to his
private concerns as if he were alone in the world, and the next
minute he gives himself up to the common weal as if he had forgotten
them. At one time he seems animated by the most selfish cupidity, at
another by the most lively patriotism. The human heart cannot be
thus divided. The inhabitants of the United States alternately
display so strong and so similar a passion for their own welfare and
for their freedom, that it may be supposed that these passions are
united and mingled in some part of their character. And indeed the
Americans believe their freedom to be the best instrument and surest
safeguard of their welfare: they are attached to the one by the
other. They by no means think that they are not called upon to take
a part in the public weal; they believe, on the contrary, that their
chief business is to secure for themselves a government which will
allow them to acquire the things they covet, and which will not
debar them from the peaceful enjoyment of those possessions which
they have acquired.
Chapter XV: That Religious Belief Sometimes Turns The Thoughts Of
The Americans To Immaterial Pleasures
In the United States, on the seventh day of every week, the trading
and working life of the nation seems suspended; all noises cease; a
deep tranquillity, say rather the solemn calm of meditation,
succeeds the turmoil of the week, and the soul resumes possession
and contemplation of itself. Upon this day the marts of traffic are
deserted; every member of the community, accompanied by his
children, goes to church, where he listens to strange language which
would seem unsuited to his ear. He is told of the countless evils
caused by pride and covetousness: he is reminded of the necessity of
checking his desires, of the finer pleasures which belong to virtue
alone, and of the true happiness which attends it. On his return
home, he does not turn to the ledgers of his calling, but he opens
the book of Holy Scripture; there he meets with sublime or affecting
descriptions of the greatness and goodness of the Creator, of the
infinite magnificence of the handiwork of God, of the lofty
destinies of man, of his duties, and of his immortal privileges.
Thus it is that the American at times steals an hour from himself;
and laying aside for a while the petty passions which agitate his
life, and the ephemeral interests which engross it, he strays at
once into an ideal world, where all is great, eternal, and pure.
I have endeavored to point out in another part of this work the
causes to which the maintenance of the political institutions of the
Americans is attributable; and religion appeared to be one of the
most prominent amongst them. I am now treating of the Americans in
an individual capacity, and I again observe that religion is not
less useful to each citizen than to the whole State. The Americans
show, by their practice, that they feel the high necessity of
imparting morality to democratic communities by means of religion.
What they think of themselves in this respect is a truth of which
every democratic nation ought to be thoroughly persuaded.
I do not doubt that the social and political constitution of a
people predisposes them to adopt a certain belief and certain
tastes, which afterwards flourish without difficulty amongst them;
whilst the same causes may divert a people from certain opinions and
propensities, without any voluntary effort, and, as it were, without
any distinct consciousness, on their part. The whole art of the
legislator is correctly to discern beforehand these natural
inclinations of communities of men, in order to know whether they
should be assisted, or whether it may not be necessary to check
them. For the duties incumbent on the legislator differ at different
times; the goal towards which the human race ought ever to be
tending is alone stationary; the means of reaching it are
perpetually to be varied.
If I had been born in an aristocratic age, in the midst of a nation
where the hereditary wealth of some, and the irremediable penury of
others, should equally divert men from the idea of bettering their
condition, and hold the soul as it were in a state of torpor fixed
on the contemplation of another world, I should then wish that it
were possible for me to rouse that people to a sense of their wants;
I should seek to discover more rapid and more easy means for
satisfying the fresh desires which I might have awakened; and,
directing the most strenuous efforts of the human mind to physical
pursuits, I should endeavor to stimulate it to promote the
well-being of man. If it happened that some men were immoderately
incited to the pursuit of riches, and displayed an excessive liking
for physical gratifications, I should not be alarmed; these peculiar
symptoms would soon be absorbed in the general aspect of the people.
The attention of the legislators of democracies is called to other
cares. Give democratic nations education and freedom, and leave them
alone. They will soon learn to draw from this world all the benefits
which it can afford; they will improve each of the useful arts, and
will day by day render life more comfortable, more convenient, and
more easy. Their social condition naturally urges them in this
direction; I do not fear that they will slacken their course.
But whilst man takes delight in this honest and lawful pursuit of
his wellbeing, it is to be apprehended that he may in the end lose
the use of his sublimest faculties; and that whilst he is busied in
improving all around him, he may at length degrade himself. Here,
and here only, does the peril lie. It should therefore be the
unceasing object of the legislators of democracies, and of all the
virtuous and enlightened men who live there, to raise the souls of
their fellow-citizens, and keep them lifted up towards heaven. It is
necessary that all who feel an interest in the future destinies of
democratic society should unite, and that all should make joint and
continual efforts to diffuse the love of the infinite, a sense of
greatness, and a love of pleasures not of earth. If amongst the
opinions of a democratic people any of those pernicious theories
exist which tend to inculcate that all perishes with the body, let
men by whom such theories are professed be marked as the natural
foes of such a people.
The materialists are offensive to me in many respects; their
doctrines I hold to be pernicious, and I am disgusted at their
arrogance. If their system could be of any utility to man, it would
seem to be by giving him a modest opinion of himself. But these
reasoners show that it is not so; and when they think they have said
enough to establish that they are brutes, they show themselves as
proud as if they had demonstrated that they are gods. Materialism
is, amongst all nations, a dangerous disease of the human mind; but
it is more especially to be dreaded amongst a democratic people,
because it readily amalgamates with that vice which is most familiar
to the heart under such circumstances. Democracy encourages a taste
for physical gratification: this taste, if it become excessive, soon
disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in
turn, hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights:
such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven
round. It were well that they should see the danger and hold back.
Most religions are only general, simple, and practical means of
teaching men the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. That is
the greatest benefit which a democratic people derives, from its
belief, and hence belief is more necessary to such a people than to
all others. When therefore any religion has struck its roots deep
into a democracy, beware lest you disturb them; but rather watch it
carefully, as the most precious bequest of aristocratic ages. Seek
not to supersede the old religious opinions of men by new ones; lest
in the passage from one faith to another, the soul being left for a
while stripped of all belief, the love of physical gratifications
should grow upon it and fill it wholly.
The doctrine of metempsychosis is assuredly not more rational than
that of materialism; nevertheless if it were absolutely necessary
that a democracy should choose one of the two, I should not hesitate
to decide that the community would run less risk of being brutalized
by believing that the soul of man will pass into the carcass of a
hog, than by believing that the soul of man is nothing at all. The
belief in a supersensual and immortal principle, united for a time
to matter, is so indispensable to man's greatness, that its effects
are striking even when it is not united to the doctrine of future
reward and punishment; and when it holds no more than that after
death the divine principle contained in man is absorbed in the
Deity, or transferred to animate the frame of some other creature.
Men holding so imperfect a belief will still consider the body as
the secondary and inferior portion of their nature, and they will
despise it even whilst they yield to its influence; whereas they
have a natural esteem and secret admiration for the immaterial part
of man, even though they sometimes refuse to submit to its dominion.
That is enough to give a lofty cast to their opinions and their
tastes, and to bid them tend with no interested motive, and as it
were by impulse, to pure feelings and elevated thoughts.
It is not certain that Socrates and his followers had very fixed
opinions as to what would befall man hereafter; but the sole point
of belief on which they were determined - that the soul has nothing
in common with the body, and survives it - was enough to give the
Platonic philosophy that sublime aspiration by which it is
distinguished. It is clear from the works of Plato, that many
philosophical writers, his predecessors or contemporaries, professed
materialism. These writers have not reached us, or have reached us
in mere fragments. The same thing has happened in almost all ages;
the greater part of the most famous minds in literature adhere to
the doctrines of a supersensual philosophy. The instinct and the
taste of the human race maintain those doctrines; they save them
oftentimes in spite of men themselves, and raise the names of their
defenders above the tide of time. It must not then be supposed that
at any period or under any political condition, the passion for
physical gratifications, and the opinions which are superinduced by
that passion, can ever content a whole people. The heart of man is
of a larger mould: it can at once comprise a taste for the
possessions of earth and the love of those of heaven: at times it
may seem to cling devotedly to the one, but it will never be long
without thinking of the other.
If it be easy to see that it is more particularly important in
democratic ages that spiritual opinions should prevail, it is not
easy to say by what means those who govern democratic nations may
make them predominate. I am no believer in the prosperity, any more
than in the durability, of official philosophies; and as to state
religions, I have always held, that if they be sometimes of
momentary service to the interests of political power, they always,
sooner or later, become fatal to the Church. Nor do I think with
those who assert, that to raise religion in the eyes of the people,
and to make them do honor to her spiritual doctrines, it is
desirable indirectly to give her ministers a political influence
which the laws deny them. I am so much alive to the almost
inevitable dangers which beset religious belief whenever the clergy
take part in public affairs, and I am so convinced that Christianity
must be maintained at any cost in the bosom of modern democracies,
that I had rather shut up the priesthood within the sanctuary than
allow them to step beyond it.
What means then remain in the hands of constituted authorities to
bring men back to spiritual opinions, or to hold them fast to the
religion by which those opinions are suggested? My answer will do me
harm in the eyes of politicians. I believe that the sole effectual
means which governments can employ in order to have the doctrine of
the immortality of the soul duly respected, is ever to act as if
they believed in it themselves; and I think that it is only by
scrupulous conformity to religious morality in great affairs that
they can hope to teach the community at large to know, to love, and
to observe it in the lesser concerns of life.
Chapter XVI: That Excessive Care Of Worldly Welfare May Impair That
Welfare
There is a closer tie than is commonly supposed between the
improvement of the soul and the amelioration of what belongs to the
body. Man may leave these two things apart, and consider each of
them alternately; but he cannot sever them entirely without at last
losing sight of one and of the other. The beasts have the same
senses as ourselves, and very nearly the same appetites. We have no
sensual passions which are not common to our race and theirs, and
which are not to be found, at least in the germ, in a dog as well as
in a man. Whence is it then that the animals can only provide for
their first and lowest wants, whereas we can infinitely vary and
endlessly increase our enjoyments?
We are superior to the beasts in this, that we use our souls to find
out those material benefits to which they are only led by instinct.
In man, the angel teaches the brute the art of contenting its
desires. It is because man is capable of rising above the things of
the body, and of contemning life itself, of which the beasts have
not the least notion, that he can multiply these same things of the
body to a degree which inferior races are equally unable to
conceive. Whatever elevates, enlarges, and expands the soul, renders
it more capable of succeeding in those very undertakings which
concern it not. Whatever, on the other hand, enervates or lowers it,
weakens it for all purposes, the chiefest, as well as the least, and
threatens to render it almost equally impotent for the one and for
the other. Hence the soul must remain great and strong, though it
were only to devote its strength and greatness from time to time to
the service of the body. If men were ever to content themselves with
material objects, it is probable that they would lose by degrees the
art of producing them; and they would enjoy them in the end, like
the brutes, without discernment and without improvement.
Chapter XVII: That In Times Marked By Equality Of Conditions And
Sceptical Opinions, It Is Important To Remove To A Distance The
Objects Of Human Actions
In the ages of faith the final end of life is placed beyond life.
The men of those ages therefore naturally, and in a manner
involuntarily, accustom themselves to fix their gaze for a long
course of years on some immovable object, towards which they are
constantly tending; and they learn by insensible degrees to repress
a multitude of petty passing desires, in order to be the better able
to content that great and lasting desire which possesses them. When
these same men engage in the affairs of this world, the same habits
may be traced in their conduct. They are apt to set up some general
and certain aim and end to their actions here below, towards which
all their efforts are directed: they do not turn from day to day to
chase some novel object of desire, but they have settled designs
which they are never weary of pursuing. This explains why religious
nations have so often achieved such lasting results: for whilst they
were thinking only of the other world, they had found out the great
secret of success in this. Religions give men a general habit of
conducting themselves with a view to futurity: in this respect they
are not less useful to happiness in this life than to felicity
hereafter; and this is one of their chief political characteristics.
But in proportion as the light of faith grows dim, the range of
man's sight is circumscribed, as if the end and aim of human actions
appeared every day to be more within his reach. When men have once
allowed themselves to think no more of what is to befall them after
life, they readily lapse into that complete and brutal indifference
to futurity, which is but too conformable to some propensities of
mankind. As soon as they have lost the habit of placing their chief
hopes upon remote events, they naturally seek to gratify without
delay their smallest desires; and no sooner do they despair of
living forever, than they are disposed to act as if they were to
exist but for a single day. In sceptical ages it is always therefore
to be feared that men may perpetually give way to their daily casual
desires; and that, wholly renouncing whatever cannot be acquired
without protracted effort, they may establish nothing great,
permanent, and calm.
If the social condition of a people, under these circumstances,
becomes democratic, the danger which I here point out is thereby
increased. When everyone is constantly striving to change his
position - when an immense field for competition is thrown open to
all - when wealth is amassed or dissipated in the shortest possible
space of time amidst the turmoil of democracy, visions of sudden and
easy fortunes - of great possessions easily won and lost - of
chance, under all its forms - haunt the mind. The instability of
society itself fosters the natural instability of man's desires. In
the midst of these perpetual fluctuations of his lot, the present
grows upon his mind, until it conceals futurity from his sight, and
his looks go no further than the morrow.
In those countries in which unhappily irreligion and democracy
coexist, the most important duty of philosophers and of those in
power is to be always striving to place the objects of human actions
far beyond man's immediate range. Circumscribed by the character of
his country and his age, the moralist must learn to vindicate his
principles in that position. He must constantly endeavor to show his
contemporaries, that, even in the midst of the perpetual commotion
around them, it is easier than they think to conceive and to execute
protracted undertakings. He must teach them that, although the
aspect of mankind may have changed, the methods by which men may
provide for their prosperity in this world are still the same; and
that amongst democratic nations, as well as elsewhere, it is only by
resisting a thousand petty selfish passions of the hour that the
general and unquenchable passion for happiness can be satisfied.
The task of those in power is not less clearly marked out. At all
times it is important that those who govern nations should act with
a view to the future: but this is even more necessary in democratic
and sceptical ages than in any others. By acting thus, the leading
men of democracies not only make public affairs prosperous, but they
also teach private individuals, by their example, the art of
managing private concerns. Above all they must strive as much as
possible to banish chance from the sphere of politics. The sudden
and undeserved promotion of a courtier produces only a transient
impression in an aristocratic country, because the aggregate
institutions and opinions of the nation habitually compel men to
advance slowly in tracks which they cannot get out of. But nothing
is more pernicious than similar instances of favor exhibited to the
eyes of a democratic people: they give the last impulse to the
public mind in a direction where everything hurries it onwards. At
times of scepticism and equality more especially, the favor of the
people or of the prince, which chance may confer or chance withhold,
ought never to stand in lieu of attainments or services. It is
desirable that every advancement should there appear to be the
result of some effort; so that no greatness should be of too easy
acquirement, and that ambition should be obliged to fix its gaze
long upon an object before it is gratified. Governments must apply
themselves to restore to men that love of the future with which
religion and the state of society no longer inspire them; and,
without saying so, they must practically teach the community day by
day that wealth, fame, and power are the rewards of labor - that
great success stands at the utmost range of long desires, and that
nothing lasting is obtained but what is obtained by toil. When men
have accustomed themselves to foresee from afar what is likely to
befall in the world and to feed upon hopes, they can hardly confine
their minds within the precise circumference of life, and they are
ready to break the boundary and cast their looks beyond. I do not
doubt that, by training the members of a community to think of their
future condition in this world, they would be gradually and
unconsciously brought nearer to religious convictions. Thus the
means which allow men, up to a certain point, to go without
religion, are perhaps after all the only means we still possess for
bringing mankind back by a long and roundabout path to a state of
faith.
Chapter XVIII: That Amongst The Americans All Honest Callings Are
Honorable
Amongst a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth,
every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is born of
parents who have worked. The notion of labor is therefore presented
to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural, and honest
condition of human existence. Not only is labor not dishonorable
amongst such a people, but it is held in honor: the prejudice is not
against it, but in its favor. In the United States a wealthy man
thinks that he owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to
some kind of industrial or commercial pursuit, or to public
business. He would think himself in bad repute if he employed his
life solely in living. It is for the purpose of escaping this
obligation to work, that so many rich Americans come to Europe,
where they find some scattered remains of aristocratic society,
amongst which idleness is still held in honor.
Equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labor in
men's estimation, but it raises the notion of labor as a source of
profit. In aristocracies it is not exactly labor that is despised,
but labor with a view to profit. Labor is honorific in itself, when
it is undertaken at the sole bidding of ambition or of virtue. Yet
in aristocratic society it constantly happens that he who works for
honor is not insensible to the attractions of profit. But these two
desires only intermingle in the innermost depths of his soul: he
carefully hides from every eye the point at which they join; he
would fain conceal it from himself. In aristocratic countries there
are few public officers who do not affect to serve their country
without interested motives. Their salary is an incident of which
they think but little, and of which they always affect not to think
at all. Thus the notion of profit is kept distinct from that of
labor; however they may be united in point of fact, they are not
thought of together.
In democratic communities these two notions are, on the contrary,
always palpably united. As the desire of well-being is universal -
as fortunes are slender or fluctuating - as everyone wants either to
increase his own resources, or to provide fresh ones for his
progeny, men clearly see that it is profit which, if not wholly, at
least partially, leads them to work. Even those who are principally
actuated by the love of fame are necessarily made familiar with the
thought that they are not exclusively actuated by that motive; and
they discover that the desire of getting a living is mingled in
their minds with the desire of making life illustrious.
As soon as, on the one hand, labor is held by the whole community to
be an honorable necessity of man's condition, and, on the other, as
soon as labor is always ostensibly performed, wholly or in part, for
the purpose of earning remuneration, the immense interval which
separated different callings in aristocratic societies disappears.
If all are not alike, all at least have one feature in common. No
profession exists in which men do not work for money; and the
remuneration which is common to them all gives them all an air of
resemblance. This serves to explain the opinions which the Americans
entertain with respect to different callings. In America no one is
degraded because he works, for everyone about him works also; nor is
anyone humiliated by the notion of receiving pay, for the President
of the United States also works for pay. He is paid for commanding,
other men for obeying orders. In the United States professions are
more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are never
either high or low: every honest calling is honorable.
Book Two - Chapters XIX-XX
Chapter XIX: That Almost All The Americans Follow Industrial
Callings
Agriculture is, perhaps, of all the useful arts that which improves
most slowly amongst democratic nations. Frequently, indeed, it would
seem to be stationary, because other arts are making rapid strides
towards perfection. On the other hand, almost all the tastes and
habits which the equality of condition engenders naturally lead men
to commercial and industrial occupations.
Suppose an active, enlightened, and free man, enjoying a competency,
but full of desires: he is too poor to live in idleness; he is rich
enough to feel himself protected from the immediate fear of want,
and he thinks how he can better his condition. This man has
conceived a taste for physical gratifications, which thousands of
his fellow-men indulge in around him; he has himself begun to enjoy
these pleasures, and he is eager to increase his means of satisfying
these tastes more completely. But life is slipping away, time is
urgent - to what is he to turn? The cultivation of the ground
promises an almost certain result to his exertions, but a slow one;
men are not enriched by it without patience and toil. Agriculture is
therefore only suited to those who have already large, superfluous
wealth, or to those whose penury bids them only seek a bare
subsistence. The choice of such a man as we have supposed is soon
made; he sells his plot of ground, leaves his dwelling, and embarks
in some hazardous but lucrative calling. Democratic communities
abound in men of this kind; and in proportion as the equality of
conditions becomes greater, their multitude increases. Thus
democracy not only swells the number of workingmen, but it leads men
to prefer one kind of labor to another; and whilst it diverts them
from agriculture, it encourages their taste for commerce and
manufactures. *a
[Footnote a: It has often been remarked that manufacturers and
mercantile men are inordinately addicted to physical gratifications,
and this has been attributed to commerce and manufactures; but that
is, I apprehend, to take the effect for the cause. The taste for
physical gratifications is not imparted to men by commerce or
manufactures, but it is rather this taste which leads men to embark
in commerce and manufactures, as a means by which they hope to
satisfy themselves more promptly and more completely. If commerce
and manufactures increase the desire of well-being, it is because
every passion gathers strength in proportion as it is cultivated,
and is increased by all the efforts made to satiate it. All the
causes which make the love of worldly welfare predominate in the
heart of man are favorable to the growth of commerce and
manufactures. Equality of conditions is one of those causes; it
encourages trade, not directly by giving men a taste for business,
but indirectly by strengthening and expanding in their minds a taste
for prosperity.]
This spirit may be observed even amongst the richest members of the
community. In democratic countries, however opulent a man is
supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune,
because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he
fears that his sons will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in
democracies are therefore constantly haunted by the desire of
obtaining wealth, and they naturally turn their attention to trade
and manufactures, which appear to offer the readiest and most
powerful means of success. In this respect they share the instincts
of the poor, without feeling the same necessities; say rather, they
feel the most imperious of all necessities, that of not sinking in
the world.
In aristocracies the rich are at the same time those who govern. The
attention which they unceasingly devote to important public affairs
diverts them from the lesser cares which trade and manufactures
demand. If the will of an individual happens, nevertheless, to turn
his attention to business, the will of the body to which he belongs
will immediately debar him from pursuing it; for however men may
declaim against the rule of numbers, they cannot wholly escape their
sway; and even amongst those aristocratic bodies which most
obstinately refuse to acknowledge the rights of the majority of the
nation, a private majority is formed which governs the rest. *b
[Footnote b: Some aristocracies, however, have devoted themselves
eagerly to commerce, and have cultivated manufactures with success.
The history of the world might furnish several conspicuous examples.
But, generally speaking, it may be affirmed that the aristocratic
principle is not favorable to the growth of trade and manufactures.
Moneyed aristocracies are the only exception to the rule. Amongst
such aristocracies there are hardly any desires which do not require
wealth to satisfy them; the love of riches becomes, so to speak, the
high road of human passions, which is crossed by or connected with
all lesser tracks. The love of money and the thirst for that
distinction which attaches to power, are then so closely intermixed
in the same souls, that it becomes difficult to discover whether men
grow covetous from ambition, or whether they are ambitious from
covetousness. This is the case in England, where men seek to get
rich in order to arrive at distinction, and seek distinctions as a
manifestation of their wealth. The mind is then seized by both ends,
and hurried into trade and manufactures, which are the shortest
roads that lead to opulence.
This, however, strikes me as an exceptional and transitory
circumstance. When wealth is become the only symbol of aristocracy,
it is very difficult for the wealthy to maintain sole possession of
political power, to the exclusion of all other men. The aristocracy
of birth and pure democracy are at the two extremes of the social
and political state of nations: between them moneyed aristocracy
finds its place. The latter approximates to the aristocracy of birth
by conferring great privileges on a small number of persons; it so
far belongs to the democratic element, that these privileges may be
successively acquired by all. It frequently forms a natural
transition between these two conditions of society, and it is
difficult to say whether it closes the reign of aristocratic
institutions, or whether it already opens the new era of democracy.]
In democratic countries, where money does not lead those who possess
it to political power, but often removes them from it, the rich do
not know how to spend their leisure. They are driven into active
life by the inquietude and the greatness of their desires, by the
extent of their resources, and by the taste for what is
extraordinary, which is almost always felt by those who rise, by
whatsoever means, above the crowd. Trade is the only road open to
them. In democracies nothing is more great or more brilliant than
commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the
imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed
towards it. Neither their own prejudices, nor those of anybody else,
can prevent the rich from devoting themselves to it. The wealthy
members of democracies never form a body which has manners and
regulations of its own; the opinions peculiar to their class do not
restrain them, and the common opinions of their country urge them
on. Moreover, as all the large fortunes which are to be met with in
a democratic community are of commercial growth, many generations
must succeed each other before their possessors can have entirely
laid aside their habits of business.
Circumscribed within the narrow space which politics leave them,
rich men in democracies eagerly embark in commercial enterprise:
there they can extend and employ their natural advantages; and
indeed it is even by the boldness and the magnitude of their
industrial speculations that we may measure the slight esteem in
which productive industry would have been held by them, if they had
been born amidst an aristocracy.
A similar observation is likewise applicable to all men living in
democracies, whether they be poor or rich. Those who live in the
midst of democratic fluctuations have always before their eyes the
phantom of chance; and they end by liking all undertakings in which
chance plays a part. They are therefore all led to engage in
commerce, not only for the sake of the profit it holds out to them,
but for the love of the constant excitement occasioned by that
pursuit.
The United States of America have only been emancipated for half a
century [in 1840] from the state of colonial dependence in which
they stood to Great Britain; the number of large fortunes there is
small, and capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world has
made such rapid progress in trade and manufactures as the Americans:
they constitute at the present day the second maritime nation in the
world; and although their manufactures have to struggle with almost
insurmountable natural impediments, they are not prevented from
making great and daily advances. In the United States the greatest
undertakings and speculations are executed without difficulty,
because the whole population is engaged in productive industry, and
because the poorest as well as the most opulent members of the
commonwealth are ready to combine their efforts for these purposes.
The consequence is, that a stranger is constantly amazed by the
immense public works executed by a nation which contains, so to
speak, no rich men. The Americans arrived but as yesterday on the
territory which they inhabit, and they have already changed the
whole order of nature for their own advantage. They have joined the
Hudson to the Mississippi, and made the Atlantic Ocean communicate
with the Gulf of Mexico, across a continent of more than five
hundred leagues in extent which separates the two seas. The longest
railroads which have been constructed up to the present time are in
America. But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so
much the marvellous grandeur of some undertakings, as the
innumerable multitude of small ones. Almost all the farmers of the
United States combine some trade with agriculture; most of them make
agriculture itself a trade. It seldom happens that an American
farmer settles for good upon the land which he occupies: especially
in the districts of the Far West he brings land into tillage in
order to sell it again, and not to farm it: he builds a farmhouse on
the speculation that, as the state of the country will soon be
changed by the increase of population, a good price will be gotten
for it. Every year a swarm of the inhabitants of the North arrive in
the Southern States, and settle in the parts where the cotton plant
and the sugar-cane grow. These men cultivate the soil in order to
make it produce in a few years enough to enrich them; and they
already look forward to the time when they may return home to enjoy
the competency thus acquired. Thus the Americans carry their
business- like qualities into agriculture; and their trading
passions are displayed in that as in their other pursuits.
The Americans make immense progress in productive industry, because
they all devote themselves to it at once; and for this same reason
they are exposed to very unexpected and formidable embarrassments.
As they are all engaged in commerce, their commercial affairs are
affected by such various and complex causes that it is impossible to
foresee what difficulties may arise. As they are all more or less
engaged in productive industry, at the least shock given to business
all private fortunes are put in jeopardy at the same time, and the
State is shaken. I believe that the return of these commercial
panics is an endemic disease of the democratic nations of our age.
It may be rendered less dangerous, but it cannot be cured; because
it does not originate in accidental circumstances, but in the
temperament of these nations.
Chapter XX: That Aristocracy May Be Engendered By Manufactures
I have shown that democracy is favorable to the growth of
manufactures, and that it increases without limit the numbers of the
manufacturing classes: we shall now see by what side road
manufacturers may possibly in their turn bring men back to
aristocracy. It is acknowledged that when a workman is engaged every
day upon the same detail, the whole commodity is produced with
greater ease, promptitude, and economy. It is likewise acknowledged
that the cost of the production of manufactured goods is diminished
by the extent of the establishment in which they are made, and by
the amount of capital employed or of credit. These truths had long
been imperfectly discerned, but in our time they have been
demonstrated. They have been already applied to many very important
kinds of manufactures, and the humblest will gradually be governed
by them. I know of nothing in politics which deserves to fix the
attention of the legislator more closely than these two new axioms
of the science of manufactures.
When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the
fabrication of one thing, he ultimately does his work with singular
dexterity; but at the same time he loses the general faculty of
applying his mind to the direction of the work. He every day becomes
more adroit and less industrious; so that it may be said of him,
that in proportion as the workman improves the man is degraded. What
can be expected of a man who has spent twenty years of his life in
making heads for pins? and to what can that mighty human
intelligence, which has so often stirred the world, be applied in
him, except it be to investigate the best method of making pins'
heads? When a workman has spent a considerable portion of his
existence in this manner, his thoughts are forever set upon the
object of his daily toil; his body has contracted certain fixed
habits, which it can never shake off: in a word, he no longer
belongs to himself, but to the calling which he has chosen. It is in
vain that laws and manners have been at the pains to level all
barriers round such a man, and to open to him on every side a
thousand different paths to fortune; a theory of manufactures more
powerful than manners and laws binds him to a craft, and frequently
to a spot, which he cannot leave: it assigns to him a certain place
in society, beyond which he cannot go: in the midst of universal
movement it has rendered him stationary.
In proportion as the principle of the division of labor is more
extensively applied, the workman becomes more weak, more
narrow-minded, and more dependent. The art advances, the artisan
recedes. On the other hand, in proportion as it becomes more
manifest that the productions of manufactures are by so much the
cheaper and better as the manufacture is larger and the amount of
capital employed more considerable, wealthy and educated men come
forward to embark in manufactures which were heretofore abandoned to
poor or ignorant handicraftsmen. The magnitude of the efforts
required, and the importance of the results to be obtained, attract
them. Thus at the very time at which the science of manufactures
lowers the class of workmen, it raises the class of masters.
Whereas the workman concentrates his faculties more and more upon
the study of a single detail, the master surveys a more extensive
whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in proportion as that
of the former is narrowed. In a short time the one will require
nothing but physical strength without intelligence; the other stands
in need of science, and almost of genius, to insure success. This
man resembles more and more the administrator of a vast empire -
that man, a brute. The master and the workman have then here no
similarity, and their differences increase every day. They are only
connected as the two rings at the extremities of a long chain. Each
of them fills the station which is made for him, and out of which he
does not get: the one is continually, closely, and necessarily
dependent upon the other, and seems as much born to obey as that
other is to command. What is this but aristocracy?
As the conditions of men constituting the nation become more and
more equal, the demand for manufactured commodities becomes more
general and more extensive; and the cheapness which places these
objects within the reach of slender fortunes becomes a great element
of success. Hence there are every day more men of great opulence and
education who devote their wealth and knowledge to manufactures; and
who seek, by opening large establishments, and by a strict division
of labor, to meet the fresh demands which are made on all sides.
Thus, in proportion as the mass of the nation turns to democracy,
that particular class which is engaged in manufactures becomes more
aristocratic. Men grow more alike in the one - more different in the
other; and inequality increases in the less numerous class in the
same ratio in which it decreases in the community. Hence it would
appear, on searching to the bottom, that aristocracy should
naturally spring out of the bosom of democracy.
But this kind of aristocracy by no means resembles those kinds which
preceded it. It will be observed at once, that as it applies
exclusively to manufactures and to some manufacturing callings, it
is a monstrous exception in the general aspect of society. The small
aristocratic societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the
midst of the immense democracy of our age, contain, like the great
aristocratic societies of former ages, some men who are very
opulent, and a multitude who are wretchedly poor. The poor have few
means of escaping from their condition and becoming rich; but the
rich are constantly becoming poor, or they give up business when
they have realized a fortune. Thus the elements of which the class
of the poor is composed are fixed; but the elements of which the
class of the rich is composed are not so. To say the truth, though
there are rich men, the class of rich men does not exist; for these
rich individuals have no feelings or purposes in common, no mutual
traditions or mutual hopes; there are therefore members, but no
body.
Not only are the rich not compactly united amongst themselves, but
there is no real bond between them and the poor. Their relative
position is not a permanent one; they are constantly drawn together
or separated by their interests. The workman is generally dependent
on the master, but not on any particular master; these two men meet
in the factory, but know not each other elsewhere; and whilst they
come into contact on one point, they stand very wide apart on all
others. The manufacturer asks nothing of the workman but his labor;
the workman expects nothing from him but his wages. The one
contracts no obligation to protect, nor the other to defend; and
they are not permanently connected either by habit or by duty. The
aristocracy created by business rarely settles in the midst of the
manufacturing population which it directs; the object is not to
govern that population, but to use it. An aristocracy thus
constituted can have no great hold upon those whom it employs; and
even if it succeed in retaining them at one moment, they escape the
next; it knows not how to will, and it cannot act. The territorial
aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought
itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men, and
to succor their distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our
age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it, and then
abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. This is
a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the
workmen and the master there are frequent relations, but no real
partnership.
I am of opinion, upon the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy
which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest which ever
existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most
confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless the friends of democracy
should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if
ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again
penetrate into the world, it may be predicted that this is the
channel by which they will enter.
Book Three - Chapters I-IV
Influence Of Democracy On Manners, Properly So Called
Chapter I: That Manners Are Softened As Social Conditions Become
More Equal
We perceive that for several ages social conditions have tended to
equality, and we discover that in the course of the same period the
manners of society have been softened. Are these two things merely
contemporaneous, or does any secret link exist between them, so that
the one cannot go on without making the other advance? Several
causes may concur to render the manners of a people less rude; but,
of all these causes, the most powerful appears to me to be the
equality of conditions. Equality of conditions and growing civility
in manners are, then, in my eyes, not only contemporaneous
occurrences, but correlative facts. When the fabulists seek to
interest us in the actions of beasts, they invest them with human
notions and passions; the poets who sing of spirits and angels do
the same; there is no wretchedness so deep, nor any happiness so
pure, as to fill the human mind and touch the heart, unless we are
ourselves held up to our own eyes under other features.
This is strictly applicable to the subject upon which we are at
present engaged. When all men are irrevocably marshalled in an
aristocratic community, according to their professions, their
property, and their birth, the members of each class, considering
themselves as children of the same family, cherish a constant and
lively sympathy towards each other, which can never be felt in an
equal degree by the citizens of a democracy. But the same feeling
does not exist between the several classes towards each other.
Amongst an aristocratic people each caste has its own opinions,
feelings, rights, manners, and modes of living. Thus the men of whom
each caste is composed do not resemble the mass of their
fellow-citizens; they do not think or feel in the same manner, and
they scarcely believe that they belong to the same human race. They
cannot, therefore, thoroughly understand what others feel, nor judge
of others by themselves. Yet they are sometimes eager to lend each
other mutual aid; but this is not contrary to my previous
observation. These aristocratic institutions, which made the beings
of one and the same race so different, nevertheless bound them to
each other by close political ties. Although the serf had no natural
interest in the fate of nobles, he did not the less think himself
obliged to devote his person to the service of that noble who
happened to be his lord; and although the noble held himself to be
of a different nature from that of his serfs, he nevertheless held
that his duty and his honor constrained him to defend, at the risk
of his own life, those who dwelt upon his domains.
It is evident that these mutual obligations did not originate in the
law of nature, but in the law of society; and that the claim of
social duty was more stringent than that of mere humanity. These
services were not supposed to be due from man to man, but to the
vassal or to the lord. Feudal institutions awakened a lively
sympathy for the sufferings of certain men, but none at all for the
miseries of mankind. They infused generosity rather than mildness
into the manners of the time, and although they prompted men to
great acts of self-devotion, they engendered no real sympathies; for
real sympathies can only exist between those who are alike; and in
aristocratic ages men acknowledge none but the members of their own
caste to be like themselves.
When the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, who all belonged to the
aristocracy by birth or education, relate the tragical end of a
noble, their grief flows apace; whereas they tell you at a breath,
and without wincing, of massacres and tortures inflicted on the
common sort of people. Not that these writers felt habitual hatred
or systematic disdain for the people; war between the several
classes of the community was not yet declared. They were impelled by
an instinct rather than by a passion; as they had formed no clear
notion of a poor man's sufferings, they cared but little for his
fate. The same feelings animated the lower orders whenever the
feudal tie was broken. The same ages which witnessed so many heroic
acts of self-devotion on the part of vassals for their lords, were
stained with atrocious barbarities, exercised from time to time by
the lower classes on the higher. It must not be supposed that this
mutual insensibility arose solely from the absence of public order
and education; for traces of it are to be found in the following
centuries, which became tranquil and enlightened whilst they
remained aristocratic. In 1675 the lower classes in Brittany
revolted at the imposition of a new tax. These disturbances were put
down with unexampled atrocity. Observe the language in which Madame
de Sevigne, a witness of these horrors, relates them to her
daughter: -
"Aux Rochers, 30 Octobre, 1675.
"Mon Dieu, ma fille, que votre lettre d'Aix est plaisante! Au moins
relisez vos lettres avant que de les envoyer; laissez-vous surpendre
a leur agrement, et consolez-vous par ce plaisir de la peine que
vous avez d'en tant ecrire. Vous avez donc baise toute la Provence?
il n'y aurait pas satisfaction a baiser toute la Bretagne, a moins
qu'on n'aimat a sentir le vin. . . . Voulez-vous savoir des
nouvelles de Rennes? On a fait une taxe de cent mille ecus sur le
bourgeois; et si on ne trouve point cette somme dans vingt-quatre
heures, elle sera doublee et exigible par les soldats. On a chasse
et banni toute une grand rue, et defendu de les recueillir sous
peine de la vie; de sorte qu'on voyait tous ces miserables,
veillards, femmes accouchees, enfans, errer en pleurs au sortir de
cette ville sans savoir ou aller. On roua avant-hier un violon, qui
avait commence la danse et la pillerie du papier timbre; il a ete
ecartele apres sa mort, et ses quatre quartiers exposes aux quatre
coins de la ville. On a pris soixante bourgeois, et on commence
demain les punitions. Cette province est un bel exemple pour les
autres, et surtout de respecter les gouverneurs et les gouvernantes,
et de ne point jeter de pierres dans leur jardin. *a
[Footnote a: To feel the point of this joke the reader should
recollect that Madame de Grignan was Gouvernante de Provence.]
"Madame de Tarente etait hier dans ces bois par un temps enchante:
il n'est question ni de chambre ni de collation; elle entre par la
barriere et s'en retourne de meme. . . ."
In another letter she adds: -
"Vous me parlez bien plaisamment de nos miseres; nous ne sommes plus
si roues; un en huit jours, pour entretenir la justice. Il est vrai
que la penderie me parait maintenant un refraichissement. J'ai une
tout autre idee de la justice, depuis que je suis en ce pays. Vos
galeriens me paraissent une societe d'honnetes gens qui se sont
retires du monde pour mener une vie douce."
It would be a mistake to suppose that Madame de Sevigne, who wrote
these lines, was a selfish or cruel person; she was passionately
attached to her children, and very ready to sympathize in the
sorrows of her friends; nay, her letters show that she treated her
vassals and servants with kindness and indulgence. But Madame de
Sevigne had no clear notion of suffering in anyone who was not a
person of quality.
In our time the harshest man writing to the most insensible person
of his acquaintance would not venture wantonly to indulge in the
cruel jocularity which I have quoted; and even if his own manners
allowed him to do so, the manners of society at large would forbid
it. Whence does this arise? Have we more sensibility than our
forefathers? I know not that we have; but I am sure that our
insensibility is extended to a far greater range of objects. When
all the ranks of a community are nearly equal, as all men think and
feel in nearly the same manner, each of them may judge in a moment
of the sensations of all the others; he casts a rapid glance upon
himself, and that is enough. There is no wretchedness into which he
cannot readily enter, and a secret instinct reveals to him its
extent. It signifies not that strangers or foes be the sufferers;
imagination puts him in their place; something like a personal
feeling is mingled with his pity, and makes himself suffer whilst
the body of his fellow-creature is in torture. In democratic ages
men rarely sacrifice themselves for one another; but they display
general compassion for the members of the human race. They inflict
no useless ills; and they are happy to relieve the griefs of others,
when they can do so without much hurting themselves; they are not
disinterested, but they are humane.
Although the Americans have, in a manner, reduced egotism to a
social and philosophical theory, they are nevertheless extremely
open to compassion. In no country is criminal justice administered
with more mildness than in the United States. Whilst the English
seem disposed carefully to retain the bloody traces of the dark ages
in their penal legislation, the Americans have almost expunged
capital punishment from their codes. North America is, I think, the
only one country upon earth in which the life of no one citizen has
been taken for a political offence in the course of the last fifty
years. The circumstance which conclusively shows that this singular
mildness of the Americans arises chiefly from their social
condition, is the manner in which they treat their slaves. Perhaps
there is not, upon the whole, a single European colony in the New
World in which the physical condition of the blacks is less severe
than in the United States; yet the slaves still endure horrid
sufferings there, and are constantly exposed to barbarous
punishments. It is easy to perceive that the lot of these unhappy
beings inspires their masters with but little compassion, and that
they look upon slavery, not only as an institution which is
profitable to them, but as an evil which does not affect them. Thus
the same man who is full of humanity towards his fellow-creatures
when they are at the same time his equals, becomes insensible to
their afflictions as soon as that equality ceases. His mildness
should therefore be attributed to the equality of conditions, rather
than to civilization and education.
What I have here remarked of individuals is, to a certain extent,
applicable to nations. When each nation has its distinct opinions,
belief, laws, and customs, it looks upon itself as the whole of
mankind, and is moved by no sorrows but its own. Should war break
out between two nations animated by this feeling, it is sure to be
waged with great cruelty. At the time of their highest culture, the
Romans slaughtered the generals of their enemies, after having
dragged them in triumph behind a car; and they flung their prisoners
to the beasts of the Circus for the amusement of the people. Cicero,
who declaimed so vehemently at the notion of crucifying a Roman
citizen, had not a word to say against these horrible abuses of
victory. It is evident that in his eyes a barbarian did not belong
to the same human race as a Roman. On the contrary, in proportion as
nations become more like each other, they become reciprocally more
compassionate, and the law of nations is mitigated.
Chapter II: That Democracy Renders The Habitual Intercourse Of The
Americans Simple And Easy
Democracy does not attach men strongly to each other; but it places
their habitual intercourse upon an easier footing. If two Englishmen
chance to meet at the Antipodes, where they are surrounded by
strangers whose language and manners are almost unknown to them,
they will first stare at each other with much curiosity and a kind
of secret uneasiness; they will then turn away, or, if one accosts
the other, they will take care only to converse with a constrained
and absent air upon very unimportant subjects. Yet there is no
enmity between these men; they have never seen each other before,
and each believes the other to be a respectable person. Why then
should they stand so cautiously apart? We must go back to England to
learn the reason.
When it is birth alone, independent of wealth, which classes men in
society, everyone knows exactly what his own position is upon the
social scale; he does not seek to rise, he does not fear to sink. In
a community thus organized, men of different castes communicate very
little with each other; but if accident brings them together, they
are ready to converse without hoping or fearing to lose their own
position. Their intercourse is not upon a footing of equality, but
it is not constrained. When moneyed aristocracy succeeds to
aristocracy of birth, the case is altered. The privileges of some
are still extremely great, but the possibility of acquiring those
privileges is open to all: whence it follows that those who possess
them are constantly haunted by the apprehension of losing them, or
of other men's sharing them; those who do not yet enjoy them long to
possess them at any cost, or, if they fail to appear at least to
possess them - which is not impossible. As the social importance of
men is no longer ostensibly and permanently fixed by blood, and is
infinitely varied by wealth, ranks still exist, but it is not easy
clearly to distinguish at a glance those who respectively belong to
them. Secret hostilities then arise in the community; one set of men
endeavor by innumerable artifices to penetrate, or to appear to
penetrate, amongst those who are above them; another set are
constantly in arms against these usurpers of their rights; or rather
the same individual does both at once, and whilst he seeks to raise
himself into a higher circle, he is always on the defensive against
the intrusion of those below him.
Such is the condition of England at the present time; and I am of
opinion that the peculiarity before adverted to is principally to be
attributed to this cause. As aristocratic pride is still extremely
great amongst the English, and as the limits of aristocracy are
ill-defined, everybody lives in constant dread lest advantage should
be taken of his familiarity. Unable to judge at once of the social
position of those he meets, an Englishman prudently avoids all
contact with them. Men are afraid lest some slight service rendered
should draw them into an unsuitable acquaintance; they dread
civilities, and they avoid the obtrusive gratitude of a stranger
quite as much as his hatred. Many people attribute these singular
anti-social propensities, and the reserved and taciturn bearing of
the English, to purely physical causes. I may admit that there is
something of it in their race, but much more of it is attributable
to their social condition, as is proved by the contrast of the
Americans.
In America, where the privileges of birth never existed, and where
riches confer no peculiar rights on their possessors, men
unacquainted with each other are very ready to frequent the same
places, and find neither peril nor advantage in the free interchange
of their thoughts. If they meet by accident, they neither seek nor
avoid intercourse; their manner is therefore natural, frank, and
open: it is easy to see that they hardly expect or apprehend
anything from each other, and that they do not care to display, any
more than to conceal, their position in the world. If their demeanor
is often cold and serious, it is never haughty or constrained; and
if they do not converse, it is because they are not in a humor to
talk, not because they think it their interest to be silent. In a
foreign country two Americans are at once friends, simply because
they are Americans. They are repulsed by no prejudice; they are
attracted by their common country. For two Englishmen the same blood
is not enough; they must be brought together by the same rank. The
Americans remark this unsociable mood of the English as much as the
French do, and they are not less astonished by it. Yet the Americans
are connected with England by their origin, their religion, their
language, and partially by their manners; they only differ in their
social condition. It may therefore be inferred that the reserve of
the English proceeds from the constitution of their country much
more than from that of its inhabitants.
Chapter III: Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their
Own Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe
The temper of the Americans is vindictive, like that of all serious
and reflecting nations. They hardly ever forget an offence, but it
is not easy to offend them; and their resentment is as slow to
kindle as it is to abate. In aristocratic communities where a small
number of persons manage everything, the outward intercourse of men
is subject to settled conventional rules. Everyone then thinks he
knows exactly what marks of respect or of condescension he ought to
display, and none are presumed to be ignorant of the science of
etiquette. These usages of the first class in society afterwards
serve as a model to all the others; besides which each of the latter
lays down a code of its own, to which all its members are bound to
conform. Thus the rules of politeness form a complex system of
legislation, which it is difficult to be perfectly master of, but
from which it is dangerous for anyone to deviate; so that men are
constantly exposed involuntarily to inflict or to receive bitter
affronts. But as the distinctions of rank are obliterated, as men
differing in education and in birth meet and mingle in the same
places of resort, it is almost impossible to agree upon the rules of
good breeding. As its laws are uncertain, to disobey them is not a
crime, even in the eyes of those who know what they are; men attach
more importance to intentions than to forms, and they grow less
civil, but at the same time less quarrelsome. There are many little
attentions which an American does not care about; he thinks they are
not due to him, or he presumes that they are not known to be due: he
therefore either does not perceive a rudeness or he forgives it; his
manners become less courteous, and his character more plain and
masculine.
The mutual indulgence which the Americans display, and the manly
confidence with which they treat each other, also result from
another deeper and more general cause, which I have already adverted
to in the preceding chapter. In the United States the distinctions
of rank in civil society are slight, in political society they are
null; an American, therefore, does not think himself bound to pay
particular attentions to any of his fellow- citizens, nor does he
require such attentions from them towards himself. As he does not
see that it is his interest eagerly to seek the company of any of
his countrymen, he is slow to fancy that his own company is
declined: despising no one on account of his station, he does not
imagine that anyone can despise him for that cause; and until he has
clearly perceived an insult, he does not suppose that an affront was
intended. The social condition of the Americans naturally accustoms
them not to take offence in small matters; and, on the other hand,
the democratic freedom which they enjoy transfuses this same
mildness of temper into the character of the nation. The political
institutions of the United States constantly bring citizens of all
ranks into contact, and compel them to pursue great undertakings in
concert. People thus engaged have scarcely time to attend to the
details of etiquette, and they are besides too strongly interested
in living harmoniously for them to stick at such things. They
therefore soon acquire a habit of considering the feelings and
opinions of those whom they meet more than their manners, and they
do not allow themselves to be annoyed by trifles.
I have often remarked in the United States that it is not easy to
make a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with; hints
will not always suffice to shake him off. I contradict an American
at every word he says, to show him that his conversation bores me;
he instantly labors with fresh pertinacity to convince me; I
preserve a dogged silence, and he thinks I am meditating deeply on
the truths which he is uttering; at last I rush from his company,
and he supposes that some urgent business hurries me elsewhere. This
man will never understand that he wearies me to extinction unless I
tell him so: and the only way to get rid of him is to make him my
enemy for life.
It appears surprising at first sight that the same man transported
to Europe suddenly becomes so sensitive and captious, that I often
find it as difficult to avoid offending him here as it was to put
him out of countenance. These two opposite effects proceed from the
same cause. Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty
notion of their country and of themselves. An American leaves his
country with a heart swollen with pride; on arriving in Europe he at
once finds out that we are not so engrossed by the United States and
the great people which inhabits them as he had supposed, and this
begins to annoy him. He has been informed that the conditions of
society are not equal in our part of the globe, and he observes that
among the nations of Europe the traces of rank are not wholly
obliterated; that wealth and birth still retain some indeterminate
privileges, which force themselves upon his notice whilst they elude
definition. He is therefore profoundly ignorant of the place which
he ought to occupy in this half-ruined scale of classes, which are
sufficiently distinct to hate and despise each other, yet
sufficiently alike for him to be always confounding them. He is
afraid of ranging himself too high - still more is he afraid of
being ranged too low; this twofold peril keeps his mind constantly
on the stretch, and embarrasses all he says and does. He learns from
tradition that in Europe ceremonial observances were infinitely
varied according to different ranks; this recollection of former
times completes his perplexity, and he is the more afraid of not
obtaining those marks of respect which are due to him, as he does
not exactly know in what they consist. He is like a man surrounded
by traps: society is not a recreation for him, but a serious toil:
he weighs your least actions, interrogates your looks, and
scrutinizes all you say, lest there should be some hidden allusion
to affront him. I doubt whether there was ever a provincial man of
quality so punctilious in breeding as he is: he endeavors to attend
to the slightest rules of etiquette, and does not allow one of them
to be waived towards himself: he is full of scruples and at the same
time of pretensions; he wishes to do enough, but fears to do too
much; and as he does not very well know the limits of the one or of
the other, he keeps up a haughty and embarrassed air of reserve.
But this is not all: here is yet another double of the human heart.
An American is forever talking of the admirable equality which
prevails in the United States; aloud he makes it the boast of his
country, but in secret he deplores it for himself; and he aspires to
show that, for his part, he is an exception to the general state of
things which he vaunts. There is hardly an American to be met with
who does not claim some remote kindred with the first founders of
the colonies; and as for the scions of the noble families of
England, America seemed to me to be covered with them. When an
opulent American arrives in Europe, his first care is to surround
himself with all the luxuries of wealth: he is so afraid of being
taken for the plain citizen of a democracy, that he adopts a hundred
distorted ways of bringing some new instance of his wealth before
you every day. His house will be in the most fashionable part of the
town: he will always be surrounded by a host of servants. I have
heard an American complain, that in the best houses of Paris the
society was rather mixed; the taste which prevails there was not
pure enough for him; and he ventured to hint that, in his opinion,
there was a want of elegance of manner; he could not accustom
himself to see wit concealed under such unpretending forms.
These contrasts ought not to surprise us. If the vestiges of former
aristocratic distinctions were not so completely effaced in the
United States, the Americans would be less simple and less tolerant
in their own country -they would require less, and be less fond of
borrowed manners in ours.
Chapter IV: Consequences Of The Three Preceding Chapters
When men feel a natural compassion for their mutual sufferings -
when they are brought together by easy and frequent intercourse, and
no sensitive feelings keep them asunder - it may readily be supposed
that they will lend assistance to one another whenever it is needed.
When an American asks for the co-operation of his fellow-citizens it
is seldom refused, and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously
and with great goodwill. If an accident happens on the highway,
everybody hastens to help the sufferer; if some great and sudden
calamity befalls a family, the purses of a thousand strangers are at
once willingly opened, and small but numerous donations pour in to
relieve their distress. It often happens amongst the most civilized
nations of the globe, that a poor wretch is as friendless in the
midst of a crowd as the savage in his wilds: this is hardly ever the
case in the United States. The Americans, who are always cold and
often coarse in their manners, seldom show insensibility; and if
they do not proffer services eagerly, yet they do not refuse to
render them.
All this is not in contradiction to what I have said before on the
subject of individualism. The two things are so far from combating
each other, that I can see how they agree. Equality of conditions,
whilst it makes men feel their independence, shows them their own
weakness: they are free, but exposed to a thousand accidents; and
Experience soon teaches them that, although they do not habitually
require the assistance of others, a time almost always comes when
they cannot do without it. We constantly see in Europe that men of
the same profession are ever ready to assist each other; they are
all exposed to the same ills, and that is enough to teach them to
seek mutual preservatives, however hard- hearted and selfish they
may otherwise be. When one of them falls into danger, from which the
others may save him by a slight transient sacrifice or a sudden
effort, they do not fail to make the attempt. Not that they are
deeply interested in his fate; for if, by chance, their exertions
are unavailing, they immediately forget the object of them, and
return to their own business; but a sort of tacit and almost
involuntary agreement has been passed between them, by which each
one owes to the others a temporary support which he may claim for
himself in turn. Extend to a people the remark here applied to a
class, and you will understand my meaning. A similar covenant exists
in fact between all the citizens of a democracy: they all feel
themselves subject to the same weakness and the same dangers; and
their interest, as well as their sympathy, makes it a rule with them
to lend each other mutual assistance when required. The more equal
social conditions become, the more do men display this reciprocal
disposition to oblige each other. In democracies no great benefits
are conferred, but good offices are constantly rendered: a man
seldom displays self- devotion, but all men are ready to be of
service to one another.
Book Three - Chapters V-VII
Chapter V: How Democracy Affects nhe Relation Of Masters And
Servants
An American who had travelled for a long time in Europe once said to
me, "The English treat their servants with a stiffness and
imperiousness of manner which surprise us; but on the other hand the
French sometimes treat their attendants with a degree of familiarity
or of politeness which we cannot conceive. It looks as if they were
afraid to give orders: the posture of the superior and the inferior
is ill-maintained." The remark was a just one, and I have often made
it myself. I have always considered England as the country in the
world where, in our time, the bond of domestic service is drawn most
tightly, and France as the country where it is most relaxed. Nowhere
have I seen masters stand so high or so low as in these two
countries. Between these two extremes the Americans are to be
placed. Such is the fact as it appears upon the surface of things:
to discover the causes of that fact, it is necessary to search the
matter thoroughly.
No communities have ever yet existed in which social conditions have
been so equal that there were neither rich nor poor, and
consequently neither masters nor servants. Democracy does not
prevent the existence of these two classes, but it changes their
dispositions and modifies their mutual relations. Amongst
aristocratic nations servants form a distinct class, not more
variously composed than that of masters. A settled order is soon
established; in the former as well as in the latter class a scale is
formed, with numerous distinctions or marked gradations of rank, and
generations succeed each other thus without any change of position.
These two communities are superposed one above the other, always
distinct, but regulated by analogous principles. This aristocratic
constitution does not exert a less powerful influence on the notions
and manners of servants than on those of masters; and, although the
effects are different, the same cause may easily be traced. Both
classes constitute small communities in the heart of the nation, and
certain permanent notions of right and wrong are ultimately
engendered amongst them. The different acts of human life are viewed
by one particular and unchanging light. In the society of servants,
as in that of masters, men exercise a great influence over each
other: they acknowledge settled rules, and in the absence of law
they are guided by a sort of public opinion: their habits are
settled, and their conduct is placed under a certain control.
These men, whose destiny is to obey, certainly do not understand
fame, virtue, honesty, and honor in the same manner as their
masters; but they have a pride, a virtue, and an honesty pertaining
to their condition; and they have a notion, if I may use the
expression, of a sort of servile honor. *a Because a class is mean,
it must not be supposed that all who belong to it are mean- hearted;
to think so would be a great mistake. However lowly it may be, he
who is foremost there, and who has no notion of quitting it,
occupies an aristocratic position which inspires him with lofty
feelings, pride, and self-respect, that fit him for the higher
virtues and actions above the common. Amongst aristocratic nations
it was by no means rare to find men of noble and vigorous minds in
the service of the great, who felt not the servitude they bore, and
who submitted to the will of their masters without any fear of their
displeasure. But this was hardly ever the case amongst the inferior
ranks of domestic servants. It may be imagined that he who occupies
the lowest stage of the order of menials stands very low indeed. The
French created a word on purpose to designate the servants of the
aristocracy - they called them lackeys. This word "lackey" served as
the strongest expression, when all others were exhausted, to
designate human meanness. Under the old French monarchy, to denote
by a single expression a low-spirited contemptible fellow, it was
usual to say that he had the "soul of a lackey"; the term was enough
to convey all that was intended. [Footnote a: If the principal
opinions by which men are guided are examined closely and in detail,
the analogy appears still more striking, and one is surprised to
find amongst them, just as much as amongst the haughtiest scions of
a feudal race, pride of birth, respect for their ancestry and their
descendants, disdain of their inferiors, a dread of contact, a taste
for etiquette, precedents, and antiquity.]
The permanent inequality of conditions not only gives servants
certain peculiar virtues and vices, but it places them in a peculiar
relation with respect to their masters. Amongst aristocratic nations
the poor man is familiarized from his childhood with the notion of
being commanded: to whichever side he turns his eyes the graduated
structure of society and the aspect of obedience meet his view.
Hence in those countries the master readily obtains prompt,
complete, respectful, and easy obedience from his servants, because
they revere in him not only their master but the class of masters.
He weighs down their will by the whole weight of the aristocracy. He
orders their actions - to a certain extent he even directs their
thoughts. In aristocracies the master often exercises, even without
being aware of it, an amazing sway over the opinions, the habits,
and the manners of those who obey him, and his influence extends
even further than his authority.
In aristocratic communities there are not only hereditary families
of servants as well as of masters, but the same families of servants
adhere for several generations to the same families of masters (like
two parallel lines which neither meet nor separate); and this
considerably modifies the mutual relations of these two classes of
persons. Thus, although in aristocratic society the master and
servant have no natural resemblance - although, on the contrary,
they are placed at an immense distance on the scale of human beings
by their fortune, education, and opinions - yet time ultimately
binds them together. They are connected by a long series of common
reminiscences, and however different they may be, they grow alike;
whilst in democracies, where they are naturally almost alike, they
always remain strangers to each other. Amongst an aristocratic
people the master gets to look upon his servants as an inferior and
secondary part of himself, and he often takes an interest in their
lot by a last stretch of egotism.
Servants, on their part, are not averse to regard themselves in the
same light; and they sometimes identify themselves with the person
of the master, so that they become an appendage to him in their own
eyes as well as in his. In aristocracies a servant fills a
subordinate position which he cannot get out of; above him is
another man, holding a superior rank which he cannot lose. On one
side are obscurity, poverty, obedience for life; on the other, and
also for life, fame, wealth, and command. The two conditions are
always distinct and always in propinquity; the tie that connects
them is as lasting as they are themselves. In this predicament the
servant ultimately detaches his notion of interest from his own
person; he deserts himself, as it were, or rather he transports
himself into the character of his master, and thus assumes an
imaginary personality. He complacently invests himself with the
wealth of those who command him; he shares their fame, exalts
himself by their rank, and feeds his mind with borrowed greatness,
to which he attaches more importance than those who fully and really
possess it. There is something touching, and at the same time
ridiculous, in this strange confusion of two different states of
being. These passions of masters, when they pass into the souls of
menials, assume the natural dimensions of the place they occupy
-they are contracted and lowered. What was pride in the former
becomes puerile vanity and paltry ostentation in the latter. The
servants of a great man are commonly most punctilious as to the
marks of respect due to him, and they attach more importance to his
slightest privileges than he does himself. In France a few of these
old servants of the aristocracy are still to be met with here and
there; they have survived their race, which will soon disappear with
them altogether. In the United States I never saw anyone at all like
them. The Americans are not only unacquainted with the kind of man,
but it is hardly possible to make them understand that such ever
existed. It is scarcely less difficult for them to conceive it, than
for us to form a correct notion of what a slave was amongst the
Romans, or a serf in the Middle Ages. All these men were in fact,
though in different degrees, results of the same cause: they are all
retiring from our sight, and disappearing in the obscurity of the
past, together with the social condition to which they owed their
origin.
Equality of conditions turns servants and masters into new beings,
and places them in new relative positions. When social conditions
are nearly equal, men are constantly changing their situations in
life: there is still a class of menials and a class of masters, but
these classes are not always composed of the same individuals, still
less of the same families; and those who command are not more secure
of perpetuity than those who obey. As servants do not form a
separate people, they have no habits, prejudices, or manners
peculiar to themselves; they are not remarkable for any particular
turn of mind or moods of feeling. They know no vices or virtues of
their condition, but they partake of the education, the opinions,
the feelings, the virtues, and the vices of their contemporaries;
and they are honest men or scoundrels in the same way as their
masters are. The conditions of servants are not less equal than
those of masters. As no marked ranks or fixed subordination are to
be found amongst them, they will not display either the meanness or
the greatness which characterizes the aristocracy of menials as well
as all other aristocracies. I never saw a man in the United States
who reminded me of that class of confidential servants of which we
still retain a reminiscence in Europe, neither did I ever meet with
such a thing as a lackey: all traces of the one and of the other
have disappeared.
In democracies servants are not only equal amongst themselves, but
it may be said that they are in some sort the equals of their
masters. This requires explanation in order to be rightly
understood. At any moment a servant may become a master, and he
aspires to rise to that condition: the servant is therefore not a
different man from the master. Why then has the former a right to
command, and what compels the latter to obey? - the free and
temporary consent of both their wills. Neither of them is by nature
inferior to the other; they only become so for a time by covenant.
Within the terms of this covenant, the one is a servant, the other a
master; beyond it they are two citizens of the commonwealth - two
men. I beg the reader particularly to observe that this is not only
the notion which servants themselves entertain of their own
condition; domestic service is looked upon by masters in the same
light; and the precise limits of authority and obedience are as
clearly settled in the mind of the one as in that of the other.
When the greater part of the community have long attained a
condition nearly alike, and when equality is an old and acknowledged
fact, the public mind, which is never affected by exceptions,
assigns certain general limits to the value of man, above or below
which no man can long remain placed. It is in vain that wealth and
poverty, authority and obedience, accidentally interpose great
distances between two men; public opinion, founded upon the usual
order of things, draws them to a common level, and creates a species
of imaginary equality between them, in spite of the real inequality
of their conditions. This all-powerful opinion penetrates at length
even into the hearts of those whose interest might arm them to
resist it; it affects their judgment whilst it subdues their will.
In their inmost convictions the master and the servant no longer
perceive any deep-seated difference between them, and they neither
hope nor fear to meet with any such at any time. They are therefore
neither subject to disdain nor to anger, and they discern in each
other neither humility nor pride. The master holds the contract of
service to be the only source of his power, and the servant regards
it as the only cause of his obedience. They do not quarrel about
their reciprocal situations, but each knows his own and keeps it.
In the French army the common soldier is taken from nearly the same
classes as the officer, and may hold the same commissions; out of
the ranks he considers himself entirely equal to his military
superiors, and in point of fact he is so; but when under arms he
does not hesitate to obey, and his obedience is not the less prompt,
precise, and ready, for being voluntary and defined. This example
may give a notion of what takes place between masters and servants
in democratic communities.
It would be preposterous to suppose that those warm and deep- seated
affections, which are sometimes kindled in the domestic service of
aristocracy, will ever spring up between these two men, or that they
will exhibit strong instances of self-sacrifice. In aristocracies
masters and servants live apart, and frequently their only
intercourse is through a third person; yet they commonly stand
firmly by one another. In democratic countries the master and the
servant are close together; they are in daily personal contact, but
their minds do not intermingle; they have common occupations, hardly
ever common interests. Amongst such a people the servant always
considers himself as a sojourner in the dwelling of his masters. He
knew nothing of their forefathers - he will see nothing of their
descendants -he has nothing lasting to expect from their hand. Why
then should he confound his life with theirs, and whence should so
strange a surrender of himself proceed? The reciprocal position of
the two men is changed - their mutual relations must be so too.
I would fain illustrate all these reflections by the example of the
Americans; but for this purpose the distinctions of persons and
places must be accurately traced. In the South of the Union, slavery
exists; all that I have just said is consequently inapplicable
there. In the North, the majority of servants are either freedmen or
the children of freedmen; these persons occupy a contested position
in the public estimation; by the laws they are brought up to the
level of their masters - by the manners of the country they are
obstinately detruded from it. They do not themselves clearly know
their proper place, and they are almost always either insolent or
craven. But in the Northern States, especially in New England, there
are a certain number of whites, who agree, for wages, to yield a
temporary obedience to the will of their fellow-citizens. I have
heard that these servants commonly perform the duties of their
situation with punctuality and intelligence; and that without
thinking themselves naturally inferior to the person who orders
them, they submit without reluctance to obey him. They appear to me
to carry into service some of those manly habits which independence
and equality engender. Having once selected a hard way of life, they
do not seek to escape from it by indirect means; and they have
sufficient respect for themselves, not to refuse to their master
that obedience which they have freely promised. On their part,
masters require nothing of their servants but the faithful and
rigorous performance of the covenant: they do not ask for marks of
respect, they do not claim their love or devoted attachment; it is
enough that, as servants, they are exact and honest. It would not
then be true to assert that, in democratic society, the relation of
servants and masters is disorganized: it is organized on another
footing; the rule is different, but there is a rule.
It is not my purpose to inquire whether the new state of things
which I have just described is inferior to that which preceded it,
or simply different. Enough for me that it is fixed and determined:
for what is most important to meet with among men is not any given
ordering, but order. But what shall I say of those sad and troubled
times at which equality is established in the midst of the tumult of
revolution - when democracy, after having been introduced into the
state of society, still struggles with difficulty against the
prejudices and manners of the country? The laws, and partially
public opinion, already declare that no natural or permanent
inferiority exists between the servant and the master. But this new
belief has not yet reached the innermost convictions of the latter,
or rather his heart rejects it; in the secret persuasion of his mind
the master thinks that he belongs to a peculiar and superior race;
he dares not say so, but he shudders whilst he allows himself to be
dragged to the same level. His authority over his servants becomes
timid and at the same time harsh: he has already ceased to entertain
for them the feelings of patronizing kindness which long uncontested
power always engenders, and he is surprised that, being changed
himself, his servant changes also. He wants his attendants to form
regular and permanent habits, in a condition of domestic service
which is only temporary: he requires that they should appear
contented with and proud of a servile condition, which they will one
day shake off - that they should sacrifice themselves to a man who
can neither protect nor ruin them - and in short that they should
contract an indissoluble engagement to a being like themselves, and
one who will last no longer than they will.
Amongst aristocratic nations it often happens that the condition of
domestic service does not degrade the character of those who enter
upon it, because they neither know nor imagine any other; and the
amazing inequality which is manifest between them and their master
appears to be the necessary and unavoidable consequence of some
hidden law of Providence. In democracies the condition of domestic
service does not degrade the character of those who enter upon it,
because it is freely chosen, and adopted for a time only; because it
is not stigmatized by public opinion, and creates no permanent
inequality between the servant and the master. But whilst the
transition from one social condition to another is going on, there
is almost always a time when men's minds fluctuate between the
aristocratic notion of subjection and the democratic notion of
obedience. Obedience then loses its moral importance in the eyes of
him who obeys; he no longer considers it as a species of divine
obligation, and he does not yet view it under its purely human
aspect; it has to him no character of sanctity or of justice, and he
submits to it as to a degrading but profitable condition. At that
moment a confused and imperfect phantom of equality haunts the minds
of servants; they do not at once perceive whether the equality to
which they are entitled is to be found within or without the pale of
domestic service; and they rebel in their hearts against a
subordination to which they have subjected themselves, and from
which they derive actual profit. They consent to serve, and they
blush to obey; they like the advantages of service, but not the
master; or rather, they are not sure that they ought not themselves
to be masters, and they are inclined to consider him who orders them
as an unjust usurper of their own rights. Then it is that the
dwelling of every citizen offers a spectacle somewhat analogous to
the gloomy aspect of political society. A secret and intestine
warfare is going on there between powers, ever rivals and suspicious
of one another: the master is ill-natured and weak, the servant
ill-natured and intractable; the one constantly attempts to evade by
unfair restrictions his obligation to protect and to remunerate -
the other his obligation to obey. The reins of domestic government
dangle between them, to be snatched at by one or the other. The
lines which divide authority from oppression, liberty from license,
and right from might, are to their eyes so jumbled together and
confused, that no one knows exactly what he is, or what he may be,
or what he ought to be. Such a condition is not democracy, but
revolution.
Chapter VI: That Democratic Institutions And Manners Tend To Raise
Rents And Shorten The Terms Of Leases
What has been said of servants and masters is applicable, to a
certain extent, to landowners and farming tenants; but this subject
deserves to be considered by itself. In America there are, properly
speaking, no tenant farmers; every man owns the ground he tills. It
must be admitted that democratic laws tend greatly to increase the
number of landowners, and to diminish that of farming tenants. Yet
what takes place in the United States is much less attributable to
the institutions of the country than to the country itself. In
America land is cheap, and anyone may easily become a landowner; its
returns are small, and its produce cannot well be divided between a
landowner and a farmer. America therefore stands alone in this as
well as in many other respects, and it would be a mistake to take it
as an example.
I believe that in democratic as well as in aristocratic countries
there will be landowners and tenants, but the connection existing
between them will be of a different kind. In aristocracies the hire
of a farm is paid to the landlord, not only in rent, but in respect,
regard, and duty; in democracies the whole is paid in cash. When
estates are divided and passed from hand to hand, and the permanent
connection which existed between families and the soil is dissolved,
the landowner and the tenant are only casually brought into contact.
They meet for a moment to settle the conditions of the agreement,
and then lose sight of each other; they are two strangers brought
together by a common interest, and who keenly talk over a matter of
business, the sole object of which is to make money.
In proportion as property is subdivided and wealth distributed over
the country, the community is filled with people whose former
opulence is declining, and with others whose fortunes are of recent
growth and whose wants increase more rapidly than their resources.
For all such persons the smallest pecuniary profit is a matter of
importance, and none of them feel disposed to waive any of their
claims, or to lose any portion of their income. As ranks are
intermingled, and as very large as well as very scanty fortunes
become more rare, every day brings the social condition of the
landowner nearer to that of the farmer; the one has not naturally
any uncontested superiority over the other; between two men who are
equal, and not at ease in their circumstances, the contract of hire
is exclusively an affair of money. A man whose estate extends over a
whole district, and who owns a hundred farms, is well aware of the
importance of gaining at the same time the affections of some
thousands of men; this object appears to call for his exertions, and
to attain it he will readily make considerable sacrifices. But he
who owns a hundred acres is insensible to similar considerations,
and he cares but little to win the private regard of his tenant.
An aristocracy does not expire like a man in a single day; the
aristocratic principle is slowly undermined in men's opinion, before
it is attacked in their laws. Long before open war is declared
against it, the tie which had hitherto united the higher classes to
the lower may be seen to be gradually relaxed. Indifference and
contempt are betrayed by one class, jealousy and hatred by the
others; the intercourse between rich and poor becomes less frequent
and less kind, and rents are raised. This is not the consequence of
a democratic revolution, but its certain harbinger; for an
aristocracy which has lost the affections of the people, once and
forever, is like a tree dead at the root, which is the more easily
torn up by the winds the higher its branches have spread.
In the course of the last fifty years the rents of farms have
amazingly increased, not only in France but throughout the greater
part of Europe. The remarkable improvements which have taken place
in agriculture and manufactures within the same period do not
suffice in my opinion to explain this fact; recourse must be had to
another cause more powerful and more concealed. I believe that cause
is to be found in the democratic institutions which several European
nations have adopted, and in the democratic passions which more or
less agitate all the rest. I have frequently heard great English
landowners congratulate themselves that, at the present day, they
derive a much larger income from their estates than their fathers
did. They have perhaps good reasons to be glad; but most assuredly
they know not what they are glad of. They think they are making a
clear gain, when it is in reality only an exchange; their influence
is what they are parting with for cash; and what they gain in money
will ere long be lost in power.
There is yet another sign by which it is easy to know that a great
democratic revolution is going on or approaching. In the Middle Ages
almost all lands were leased for lives, or for very long terms; the
domestic economy of that period shows that leases for ninety-nine
years were more frequent then than leases for twelve years are now.
Men then believed that families were immortal; men's conditions
seemed settled forever, and the whole of society appeared to be so
fixed, that it was not supposed that anything would ever be stirred
or shaken in its structure. In ages of equality, the human mind
takes a different bent; the prevailing notion is that nothing
abides, and man is haunted by the thought of mutability. Under this
impression the landowner and the tenant himself are instinctively
averse to protracted terms of obligation; they are afraid of being
tied up to-morrow by the contract which benefits them today. They
have vague anticipations of some sudden and unforeseen change in
their conditions; they mistrust themselves; they fear lest their
taste should change, and lest they should lament that they cannot
rid themselves of what they coveted; nor are such fears unfounded,
for in democratic ages that which is most fluctuating amidst the
fluctuation of all around is the heart of man.
Chapter VII: Influence Of Democracy On Wages
Most of the remarks which I have already made in speaking of
servants and masters, may be applied to masters and workmen. As the
gradations of the social scale come to be less observed, whilst the
great sink the humble rise, and as poverty as well as opulence
ceases to be hereditary, the distance both in reality and in
opinion, which heretofore separated the workman from the master, is
lessened every day. The workman conceives a more lofty opinion of
his rights, of his future, of himself; he is filled with new
ambition and with new desires, he is harassed by new wants. Every
instant he views with longing eyes the profits of his employer; and
in order to share them, he strives to dispose of his labor at a
higher rate, and he generally succeeds at length in the attempt. In
democratic countries, as well as elsewhere, most of the branches of
productive industry are carried on at a small cost, by men little
removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom
they employ. These manufacturing speculators are extremely numerous;
their interests differ; they cannot therefore easily concert or
combine their exertions. On the other hand the workmen have almost
always some sure resources, which enable them to refuse to work when
they cannot get what they conceive to be the fair price of their
labor. In the constant struggle for wages which is going on between
these two classes, their strength is divided, and success alternates
from one to the other. It is even probable that in the end the
interest of the working class must prevail; for the high wages which
they have already obtained make them every day less dependent on
their masters; and as they grow more independent, they have greater
facilities for obtaining a further increase of wages.
I shall take for example that branch of productive industry which is
still at the present day the most generally followed in France, and
in almost all the countries of the world - I mean the cultivation of
the soil. In France most of those who labor for hire in agriculture,
are themselves owners of certain plots of ground, which just enable
them to subsist without working for anyone else. When these laborers
come to offer their services to a neighboring landowner or farmer,
if he refuses them a certain rate of wages, they retire to their own
small property and await another opportunity.
I think that, upon the whole, it may be asserted that a slow and
gradual rise of wages is one of the general laws of democratic
communities. In proportion as social conditions become more equal,
wages rise; and as wages are higher, social conditions become more
equal. But a great and gloomy exception occurs in our own time. I
have shown in a preceding chapter that aristocracy, expelled from
political society, has taken refuge in certain departments of
productive industry, and has established its sway there under
another form; this powerfully affects the rate of wages. As a large
capital is required to embark in the great manufacturing
speculations to which I allude, the number of persons who enter upon
them is exceedingly limited: as their number is small, they can
easily concert together, and fix the rate of wages as they please.
Their workmen on the contrary are exceedingly numerous, and the
number of them is always increasing; for, from time to time, an
extraordinary run of business takes place, during which wages are
inordinately high, and they attract the surrounding population to
the factories. But, when once men have embraced that line of life,
we have already seen that they cannot quit it again, because they
soon contract habits of body and mind which unfit them for any other
sort of toil. These men have generally but little education and
industry, with but few resources; they stand therefore almost at the
mercy of the master. When competition, or other fortuitous
circumstances, lessen his profits, he can reduce the wages of his
workmen almost at pleasure, and make from them what he loses by the
chances of business. Should the workmen strike, the master, who is a
rich man, can very well wait without being ruined until necessity
brings them back to him; but they must work day by day or they die,
for their only property is in their hands. They have long been
impoverished by oppression, and the poorer they become the more
easily may they be oppressed: they can never escape from this fatal
circle of cause and consequence. It is not then surprising that
wages, after having sometimes suddenly risen, are permanently
lowered in this branch of industry; whereas in other callings the
price of labor, which generally increases but little, is
nevertheless constantly augmented.
This state of dependence and wretchedness, in which a part of the
manufacturing population of our time lives, forms an exception to
the general rule, contrary to the state of all the rest of the
community; but, for this very reason, no circumstance is more
important or more deserving of the especial consideration of the
legislator; for when the whole of society is in motion, it is
difficult to keep any one class stationary; and when the greater
number of men are opening new paths to fortune, it is no less
difficult to make the few support in peace their wants and their
desires.
Book Three - Chapters VIII-X
Chapter VIII: Influence Of Democracy On Kindred
I have just examined the changes which the equality of conditions
produces in the mutual relations of the several members of the
community amongst democratic nations, and amongst the Americans in
particular. I would now go deeper, and inquire into the closer ties
of kindred: my object here is not to seek for new truths, but to
show in what manner facts already known are connected with my
subject.
It has been universally remarked, that in our time the several
members of a family stand upon an entirely new footing towards each
other; that the distance which formerly separated a father from his
sons has been lessened; and that paternal authority, if not
destroyed, is at least impaired. Something analogous to this, but
even more striking, may be observed in the United States. In America
the family, in the Roman and aristocratic signification of the word,
does not exist. All that remains of it are a few vestiges in the
first years of childhood, when the father exercises, without
opposition, that absolute domestic authority, which the feebleness
of his children renders necessary, and which their interest, as well
as his own incontestable superiority, warrants. But as soon as the
young American approaches manhood, the ties of filial obedience are
relaxed day by day: master of his thoughts, he is soon master of his
conduct. In America there is, strictly speaking, no adolescence: at
the close of boyhood the man appears, and begins to trace out his
own path. It would be an error to suppose that this is preceded by a
domestic struggle, in which the son has obtained by a sort of moral
violence the liberty that his father refused him. The same habits,
the same principles which impel the one to assert his independence,
predispose the other to consider the use of that independence as an
incontestable right. The former does not exhibit any of those
rancorous or irregular passions which disturb men long after they
have shaken off an established authority; the latter feels none of
that bitter and angry regret which is apt to survive a bygone power.
The father foresees the limits of his authority long beforehand, and
when the time arrives he surrenders it without a struggle: the son
looks forward to the exact period at which he will be his own
master; and he enters upon his freedom without precipitation and
without effort, as a possession which is his own and which no one
seeks to wrest from him. *a
[Footnote a: The Americans, however, have not yet thought fit to
strip the parent, as has been done in France, of one of the chief
elements of parental authority, by depriving him of the power of
disposing of his property at his death. In the United States there
are no restrictions on the powers of a testator. In this respect, as
in almost all others, it is easy to perceive, that if the political
legislation of the Americans is much more democratic than that of
the French, the civil legislation of the latter is infinitely more
democratic than that of the former. This may easily be accounted
for. The civil legislation of France was the work of a man who saw
that it was his interest to satisfy the democratic passions of his
contemporaries in all that was not directly and immediately hostile
to his own power. He was willing to allow some popular principles to
regulate the distribution of property and the government of
families, provided they were not to be introduced into the
administration of public affairs. Whilst the torrent of democracy
overwhelmed the civil laws of the country, he hoped to find an easy
shelter behind its political institutions. This policy was at once
both adroit and selfish; but a compromise of this kind could not
last; for in the end political institutions never fail to become the
image and expression of civil society; and in this sense it may be
said that nothing is more political in a nation than its civil
legislation.]
It may perhaps not be without utility to show how these changes
which take place in family relations, are closely connected with the
social and political revolution which is approaching its
consummation under our own observation. There are certain great
social principles, which a people either introduces everywhere, or
tolerates nowhere. In countries which are aristocratically
constituted with all the gradations of rank, the government never
makes a direct appeal to the mass of the governed: as men are united
together, it is enough to lead the foremost, the rest will follow.
This is equally applicable to the family, as to all aristocracies
which have a head. Amongst aristocratic nations, social institutions
recognize, in truth, no one in the family but the father; children
are received by society at his hands; society governs him, he
governs them. Thus the parent has not only a natural right, but he
acquires a political right, to command them: he is the author and
the support of his family; but he is also its constituted ruler. In
democracies, where the government picks out every individual singly
from the mass, to make him subservient to the general laws of the
community, no such intermediate person is required: a father is
there, in the eye of the law, only a member of the community, older
and richer than his sons.
When most of the conditions of life are extremely unequal, and the
inequality of these conditions is permanent, the notion of a
superior grows upon the imaginations of men: if the law invested him
with no privileges, custom and public opinion would concede them.
When, on the contrary, men differ but little from each other, and do
not always remain in dissimilar conditions of life, the general
notion of a superior becomes weaker and less distinct: it is vain
for legislation to strive to place him who obeys very much beneath
him who commands; the manners of the time bring the two men nearer
to one another, and draw them daily towards the same level. Although
the legislation of an aristocratic people should grant no peculiar
privileges to the heads of families; I shall not be the less
convinced that their power is more respected and more extensive than
in a democracy; for I know that, whatsoever the laws may be,
superiors always appear higher and inferiors lower in aristocracies
than amongst democratic nations.
When men live more for the remembrance of what has been than for the
care of what is, and when they are more given to attend to what
their ancestors thought than to think themselves, the father is the
natural and necessary tie between the past and the present - the
link by which the ends of these two chains are connected. In
aristocracies, then, the father is not only the civil head of the
family, but the oracle of its traditions, the expounder of its
customs, the arbiter of its manners. He is listened to with
deference, he is addressed with respect, and the love which is felt
for him is always tempered with fear. When the condition of society
becomes democratic, and men adopt as their general principle that it
is good and lawful to judge of all things for one's self, using
former points of belief not as a rule of faith but simply as a means
of information, the power which the opinions of a father exercise
over those of his sons diminishes as well as his legal power.
Perhaps the subdivision of estates which democracy brings with it
contributes more than anything else to change the relations existing
between a father and his children. When the property of the father
of a family is scanty, his son and himself constantly live in the
same place, and share the same occupations: habit and necessity
bring them together, and force them to hold constant communication:
the inevitable consequence is a sort of familiar intimacy, which
renders authority less absolute, and which can ill be reconciled
with the external forms of respect. Now in democratic countries the
class of those who are possessed of small fortunes is precisely that
which gives strength to the notions, and a particular direction to
the manners, of the community. That class makes its opinions
preponderate as universally as its will, and even those who are most
inclined to resist its commands are carried away in the end by its
example. I have known eager opponents of democracy who allowed their
children to address them with perfect colloquial equality.
Thus, at the same time that the power of aristocracy is declining,
the austere, the conventional, and the legal part of parental
authority vanishes, and a species of equality prevails around the
domestic hearth. I know not, upon the whole, whether society loses
by the change, but I am inclined to believe that man individually is
a gainer by it. I think that, in proportion as manners and laws
become more democratic, the relation of father and son becomes more
intimate and more affectionate; rules and authority are less talked
of; confidence and tenderness are oftentimes increased, and it would
seem that the natural bond is drawn closer in proportion as the
social bond is loosened. In a democratic family the father exercises
no other power than that with which men love to invest the affection
and the Experience of age; his orders would perhaps be disobeyed,
but his advice is for the most part authoritative. Though he be not
hedged in with ceremonial respect, his sons at least accost him with
confidence; no settled form of speech is appropriated to the mode of
addressing him, but they speak to him constantly, and are ready to
consult him day by day; the master and the constituted ruler have
vanished -the father remains. Nothing more is needed, in order to
judge of the difference between the two states of society in this
respect, than to peruse the family correspondence of aristocratic
ages. The style is always correct, ceremonious, stiff, and so cold
that the natural warmth of the heart can hardly be felt in the
language. The language, on the contrary, addressed by a son to his
father in democratic countries is always marked by mingled freedom,
familiarity and affection, which at once show that new relations
have sprung up in the bosom of the family.
A similar revolution takes place in the mutual relations of
children. In aristocratic families, as well as in aristocratic
society, every place is marked out beforehand. Not only does the
father occupy a separate rank, in which he enjoys extensive
privileges, but even the children are not equal amongst themselves.
The age and sex of each irrevocably determine his rank, and secure
to him certain privileges: most of these distinctions are abolished
or diminished by democracy. In aristocratic families the eldest son,
inheriting the greater part of the property, and almost all the
rights of the family, becomes the chief, and, to a certain extent,
the master, of his brothers. Greatness and power are for him - for
them, mediocrity and dependence. Nevertheless it would be wrong to
suppose that, amongst aristocratic nations, the privileges of the
eldest son are advantageous to himself alone, or that they excite
nothing but envy and hatred in those around him. The eldest son
commonly endeavors to procure wealth and power for his brothers,
because the general splendor of the house is reflected back on him
who represents it; the younger sons seek to back the elder brother
in all his undertakings, because the greatness and power of the head
of the family better enable him to provide for all its branches. The
different members of an aristocratic family are therefore very
closely bound together; their interests are connected, their minds
agree, but their hearts are seldom in harmony.
Democracy also binds brothers to each other, but by very different
means. Under democratic laws all the children are perfectly equal,
and consequently independent; nothing brings them forcibly together,
but nothing keeps them apart; and as they have the same origin, as
they are trained under the same roof, as they are treated with the
same care, and as no peculiar privilege distinguishes or divides
them, the affectionate and youthful intimacy of early years easily
springs up between them. Scarcely any opportunities occur to break
the tie thus formed at the outset of life; for their brotherhood
brings them daily together, without embarrassing them. It is not,
then, by interest, but by common associations and by the free
sympathy of opinion and of taste, that democracy unites brothers to
each other. It divides their inheritance, but it allows their hearts
and minds to mingle together. Such is the charm of these democratic
manners, that even the partisans of aristocracy are caught by it;
and after having Experienced it for some time, they are by no means
tempted to revert to the respectful and frigid observance of
aristocratic families. They would be glad to retain the domestic
habits of democracy, if they might throw off its social conditions
and its laws; but these elements are indissolubly united, and it is
impossible to enjoy the former without enduring the latter. The
remarks I have made on filial love and fraternal affection are
applicable to all the passions which emanate spontaneously from
human nature itself. If a certain mode of thought or feeling is the
result of some peculiar condition of life, when that condition is
altered nothing whatever remains of the thought or feeling. Thus a
law may bind two members of the community very closely to one
another; but that law being abolished, they stand asunder. Nothing
was more strict than the tie which united the vassal to the lord
under the feudal system; at the present day the two men know not
each other; the fear, the gratitude, and the affection which
formerly connected them have vanished, and not a vestige of the tie
remains. Such, however, is not the case with those feelings which
are natural to mankind. Whenever a law attempts to tutor these
feelings in any particular manner, it seldom fails to weaken them;
by attempting to add to their intensity, it robs them of some of
their elements, for they are never stronger than when left to
themselves.
Democracy, which destroys or obscures almost all the old
conventional rules of society, and which prevents men from readily
assenting to new ones, entirely effaces most of the feelings to
which these conventional rules have given rise; but it only modifies
some others, and frequently imparts to them a degree of energy and
sweetness unknown before. Perhaps it is not impossible to condense
into a single proposition the whole meaning of this chapter, and of
several others that preceded it. Democracy loosens social ties, but
it draws the ties of nature more tight; it brings kindred more
closely together, whilst it places the various members of the
community more widely apart.
Chapter IX: Education Of Young Women In The United States
No free communities ever existed without morals; and, as I observed
in the former part of this work, morals are the work of woman.
Consequently, whatever affects the condition of women, their habits
and their opinions, has great political importance in my eyes.
Amongst almost all Protestant nations young women are far more the
mistresses of their own actions than they are in Catholic countries.
This independence is still greater in Protestant countries, like
England, which have retained or acquired the right of
self-government; the spirit of freedom is then infused into the
domestic circle by political habits and by religious opinions. In
the United States the doctrines of Protestantism are combined with
great political freedom and a most democratic state of society; and
nowhere are young women surrendered so early or so completely to
their own guidance. Long before an American girl arrives at the age
of marriage, her emancipation from maternal control begins; she has
scarcely ceased to be a child when she already thinks for herself,
speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse. The great scene of
the world is constantly open to her view; far from seeking
concealment, it is every day disclosed to her more completely, and
she is taught to survey it with a firm and calm gaze. Thus the vices
and dangers of society are early revealed to her; as she sees them
clearly, she views them without illusions, and braves them without
fear; for she is full of reliance on her own strength, and her
reliance seems to be shared by all who are about her. An American
girl scarcely ever displays that virginal bloom in the midst of
young desires, or that innocent and ingenuous grace which usually
attends the European woman in the transition from girlhood to youth.
It is rarely that an American woman at any age displays childish
timidity or ignorance. Like the young women of Europe, she seeks to
please, but she knows precisely the cost of pleasing. If she does
not abandon herself to evil, at least she knows that it exists; and
she is remarkable rather for purity of manners than for chastity of
mind. I have been frequently surprised, and almost frightened, at
the singular address and happy boldness with which young women in
America contrive to manage their thoughts and their language amidst
all the difficulties of stimulating conversation; a philosopher
would have stumbled at every step along the narrow path which they
trod without accidents and without effort. It is easy indeed to
perceive that, even amidst the independence of early youth, an
American woman is always mistress of herself; she indulges in all
permitted pleasures, without yielding herself up to any of them; and
her reason never allows the reins of self-guidance to drop, though
it often seems to hold them loosely.
In France, where remnants of every age are still so strangely
mingled in the opinions and tastes of the people, women commonly
receive a reserved, retired, and almost cloistral education, as they
did in aristocratic times; and then they are suddenly abandoned,
without a guide and without assistance, in the midst of all the
irregularities inseparable from democratic society. The Americans
are more consistent. They have found out that in a democracy the
independence of individuals cannot fail to be very great, youth
premature, tastes ill-restrained, customs fleeting, public opinion
often unsettled and powerless, paternal authority weak, and marital
authority contested. Under these circumstances, believing that they
had little chance of repressing in woman the most vehement passions
of the human heart, they held that the surer way was to teach her
the art of combating those passions for herself. As they could not
prevent her virtue from being exposed to frequent danger, they
determined that she should know how best to defend it; and more
reliance was placed on the free vigor of her will than on safeguards
which have been shaken or overthrown. Instead, then, of inculcating
mistrust of herself, they constantly seek to enhance their
confidence in her own strength of character. As it is neither
possible nor desirable to keep a young woman in perpetual or
complete ignorance, they hasten to give her a precocious knowledge
on all subjects. Far from hiding the corruptions of the world from
her, they prefer that she should see them at once and train herself
to shun them; and they hold it of more importance to protect her
conduct than to be over-scrupulous of her innocence.
Although the Americans are a very religious people, they do not rely
on religion alone to defend the virtue of woman; they seek to arm
her reason also. In this they have followed the same method as in
several other respects; they first make the most vigorous efforts to
bring individual independence to exercise a proper control over
itself, and they do not call in the aid of religion until they have
reached the utmost limits of human strength. I am aware that an
education of this kind is not without danger; I am sensible that it
tends to invigorate the judgment at the expense of the imagination,
and to make cold and virtuous women instead of affectionate wives
and agreeable companions to man. Society may be more tranquil and
better regulated, but domestic life has often fewer charms. These,
however, are secondary evils, which may be braved for the sake of
higher interests. At the stage at which we are now arrived the time
for choosing is no longer within our control; a democratic education
is indispensable to protect women from the dangers with which
democratic institutions and manners surround them.
Chapter X: The Young Woman In The Character Of A Wife
In America the independence of woman is irrevocably lost in the
bonds of matrimony: if an unmarried woman is less constrained there
than elsewhere, a wife is subjected to stricter obligations. The
former makes her father's house an abode of freedom and of pleasure;
the latter lives in the home of her husband as if it were a
cloister. Yet these two different conditions of life are perhaps not
so contrary as may be supposed, and it is natural that the American
women should pass through the one to arrive at the other.
Religious peoples and trading nations entertain peculiarly serious
notions of marriage: the former consider the regularity of woman's
life as the best pledge and most certain sign of the purity of her
morals; the latter regard it as the highest security for the order
and prosperity of the household. The Americans are at the same time
a puritanical people and a commercial nation: their religious
opinions, as well as their trading habits, consequently lead them to
require much abnegation on the part of woman, and a constant
sacrifice of her pleasures to her duties which is seldom demanded of
her in Europe. Thus in the United States the inexorable opinion of
the public carefully circumscribes woman within the narrow circle of
domestic interest and duties, and forbids her to step beyond it.
Upon her entrance into the world a young American woman finds these
notions firmly established; she sees the rules which are derived
from them; she is not slow to perceive that she cannot depart for an
instant from the established usages of her contemporaries, without
putting in jeopardy her peace of mind, her honor, nay even her
social existence; and she finds the energy required for such an act
of submission in the firmness of her understanding and in the virile
habits which her education has given her. It may be said that she
has learned by the use of her independence to surrender it without a
struggle and without a murmur when the time comes for making the
sacrifice. But no American woman falls into the toils of matrimony
as into a snare held out to her simplicity and ignorance. She has
been taught beforehand what is expected of her, and voluntarily and
freely does she enter upon this engagement. She supports her new
condition with courage, because she chose it. As in America paternal
discipline is very relaxed and the conjugal tie very strict, a young
woman does not contract the latter without considerable
circumspection and apprehension. Precocious marriages are rare. Thus
American women do not marry until their understandings are exercised
and ripened; whereas in other countries most women generally only
begin to exercise and to ripen their understandings after marriage.
I by no means suppose, however, that the great change which takes
place in all the habits of women in the United States, as soon as
they are married, ought solely to be attributed to the constraint of
public opinion: it is frequently imposed upon themselves by the sole
effort of their own will. When the time for choosing a husband is
arrived, that cold and stern reasoning power which has been educated
and invigorated by the free observation of the world, teaches an
American woman that a spirit of levity and independence in the bonds
of marriage is a constant subject of annoyance, not of pleasure; it
tells her that the amusements of the girl cannot become the
recreations of the wife, and that the sources of a married woman's
happiness are in the home of her husband. As she clearly discerns
beforehand the only road which can lead to domestic happiness, she
enters upon it at once, and follows it to the end without seeking to
turn back.
The same strength of purpose which the young wives of America
display, in bending themselves at once and without repining to the
austere duties of their new condition, is no less manifest in all
the great trials of their lives. In no country in the world are
private fortunes more precarious than in the United States. It is
not uncommon for the same man, in the course of his life, to rise
and sink again through all the grades which lead from opulence to
poverty. American women support these vicissitudes with calm and
unquenchable energy: it would seem that their desires contract, as
easily as they expand, with their fortunes. *a
[Footnote a: See Appendix S.]
The greater part of the adventurers who migrate every year to people
the western wilds, belong, as I observed in the former part of this
work, to the old Anglo-American race of the Northern States. Many of
these men, who rush so boldly onwards in pursuit of wealth, were
already in the enjoyment of a competency in their own part of the
country. They take their wives along with them, and make them share
the countless perils and privations which always attend the
commencement of these expeditions. I have often met, even on the
verge of the wilderness, with young women, who after having been
brought up amidst all the comforts of the large towns of New
England, had passed, almost without any intermediate stage, from the
wealthy abode of their parents to a comfortless hovel in a forest.
Fever, solitude, and a tedious life had not broken the springs of
their courage. Their features were impaired and faded, but their
looks were firm: they appeared to be at once sad and resolute. I do
not doubt that these young American women had amassed, in the
education of their early years, that inward strength which they
displayed under these circumstances. The early culture of the girl
may still therefore be traced, in the United States, under the
aspect of marriage: her part is changed, her habits are different,
but her character is the same.
Book Three - Chapters XI-XIV
Chapter XI: That The Equality Of Conditions Contributes To The
Maintenance Of Good Morals In America
Some philosophers and historians have said, or have hinted, that the
strictness of female morality was increased or diminished simply by
the distance of a country from the equator. This solution of the
difficulty was an easy one; and nothing was required but a globe and
a pair of compasses to settle in an instant one of the most
difficult problems in the condition of mankind. But I am not aware
that this principle of the materialists is supported by facts. The
same nations have been chaste or dissolute at different periods of
their history; the strictness or the laxity of their morals depended
therefore on some variable cause, not only on the natural qualities
of their country, which were invariable. I do not deny that in
certain climates the passions which are occasioned by the mutual
attraction of the sexes are peculiarly intense; but I am of opinion
that this natural intensity may always be excited or restrained by
the condition of society and by political institutions.
Although the travellers who have visited North America differ on a
great number of points, they all agree in remarking that morals are
far more strict there than elsewhere. It is evident that on this
point the Americans are very superior to their progenitors the
English. A superficial glance at the two nations will establish the
fact. In England, as in all other countries of Europe, public malice
is constantly attacking the frailties of women. Philosophers and
statesmen are heard to deplore that morals are not sufficiently
strict, and the literary productions of the country constantly lead
one to suppose so. In America all books, novels not excepted,
suppose women to be chaste, and no one thinks of relating affairs of
gallantry. No doubt this great regularity of American morals
originates partly in the country, in the race of the people, and in
their religion: but all these causes, which operate elsewhere, do
not suffice to account for it; recourse must be had to some special
reason. This reason appears to me to be the principle of equality
and the institutions derived from it. Equality of conditions does
not of itself engender regularity of morals, but it unquestionably
facilitates and increases it. *a [Footnote a: See Appendix T.]
Amongst aristocratic nations birth and fortune frequently make two
such different beings of man and woman, that they can never be
united to each other. Their passions draw them together, but the
condition of society, and the notions suggested by it, prevent them
from contracting a permanent and ostensible tie. The necessary
consequence is a great number of transient and clandestine
connections. Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint
imposed upon her by the laws of man. This is not so much the case
when the equality of conditions has swept away all the imaginary, or
the real, barriers which separated man from woman. No girl then
believes that she cannot become the wife of the man who loves her;
and this renders all breaches of morality before marriage very
uncommon: for, whatever be the credulity of the passions, a woman
will hardly be able to persuade herself that she is beloved, when
her lover is perfectly free to marry her and does not.
The same cause operates, though more indirectly, on married life.
Nothing better serves to justify an illicit passion, either to the
minds of those who have conceived it or to the world which looks on,
than compulsory or accidental marriages. *b In a country in which a
woman is always free to exercise her power of choosing, and in which
education has prepared her to choose rightly, public opinion is
inexorable to her faults. The rigor of the Americans arises in part
from this cause. They consider marriages as a covenant which is
often onerous, but every condition of which the parties are strictly
bound to fulfil, because they knew all those conditions beforehand,
and were perfectly free not to have contracted them.
[Footnote b: The literature of Europe sufficiently corroborates this
remark. When a European author wishes to depict in a work of
imagination any of these great catastrophes in matrimony which so
frequently occur amongst us, he takes care to bespeak the compassion
of the reader by bringing before him ill-assorted or compulsory
marriages. Although habitual tolerance has long since relaxed our
morals, an author could hardly succeed in interesting us in the
misfortunes of his characters, if he did not first palliate their
faults. This artifice seldom fails: the daily scenes we witness
prepare us long beforehand to be indulgent. But American writers
could never render these palliations probable to their readers;
their customs and laws are opposed to it; and as they despair of
rendering levity of conduct pleasing, they cease to depict it. This
is one of the causes to which must be attributed the small number of
novels published in the United States.]
The very circumstances which render matrimonial fidelity more
obligatory also render it more easy. In aristocratic countries the
object of marriage is rather to unite property than persons; hence
the husband is sometimes at school and the wife at nurse when they
are betrothed. It cannot be wondered at if the conjugal tie which
holds the fortunes of the pair united allows their hearts to rove;
this is the natural result of the nature of the contract. When, on
the contrary, a man always chooses a wife for himself, without any
external coercion or even guidance, it is generally a conformity of
tastes and opinions which brings a man and a woman together, and
this same conformity keeps and fixes them in close habits of
intimacy.
Our forefathers had conceived a very strange notion on the subject
of marriage: as they had remarked that the small number of
love-matches which occurred in their time almost always turned out
ill, they resolutely inferred that it was exceedingly dangerous to
listen to the dictates of the heart on the subject. Accident
appeared to them to be a better guide than choice. Yet it was not
very difficult to perceive that the examples which they witnessed
did in fact prove nothing at all. For in the first place, if
democratic nations leave a woman at liberty to choose her husband,
they take care to give her mind sufficient knowledge, and her will
sufficient strength, to make so important a c