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Democracy In America, Volume 2
by Alexis de Toqueville
February, 1997 [Etext #816]
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A request to all readers:
I have tried to catch as many actual errors as I could, but I am
sure others exist. If you notice an error, please let me know,
identifying by chapter and paragraph where the mistake occurs.
David Reed, haradda@aol.com or davidr@inconnect.com
Democracy In America
Alexis De Tocqueville
Translator - Henry Reeve
Book Two
A request to all readers:
I have tried to catch as many actual errors as I could, but I am
sure others exist. If you notice an error, please let me know,
identifying by chapter and paragraph where the mistake occurs.
David Reed, haradda@aol.com or davidr@inconnect.com
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 choice: whereas the young women who, amongst aristocratic
nations, furtively elope from the authority of their parents to
throw themselves of their own accord into the arms of men whom
they have had neither time to know, nor ability to judge of, are
totally without those securities. It is not surprising that they
make a bad use of their freedom of action the first time they
avail themselves of it; nor that they fall into such cruel
mistakes, when, not having received a democratic education, they
choose to marry in conformity to democratic customs. But this is
not all. When a man and woman are bent upon marriage in spite of
the differences of an aristocratic state of society, the
difficulties to be overcome are enormous. Having broken or
relaxed the bonds of filial obedience, they have then to
emancipate themselves by a final effort from the sway of custom
and the tyranny of opinion; and when at length they have
succeeded in this arduous task, they stand estranged from their
natural friends and kinsmen: the prejudice they have crossed
separates them from all, and places them in a situation which
soon breaks their courage and sours their hearts. If, then, a
couple married in this manner are first unhappy and afterwards
criminal, it ought not to be attributed to the freedom of their
choice, but rather to their living in a community in which this
freedom of choice is not admitted.
Moreover it should not be forgotten that the same effort
which makes a man violently shake off a prevailing error,
commonly impels him beyond the bounds of reason; that, to dare to
declare war, in however just a cause, against the opinion of
one's age and country, a violent and adventurous spirit is
required, and that men of this character seldom arrive at
happiness or virtue, whatever be the path they follow. And this,
it may be observed by the way, is the reason why in the most
necessary and righteous revolutions, it is so rare to meet with
virtuous or moderate revolutionary characters. There is then no
just ground for surprise if a man, who in an age of aristocracy
chooses to consult nothing but his own opinion and his own taste
in the choice of a wife, soon finds that infractions of morality
and domestic wretchedness invade his household: but when this
same line of action is in the natural and ordinary course of
things, when it is sanctioned by parental authority and backed by
public opinion, it cannot be doubted that the internal peace of
families will be increased by it, and conjugal fidelity more
rigidly observed.
Almost all men in democracies are engaged in public or
professional life; and on the other hand the limited extent of
common incomes obliges a wife to confine herself to the house, in
order to watch in person and very closely over the details of
domestic economy. All these distinct and compulsory occupations
are so many natural barriers, which, by keeping the two sexes
asunder, render the solicitations of the one less frequent and
less ardent -the resistance of the other more easy.
Not indeed that the equality of conditions can ever succeed
in making men chaste, but it may impart a less dangerous
character to their breaches of morality. As no one has then
either sufficient time or opportunity to assail a virtue armed in
self-defence, there will be at the same time a great number of
courtesans and a great number of virtuous women. This state of
things causes lamentable cases of individual hardship, but it
does not prevent the body of society from being strong and alert:
it does not destroy family ties, or enervate the morals of the
nation. Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a
few, but by laxity of morals amongst all. In the eyes of a
legislator, prostitution is less to be dreaded than intrigue.
The tumultuous and constantly harassed life which equality
makes men lead, not only distracts them from the passion of love,
by denying them time to indulge in it, but it diverts them from
it by another more secret but more certain road. All men who
live in democratic ages more or less contract the ways of
thinking of the manufacturing and trading classes; their minds
take a serious, deliberate, and positive turn; they are apt to
relinquish the ideal, in order to pursue some visible and
proximate object, which appears to be the natural and necessary
aim of their desires. Thus the principle of equality does not
destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of
the earth. No men are less addicted to reverie than the citizens
of a democracy; and few of them are ever known to give way to
those idle and solitary meditations which commonly precede and
produce the great emotions of the heart. It is true they attach
great importance to procuring for themselves that sort of deep,
regular, and quiet affection which constitutes the charm and
safeguard of life, but they are not apt to run after those
violent and capricious sources of excitement which disturb and
abridge it.
I am aware that all this is only applicable in its full
extent to America, and cannot at present be extended to Europe.
In the course of the last half-century, whilst laws and customs
have impelled several European nations with unexampled force
towards democracy, we have not had occasion to observe that the
relations of man and woman have become more orderly or more
chaste. In some places the very reverse may be detected: some
classes are more strict - the general morality of the people
appears to be more lax. I do not hesitate to make the remark,
for I am as little disposed to flatter my contemporaries as to
malign them. This fact must distress, but it ought not to
surprise us. The propitious influence which a democratic state
of society may exercise upon orderly habits, is one of those
tendencies which can only be discovered after a time. If the
equality of conditions is favorable to purity of morals, the
social commotion by which conditions are rendered equal is
adverse to it. In the last fifty years, during which France has
been undergoing this transformation, that country has rarely had
freedom, always disturbance. Amidst this universal confusion of
notions and this general stir of opinions - amidst this
incoherent mixture of the just and unjust, of truth and
falsehood, of right and might - public virtue has become
doubtful, and private morality wavering. But all
revolutions, whatever may have been their object or their agents,
have at first produced similar consequences; even those which
have in the end drawn the bonds of morality more tightly began by
loosening them. The violations of morality which the French
frequently witness do not appear to me to have a permanent
character; and this is already betokened by some curious signs of
the times.
Nothing is more wretchedly corrupt than an aristocracy which
retains its wealth when it has lost its power, and which still
enjoys a vast deal of leisure after it is reduced to mere vulgar
pastimes. The energetic passions and great conceptions which
animated it heretofore, leave it then; and nothing remains to it
but a host of petty consuming vices, which cling about it like
worms upon a carcass. No one denies that the French aristocracy
of the last century was extremely dissolute; whereas established
habits and ancient belief still preserved some respect for
morality amongst the other classes of society. Nor will it be
contested that at the present day the remnants of that same
aristocracy exhibit a certain severity of morals; whilst laxity
of morals appears to have spread amongst the middle and lower
ranks. So that the same families which were most profligate
fifty years ago are nowadays the most exemplary, and democracy
seems only to have strengthened the morality of the aristocratic
classes. The French Revolution, by dividing the fortunes of the
nobility, by forcing them to attend assiduously to their affairs
and to their families, by making them live under the same roof
with their children, and in short by giving a more rational and
serious turn to their minds, has imparted to them, almost without
their being aware of it, a reverence for religious belief, a love
of order, of tranquil pleasures, of domestic endearments, and of
comfort; whereas the rest of the nation, which had naturally
these same tastes, was carried away into excesses by the effort
which was required to overthrow the laws and political habits of
the country. The old French aristocracy has undergone the
consequences of the Revolution, but it neither felt the
revolutionary passions nor shared in the anarchical excitement
which produced that crisis; it may easily be conceived that this
aristocracy feels the salutary influence of the Revolution in its
manners, before those who achieve it. It may therefore be said,
though at first it seems paradoxical, that, at the present day,
the most anti-democratic classes of the nation principally
exhibit the kind of morality which may reasonably be anticipated
from democracy. I cannot but think that when we shall have
obtained all the effects of this democratic Revolution, after
having got rid of the tumult it has caused, the observations
which are now only applicable to the few will gradually become
true of the whole community.
Chapter XII: How The Americans Understand The Equality Of The
Sexes
I Have shown how democracy destroys or modifies the
different inequalities which originate in society; but is this
all? or does it not ultimately affect that great inequality of
man and woman which has seemed, up to the present day, to be
eternally based in human nature? I believe that the social
changes which bring nearer to the same level the father and son,
the master and servant, and superiors and inferiors generally
speaking, will raise woman and make her more and more the equal
of man. But here, more than ever, I feel the necessity of making
myself clearly understood; for there is no subject on which the
coarse and lawless fancies of our age have taken a freer range.
There are people in Europe who, confounding together the
different characteristics of the sexes, would make of man and
woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both
the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to
both the same rights; they would mix them in all things - their
occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be
conceived, that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the
other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of
the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and
disorderly women. It is not thus that the Americans understand
that species of democratic equality which may be established
between the sexes. They admit, that as nature has appointed such
wide differences between the physical and moral constitution of
man and woman, her manifest design was to give a distinct
employment to their various faculties; and they hold that
improvement does not consist in making beings so dissimilar do
pretty nearly the same things, but in getting each of them to
fulfil their respective tasks in the best possible manner. The
Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of
political economy which governs the manufactures of our age, by
carefully dividing the duties of man from those of woman, in
order that the great work of society may be the better carried
on.
In no country has such constant care been taken as in
America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two
sexes, and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two
pathways which are always different. American women never manage
the outward concerns of the family, or conduct a business, or
take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand,
ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to
make any of those laborious exertions which demand the exertion
of physical strength. No families are so poor as to form an
exception to this rule. If on the one hand an American woman
cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, on
the other hand she is never forced to go beyond it. Hence it is
that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength
of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great
delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of
women, although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and
minds of men.
Nor have the Americans ever supposed that one consequence of
democratic principles is the subversion of marital power, of the
confusion of the natural authorities in families. They hold that
every association must have a head in order to accomplish its
object, and that the natural head of the conjugal association is
man. They do not therefore deny him the right of directing his
partner; and they maintain, that in the smaller association of
husband and wife, as well as in the great social community, the
object of democracy is to regulate and legalize the powers which
are necessary, not to subvert all power. This opinion is not
peculiar to one sex, and contested by the other: I never observed
that the women of America consider conjugal authority as a
fortunate usurpation of their rights, nor that they thought
themselves degraded by submitting to it. It appeared to me, on
the contrary, that they attach a sort of pride to the voluntary
surrender of their own will, and make it their boast to bend
themselves to the yoke, not to shake it off. Such at least is
the feeling expressed by the most virtuous of their sex; the
others are silent; and in the United States it is not the
practice for a guilty wife to clamor for the rights of women,
whilst she is trampling on her holiest duties.
It has often been remarked that in Europe a certain degree
of contempt lurks even in the flattery which men lavish upon
women: although a European frequently affects to be the slave of
woman, it may be seen that he never sincerely thinks her his
equal. In the United States men seldom compliment women, but
they daily show how much they esteem them. They constantly
display an entire confidence in the understanding of a wife, and
a profound respect for her freedom; they have decided that her
mind is just as fitted as that of a man to discover the plain
truth, and her heart as firm to embrace it; and they have never
sought to place her virtue, any more than his, under the shelter
of prejudice, ignorance, and fear. It would seem that in Europe,
where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, they
are nevertheless curtailed of some of the greatest qualities of
the human species, and considered as seductive but imperfect
beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately
look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as
a privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile,
feeble, and timid. The women of America claim no such
privileges.
Again, it may be said that in our morals we have reserved
strange immunities to man; so that there is, as it were, one
virtue for his use, and another for the guidance of his partner;
and that, according to the opinion of the public, the very same
act may be punished alternately as a crime or only as a fault.
The Americans know not this iniquitous division of duties and
rights; amongst them the seducer is as much dishonored as his
victim. It is true that the Americans rarely lavish upon women
those eager attentions which are commonly paid them in Europe;
but their conduct to women always implies that they suppose them
to be virtuous and refined; and such is the respect entertained
for the moral freedom of the sex, that in the presence of a woman
the most guarded language is used, lest her ear should be
offended by an expression. In America a young unmarried woman
may, alone and without fear, undertake a long journey.
The legislators of the United States, who have mitigated
almost all the penalties of criminal law, still make rape a
capital offence, and no crime is visited with more inexorable
severity by public opinion. This may be accounted for; as the
Americans can conceive nothing more precious than a woman's
honor, and nothing which ought so much to be respected as her
independence, they hold that no punishment is too severe for the
man who deprives her of them against her will. In France, where
the same offence is visited with far milder penalties, it is
frequently difficult to get a verdict from a jury against the
prisoner. Is this a consequence of contempt of decency or
contempt of women? I cannot but believe that it is a contempt of
one and of the other.
Thus the Americans do not think that man and woman have
either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but
they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and
though their lot is different, they consider both of them as
beings of equal value. They do not give to the courage of woman
the same form or the same direction as to that of man; but they
never doubt her courage: and if they hold that man and his
partner ought not always to exercise their intellect and
understanding in the same manner, they at least believe the
understanding of the one to be as sound as that of the other, and
her intellect to be as clear. Thus, then, whilst they have
allowed the social inferiority of woman to subsist, they have
done all they could to raise her morally and intellectually to
the level of man; and in this respect they appear to me to have
excellently understood the true principle of democratic
improvement. As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that,
although the women of the United States are confined within the
narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some
respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman
occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am
drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so
many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular
prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be
attributed, I should reply - to the superiority of their women.
Chapter XIII: That The Principle Of Equality Naturally Divides
The Americans Into A Number Of Small Private Circles
It may probably be supposed that the final consequence and
necessary effect of democratic institutions is to confound
together all the members of the community in private as well as
in public life, and to compel them all to live in common; but
this would be to ascribe a very coarse and oppressive form to the
equality which originates in democracy. No state of society or
laws can render men so much alike, but that education, fortune,
and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and,
though different men may sometimes find it their interest to
combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their
pleasure. They will therefore always tend to evade the
provisions of legislation, whatever they may be; and departing in
some one respect from the circle within which they were to be
bounded, they will set up, close by the great political
community, small private circles, united together by the
similitude of their conditions, habits, and manners.
In the United States the citizens have no sort of
pre-eminence over each other; they owe each other no mutual
obedience or respect; they all meet for the administration of
justice, for the government of the State, and in general to treat
of the affairs which concern their common welfare; but I never
heard that attempts have been made to bring them all to follow
the same diversions, or to amuse themselves promiscuously in the
same places of recreation. The Americans, who mingle so readily
in their political assemblies and courts of justice, are wont on
the contrary carefully to separate into small distinct circles,
in order to indulge by themselves in the enjoyments of private
life. Each of them is willing to acknowledge all his
fellow-citizens as his equals, but he will only receive a very
limited number of them amongst his friends or his guests. This
appears to me to be very natural. In proportion as the circle of
public society is extended, it may be anticipated that the sphere
of private intercourse will be contracted; far from supposing
that the members of modern society will ultimately live in
common, I am afraid that they may end by forming nothing but
small coteries.
Amongst aristocratic nations the different classes are like
vast chambers, out of which it is impossible to get, into which
it is impossible to enter. These classes have no communication
with each other, but within their pale men necessarily live in
daily contact; even though they would not naturally suit, the
general conformity of a similar condition brings them nearer
together. But when neither law nor custom professes to establish
frequent and habitual relations between certain men, their
intercourse originates in the accidental analogy of opinions and
tastes; hence private society is infinitely varied. In
democracies, where the members of the community never differ much
from each other, and naturally stand in such propinquity that
they may all at any time be confounded in one general mass,
numerous artificial and arbitrary distinctions spring up, by
means of which every man hopes to keep himself aloof, lest he
should be carried away in the crowd against his will. This can
never fail to be the case; for human institutions may be changed,
but not man: whatever may be the general endeavor of a community
to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of
individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form
somewhere an inequality to their own advantage.
In aristocracies men are separated from each other by lofty
stationary barriers; in democracies they are divided by a number
of small and almost invisible threads, which are constantly
broken or moved from place to place. Thus, whatever may be the
progress of equality, in democratic nations a great number of
small private communities will always be formed within the
general pale of political society; but none of them will bear any
resemblance in its manners to the highest class in aristocracies.
Chapter XIV: Some Reflections On American Manners
Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward
form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set
more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a
society which has not their own manners. The influence of the
social and political state of a country upon manners is therefore
deserving of serious examination. Manners are, generally, the
product of the very basis of the character of a people, but they
are also sometimes the result of an arbitrary convention between
certain men; thus they are at once natural and acquired. When
certain men perceive that they are the foremost persons in
society, without contestation and without effort - when they are
constantly engaged on large objects, leaving the more minute
details to others - and when they live in the enjoyment of wealth
which they did not amass and which they do not fear to lose, it
may be supposed that they feel a kind of haughty disdain of the
petty interests and practical cares of life, and that their
thoughts assume a natural greatness, which their language and
their manners denote. In democratic countries manners are
generally devoid of dignity, because private life is there
extremely petty in its character; and they are frequently low,
because the mind has few opportunities of rising above the
engrossing cares of domestic interests. True dignity in manners
consists in always taking one's proper station, neither too high
nor too low; and this is as much within the reach of a peasant as
of a prince. In democracies all stations appear doubtful; hence
it is that the manners of democracies, though often full of
arrogance, are commonly wanting in dignity, and, moreover, they
are never either well disciplined or accomplished.
The men who live in democracies are too fluctuating for a
certain number of them ever to succeed in laying down a code of
good breeding, and in forcing people to follow it. Every man
therefore behaves after his own fashion, and there is always a
certain incoherence in the manners of such times, because they
are moulded upon the feelings and notions of each individual,
rather than upon an ideal model proposed for general imitation.
This, however, is much more perceptible at the time when an
aristocracy has just been overthrown than after it has long been
destroyed. New political institutions and new social elements
then bring to the same places of resort, and frequently compel to
live in common, men whose education and habits are still
amazingly dissimilar, and this renders the motley composition of
society peculiarly visible. The existence of a former strict
code of good breeding is still remembered, but what it contained
or where it is to be found is already forgotten. Men have lost
the common law of manners, and they have not yet made up their
minds to do without it; but everyone endeavors to make to himself
some sort of arbitrary and variable rule, from the remnant of
former usages; so that manners have neither the regularity and
the dignity which they often display amongst aristocratic
nations, nor the simplicity and freedom which they sometimes
assume in democracies; they are at once constrained and without
constraint.
This, however, is not the normal state of things. When the
equality of conditions is long established and complete, as all
men entertain nearly the same notions and do nearly the same
things, they do not require to agree or to copy from one another
in order to speak or act in the same manner: their manners are
constantly characterized by a number of lesser diversities, but
not by any great differences. They are never perfectly alike,
because they do not copy from the same pattern; they are never
very unlike, because their social condition is the same. At
first sight a traveller would observe that the manners of all the
Americans are exactly similar; it is only upon close examination
that the peculiarities in which they differ may be detected.
The English make game of the manners of the Americans; but
it is singular that most of the writers who have drawn these
ludicrous delineations belonged themselves to the middle classes
in England, to whom the same delineations are exceedingly
applicable: so that these pitiless censors for the most part
furnish an example of the very thing they blame in the United
States; they do not perceive that they are deriding themselves,
to the great amusement of the aristocracy of their own country.
Nothing is more prejudicial to democracy than its outward
forms of behavior: many men would willingly endure its vices, who
cannot support its manners. I cannot, however, admit that there
is nothing commendable in the manners of a democratic people.
Amongst aristocratic nations, all who live within reach of the
first class in society commonly strain to be like it, which gives
rise to ridiculous and insipid imitations. As a democratic
people does not possess any models of high breeding, at least it
escapes the daily necessity of seeing wretched copies of them.
In democracies manners are never so refined as amongst
aristocratic nations, but on the other hand they are never so
coarse. Neither the coarse oaths of the populace, nor the
elegant and choice expressions of the nobility are to be heard
there: the manners of such a people are often vulgar, but they
are neither brutal nor mean. I have already observed that in
democracies no such thing as a regular code of good breeding can
be laid down; this has some inconveniences and some advantages.
In aristocracies the rules of propriety impose the same demeanor
on everyone; they make all the members of the same class appear
alike, in spite of their private inclinations; they adorn and
they conceal the natural man. Amongst a democratic people
manners are neither so tutored nor so uniform, but they are
frequently more sincere. They form, as it were, a light and
loosely woven veil, through which the real feelings and private
opinions of each individual are easily discernible. The form and
the substance of human actions often, therefore, stand in closer
relation; and if the great picture of human life be less
embellished, it is more true. Thus it may be said, in one sense,
that the effect of democracy is not exactly to give men any
particular manners, but to prevent them from having manners at
all.
The feelings, the passions, the virtues, and the vices of an
aristocracy may sometimes reappear in a democracy, but not its
manners; they are lost, and vanish forever, as soon as the
democratic revolution is completed. It would seem that nothing
is more lasting than the manners of an aristocratic class, for
they are preserved by that class for some time after it has lost
its wealth and its power - nor so fleeting, for no sooner have
they disappeared than not a trace of them is to be found; and it
is scarcely possible to say what they have been as soon as they
have ceased to be. A change in the state of society works this
miracle, and a few generations suffice to consummate it. The
principal characteristics of aristocracy are handed down by
history after an aristocracy is destroyed, but the light and
exquisite touches of manners are effaced from men's memories
almost immediately after its fall. Men can no longer conceive
what these manners were when they have ceased to witness them;
they are gone, and their departure was unseen, unfelt; for in
order to feel that refined enjoyment which is derived from choice
and distinguished manners, habit and education must have prepared
the heart, and the taste for them is lost almost as easily as the
practice of them. Thus not only a democratic people cannot have
aristocratic manners, but they neither comprehend nor desire
them; and as they never have thought of them, it is to their
minds as if such things had never been. Too much importance
should not be attached to this loss, but it may well be
regretted.
I am aware that it has not unfrequently happened that the
same men have had very high-bred manners and very low-born
feelings: the interior of courts has sufficiently shown what
imposing externals may conceal the meanest hearts. But though the
manners of aristocracy did not constitute virtue, they sometimes
embellish virtue itself. It was no ordinary sight to see a
numerous and powerful class of men, whose every outward action
seemed constantly to be dictated by a natural elevation of
thought and feeling, by delicacy and regularity of taste, and by
urbanity of manners. Those manners threw a pleasing illusory
charm over human nature; and though the picture was often a false
one, it could not be viewed without a noble satisfaction.
Book Three - Chapters XV-XVII
Chapter XV: Of The Gravity Of The Americans, And Why It Does Not
Prevent Them From Often Committing Inconsiderate Actions
Men who live in democratic countries do not value the
simple, turbulent, or coarse diversions in which the people
indulge in aristocratic communities: such diversions are thought
by them to be puerile or insipid. Nor have they a greater
inclination for the intellectual and refined amusements of the
aristocratic classes. They want something productive and
substantial in their pleasures; they want to mix actual fruition
with their joy. In aristocratic communities the people readily
give themselves up to bursts of tumultuous and boisterous gayety,
which shake off at once the recollection of their privations: the
natives of democracies are not fond of being thus violently
broken in upon, and they never lose sight of their own selves
without regret. They prefer to these frivolous delights those
more serious and silent amusements which are like business, and
which do not drive business wholly from their minds. An
American, instead of going in a leisure hour to dance merrily at
some place of public resort, as the fellows of his calling
continue to do throughout the greater part of Europe, shuts
himself up at home to drink. He thus enjoys two pleasures; he
can go on thinking of his business, and he can get drunk decently
by his own fireside.
I thought that the English constituted the most serious
nation on the face of the earth, but I have since seen the
Americans and have changed my opinion. I do not mean to say that
temperament has not a great deal to do with the character of the
inhabitants of the United States, but I think that their
political institutions are a still more influential cause. I
believe the seriousness of the Americans arises partly from their
pride. In democratic countries even poor men entertain a lofty
notion of their personal importance: they look upon themselves
with complacency, and are apt to suppose that others are looking
at them, too. With this disposition they watch their language
and their actions with care, and do not lay themselves open so as
to betray their deficiencies; to preserve their dignity they
think it necessary to retain their gravity.
But I detect another more deep-seated and powerful cause
which instinctively produces amongst the Americans this
astonishing gravity. Under a despotism communities give way at
times to bursts of vehement joy; but they are generally gloomy
and moody, because they are afraid. Under absolute monarchies
tempered by the customs and manners of the country, their spirits
are often cheerful and even, because as they have some freedom
and a good deal of security, they are exempted from the most
important cares of life; but all free peoples are serious,
because their minds are habitually absorbed by the contemplation
of some dangerous or difficult purpose. This is more especially
the case amongst those free nations which form democratic
communities. Then there are in all classes a very large number
of men constantly occupied with the serious affairs of the
government; and those whose thoughts are not engaged in the
direction of the commonwealth are wholly engrossed by the
acquisition of a private fortune. Amongst such a people a
serious demeanor ceases to be peculiar to certain men, and
becomes a habit of the nation.
We are told of small democracies in the days of antiquity,
in which the citizens met upon the public places with garlands of
roses, and spent almost all their time in dancing and theatrical
amusements. I do not believe in such republics any more than in
that of Plato; or, if the things we read of really happened, I do
not hesitate to affirm that these supposed democracies were
composed of very different elements from ours, and that they had
nothing in common with the latter except their name. But it must
not be supposed that, in the midst of all their toils, the people
who live in democracies think themselves to be pitied; the
contrary is remarked to be the case. No men are fonder of their
own condition. Life would have no relish for them if they were
delivered from the anxieties which harass them, and they show
more attachment to their cares than aristocratic nations to their
pleasures.
I am next led to inquire how it is that these same
democratic nations, which are so serious, sometimes act in so
inconsiderate a manner. The Americans, who almost always
preserve a staid demeanor and a frigid air, nevertheless
frequently allow themselves to be borne away, far beyond the
bound of reason, by a sudden passion or a hasty opinion, and they
sometimes gravely commit strange absurdities. This contrast
ought not to surprise us. There is one sort of ignorance which
originates in extreme publicity. In despotic States men know not
how to act, because they are told nothing; in democratic nations
they often act at random, because nothing is to be left untold.
The former do not know - the latter forget; and the chief
features of each picture are lost to them in a bewilderment of
details.
It is astonishing what imprudent language a public man may
sometimes use in free countries, and especially in democratic
States, without being compromised; whereas in absolute monarchies
a few words dropped by accident are enough to unmask him forever,
and ruin him without hope of redemption. This is explained by
what goes before. When a man speaks in the midst of a great
crowd, many of his words are not heard, or are forthwith
obliterated from the memories of those who hear them; but amidst
the silence of a mute and motionless throng the slightest whisper
strikes the ear.
In democracies men are never stationary; a thousand chances
waft them to and fro, and their life is always the sport of
unforeseen or (so to speak) extemporaneous circumstances. Thus
they are often obliged to do things which they have imperfectly
learned, to say things they imperfectly understand, and to devote
themselves to work for which they are unprepared by long
apprenticeship. In aristocracies every man has one sole object
which he unceasingly pursues, but amongst democratic nations the
existence of man is more complex; the same mind will almost
always embrace several objects at the same time, and these
objects are frequently wholly foreign to each other: as it cannot
know them all well, the mind is readily satisfied with imperfect
notions of each.
When the inhabitant of democracies is not urged by his
wants, he is so at least by his desires; for of all the
possessions which he sees around him, none are wholly beyond his
reach. He therefore does everything in a hurry, he is always
satisfied with "pretty well," and never pauses more than an
instant to consider what he has been doing. His curiosity is at
once insatiable and cheaply satisfied; for he cares more to know
a great deal quickly than to know anything well: he has no time
and but little taste to search things to the bottom. Thus then
democratic peoples are grave, because their social and political
condition constantly leads them to engage in serious occupations;
and they act inconsiderately, because they give but little time
and attention to each of these occupations. The habit of
inattention must be considered as the greatest bane of the
democratic character.
Chapter XVI: Why The National Vanity Of The Americans Is More
Restless And Captious Than That Of The English
All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not
displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans in their
intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest
censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is
acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they
unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their
entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as
if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly
exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy,
but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, whilst it
demands everything, but is ready to beg and to quarrel at the
same time. If I say to an American that the country he lives in
is a fine one, "Ay," he replies, "there is not its fellow in the
world." If I applaud the freedom which its inhabitants enjoy, he
answers, "Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to
enjoy it." If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes
the United States, "I can imagine," says he, "that a stranger,
who has been struck by the corruption of all other nations, is
astonished at the difference." At length I leave him to the
contemplation of himself; but he returns to the charge, and does
not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been
saying. It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more
garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to
respect it. *a
[Footnote a: See Appendix U.]
Such is not the case with the English. An Englishman calmly
enjoys the real or imaginary advantages which in his opinion his
country possesses. If he grants nothing to other nations,
neither does he solicit anything for his own. The censure of
foreigners does not affect him, and their praise hardly flatters
him; his position with regard to the rest of the world is one of
disdainful and ignorant reserve: his pride requires no
sustenance, it nourishes itself. It is remarkable that two
nations, so recently sprung from the same stock, should be so
opposite to one another in their manner of feeling and
conversing.
In aristocratic countries the great possess immense
privileges, upon which their pride rests, without seeking to rely
upon the lesser advantages which accrue to them. As these
privileges came to them by inheritance, they regard them in some
sort as a portion of themselves, or at least as a natural right
inherent in their own persons. They therefore entertain a calm
sense of their superiority; they do not dream of vaunting
privileges which everyone perceives and no one contests, and
these things are not sufficiently new to them to be made topics
of conversation. They stand unmoved in their solitary greatness,
well assured that they are seen of all the world without any
effort to show themselves off, and that no one will attempt to
drive them from that position. When an aristocracy carries on
the public affairs, its national pride naturally assumes this
reserved, indifferent, and haughty form, which is imitated by all
the other classes of the nation.
When, on the contrary, social conditions differ but little,
the slightest privileges are of some importance; as every man
sees around himself a million of people enjoying precisely
similar or analogous advantages, his pride becomes craving and
jealous, he clings to mere trifles, and doggedly defends them.
In democracies, as the conditions of life are very fluctuating,
men have almost always recently acquired the advantages which
they possess; the consequence is that they feel extreme pleasure
in exhibiting them, to show others and convince themselves that
they really enjoy them. As at any instant these same advantages
may be lost, their possessors are constantly on the alert, and
make a point of showing that they still retain them. Men living
in democracies love their country just as they love themselves,
and they transfer the habits of their private vanity to their
vanity as a nation. The restless and insatiable vanity of a
democratic people originates so entirely in the equality and
precariousness of social conditions, that the members of the
haughtiest nobility display the very same passion in those lesser
portions of their existence in which there is anything
fluctuating or contested. An aristocratic class always differs
greatly from the other classes of the nation, by the extent and
perpetuity of its privileges; but it often happens that the only
differences between the members who belong to it consist in small
transient advantages, which may any day be lost or acquired.
The members of a powerful aristocracy, collected in a
capital or a court, have been known to contest with virulence
those frivolous privileges which depend on the caprice of fashion
or the will of their master. These persons then displayed
towards each other precisely the same puerile jealousies which
animate the men of democracies, the same eagerness to snatch the
smallest advantages which their equals contested, and the same
desire to parade ostentatiously those of which they were in
possession. If national pride ever entered into the minds of
courtiers, I do not question that they would display it in the
same manner as the members of a democratic community.
Chapter XVII: That The Aspect Of Society In The United States Is
At Once Excited And Monotonous
It would seem that nothing can be more adapted to stimulate
and to feed curiosity than the aspect of the United States.
Fortunes, opinions, and laws are there in ceaseless variation: it
is as if immutable nature herself were mutable, such are the
changes worked upon her by the hand of man. Yet in the end the
sight of this excited community becomes monotonous, and after
having watched the moving pageant for a time the spectator is
tired of it. Amongst aristocratic nations every man is pretty
nearly stationary in his own sphere; but men are astonishingly
unlike each other - their passions, their notions, their habits,
and their tastes are essentially different: nothing changey, but
everything differs. In democracies, on the contrary, all men are
alike and do things pretty nearly alike. It is true that they
are subject to great and frequent vicissitudes; but as the same
events of good or adverse fortune are continually recurring, the
name of the actors only is changed, the piece is always the same.
The aspect of American society is animated, because men and
things are always changing; but it is monotonous, because all
these changes are alike.
Men living in democratic ages have many passions, but most
of their passions either end in the love of riches or proceed
from it. The cause of this is, not that their souls are
narrower, but that the importance of money is really greater at
such times. When all the members of a community are independent
of or indifferent to each other, the co-operation of each of them
can only be obtained by paying for it: this infinitely multiplies
the purposes to which wealth may be applied, and increases its
value. When the reverence which belonged to what is old has
vanished, birth, condition, and profession no longer distinguish
men, or scarcely distinguish them at all: hardly anything but
money remains to create strongly marked differences between them,
and to raise some of them above the common level. The
distinction originating in wealth is increased by the
disappearance and diminution of all other distinctions. Amongst
aristocratic nations money only reaches to a few points on the
vast circle of man's desires - in democracies it seems to lead to
all. The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, either as a
principal or an accessory motive, at the bottom of all that the
Americans do: this gives to all their passions a sort of family
likeness, and soon renders the survey of them exceedingly
wearisome. This perpetual recurrence of the same passion is
monotonous; the peculiar methods by which this passion seeks its
own gratification are no less so.
In an orderly and constituted democracy like the United
States, where men cannot enrich themselves by war, by public
office, or by political confiscation, the love of wealth mainly
drives them into business and manufactures. Although these
pursuits often bring about great commotions and disasters, they
cannot prosper without strictly regular habits and a long routine
of petty uniform acts. The stronger the passion is, the more
regular are these habits, and the more uniform are these acts.
It may be said that it is the vehemence of their desires which
makes the Americans so methodical; it perturbs their minds, but
it disciplines their lives.
The remark I here apply to America may indeed be addressed
to almost all our contemporaries. Variety is disappearing from
the human race; the same ways of acting, thinking, and feeling
are to be met with all over the world. This is not only because
nations work more upon each other, and are more faithful in their
mutual imitation; but as the men of each country relinquish more
and more the peculiar opinions and feelings of a caste, a
profession, or a family, they simultaneously arrive at something
nearer to the constitution of man, which is everywhere the same.
Thus they become more alike, even without having imitated each
other. Like travellers scattered about some large wood, which is
intersected by paths converging to one point, if all of them
keep, their eyes fixed upon that point and advance towards it,
they insensibly draw nearer together - though they seek not,
though they see not, though they know not each other; and they
will be surprised at length to find themselves all collected on
the same spot. All the nations which take, not any particular
man, but man himself, as the object of their researches and their
imitations, are tending in the end to a similar state of society,
like these travellers converging to the central plot of the
forest.
Book Three - Chapter XVIII
Chapter XVIII: Of Honor In The United States And In Democratic
Communities
It would seem that men employ two very distinct methods in
the public estimation *a of the actions of their fellowmen; at
one time they judge them by those simple notions of right and
wrong which are diffused all over the world; at another they
refer their decision to a few very special notions which belong
exclusively to some particular age and country. It often happens
that these two rules differ; they sometimes conflict: but they
are never either entirely identified or entirely annulled by one
another. Honor, at the periods of its greatest power, sways the
will more than the belief of men; and even whilst they yield
without hesitation and without a murmur to its dictates, they
feel notwithstanding, by a dim but mighty instinct, the existence
of a more general, more ancient, and more holy law, which they
sometimes disobey although they cease not to acknowledge it.
Some actions have been held to be at the same time virtuous and
dishonorable - a refusal to fight a duel is a case in point.
[Footnote a: The word "honor" is not always used in the same
sense either in French or English. I. It first signifies the
dignity, glory, or reverence which a man receives from his kind;
and in this sense a man is said to acquire honor. 2. Honor
signifies the aggregate of those rules by the assistance of which
this dignity, glory, or reverence is obtained. Thus we say that
a man has always strictly obeyed the laws of honor; or a man has
violated his honor. In this chapter the word is always used in
the latter sense.]
I think these peculiarities may be otherwise explained than
by the mere caprices of certain individuals and nations, as has
hitherto been the customary mode of reasoning on the subject.
Mankind is subject to general and lasting wants that have
engendered moral laws, to the neglect of which men have ever and
in all places attached the notion of censure and shame: to
infringe them was "to do ill" - "to do well" was to conform to
them. Within the bosom of this vast association of the human
race, lesser associations have been formed which are called
nations; and amidst these nations further subdivisions have
assumed the names of classes or castes. Each of these
associations forms, as it were, a separate species of the human
race; and though it has no essential difference from the mass of
mankind, to a certain extent it stands apart and has certain
wants peculiar to itself. To these special wants must be
attributed the modifications which affect in various degrees and
in different countries the mode of considering human actions, and
the estimate which ought to be formed of them. It is the general
and permanent interest of mankind that men should not kill each
other: but it may happen to be the peculiar and temporary
interest of a people or a class to justify, or even to honor,
homicide.
Honor is simply that peculiar rule, founded upon a peculiar
state of society, by the application of which a people or a class
allot praise or blame. Nothing is more unproductive to the mind
than an abstract idea; I therefore hasten to call in the aid of
facts and examples to illustrate my meaning.
I select the most extraordinary kind of honor which was ever
known in the world, and that which we are best acquainted with,
viz., aristocratic honor springing out of feudal society. I
shall explain it by means of the principle already laid down, and
I shall explain the principle by means of the illustration. I am
not here led to inquire when and how the aristocracy of the
Middle Ages came into existence, why it was so deeply severed
from the remainder of the nation, or what founded and
consolidated its power. I take its existence as an established
fact, and I am endeavoring to account for the peculiar view which
it took of the greater part of human actions. The first thing
that strikes me is, that in the feudal world actions were not
always praised or blamed with reference to their intrinsic worth,
but that they were sometimes appreciated exclusively with
reference to the person who was the actor or the object of them,
which is repugnant to the general conscience of mankind. Thus
some of the actions which were indifferent on the part of a man
in humble life, dishonored a noble; others changed their whole
character according as the person aggrieved by them belonged or
did not belong to the aristocracy. When these different notions
first arose, the nobility formed a distinct body amidst the
people, which it commanded from the inaccessible heights where it
was ensconced. To maintain this peculiar position, which
constituted its strength, it not only required political
privileges, but it required a standard of right and wrong for its
own especial use. That some particular virtue or vice belonged
to the nobility rather than to the humble classes - that certain
actions were guiltless when they affected the villain, which were
criminal when they touched the noble - these were often arbitrary
matters; but that honor or shame should be attached to a man's
actions according to his condition, was a result of the internal
constitution of an aristocratic community. This has been
actually the case in all the countries which have had an
aristocracy; as long as a trace of the principle remains, these
peculiarities will still exist; to debauch a woman of color
scarcely injures the reputation of an American - to marry her
dishonors him.
In some cases feudal honor enjoined revenge, and stigmatized
the forgiveness of insults; in others it imperiously commanded
men to conquer their own passions, and imposed forgetfulness of
self. It did not make humanity or kindness its law, but it
extolled generosity; it set more store on liberality than on
benevolence; it allowed men to enrich themselves by gambling or
by war, but not by labor; it preferred great crimes to small
earnings; cupidity was less distasteful to it than avarice;
violence it often sanctioned, but cunning and treachery it
invariably reprobated as contemptible. These fantastical notions
did not proceed exclusively from the caprices of those who
entertained them. A class which has succeeded in placing itself
at the head of and above all others, and which makes perpetual
exertions to maintain this lofty position, must especially honor
those virtues which are conspicuous for their dignity and
splendor, and which may be easily combined with pride and the
love of power. Such men would not hesitate to invert the natural
order of the conscience in order to give those virtues precedence
before all others. It may even be conceived that some of the
more bold and brilliant vices would readily be set above the
quiet, unpretending virtues. The very existence of such a class
in society renders these things unavoidable.
The nobles of the Middle Ages placed military courage
foremost amongst virtues, and in lieu of many of them. This was
again a peculiar opinion which arose necessarily from the
peculiarity of the state of society. Feudal aristocracy existed
by war and for war; its power had been founded by arms, and by
arms that power was maintained; it therefore required nothing
more than military courage, and that quality was naturally
exalted above all others; whatever denoted it, even at the
expense of reason and humanity, was therefore approved and
frequently enjoined by the manners of the time. Such was the
main principle; the caprice of man was only to be traced in
minuter details. That a man should regard a tap on the cheek as
an unbearable insult, and should be obliged to kill in single
combat the person who struck him thus lightly, is an arbitrary
rule; but that a noble could not tranquilly receive an insult,
and was dishonored if he allowed himself to take a blow without
fighting, were direct consequences of the fundamental principles
and the wants of military aristocracy.
Thus it was true to a certain extent to assert that the laws
of honor were capricious; but these caprices of honor were always
confined within certain necessary limits. The peculiar rule,
which was called honor by our forefathers, is so far from being
an arbitrary law in my eyes, that I would readily engage to
ascribe its most incoherent and fantastical injunctions to a
small number of fixed and invariable wants inherent in feudal
society.
If I were to trace the notion of feudal honor into the
domain of politics, I should not find it more difficult to
explain its dictates. The state of society and the political
institutions of the Middle Ages were such, that the supreme power
of the nation never governed the community directly. That power
did not exist in the eyes of the people: every man looked up to a
certain individual whom he was bound to obey; by that
intermediate personage he was connected with all the others.
Thus in feudal society the whole system of the commonwealth
rested upon the sentiment of fidelity to the person of the lord:
to destroy that sentiment was to open the sluices of anarchy.
Fidelity to a political superior was, moreover, a sentiment of
which all the members of the aristocracy had constant
opportunities of estimating the importance; for every one of them
was a vassal as well as a lord, and had to command as well as to
obey. To remain faithful to the lord, to sacrifice one's self
for him if called upon, to share his good or evil fortunes, to
stand by him in his undertakings whatever they might be - such
were the first injunctions of feudal honor in relation to the
political institutions of those times. The treachery of a vassal
was branded with extraordinary severity by public opinion, and a
name of peculiar infamy was invented for the offence which was
called "felony."
On the contrary, few traces are to be found in the Middle
Ages of the passion which constituted the life of the nations of
antiquity - I mean patriotism; the word itself is not of very
ancient date in the language. *b Feudal institutions concealed
the country at large from men's sight, and rendered the love of
it less necessary. The nation was forgotten in the passions
which attached men to persons. Hence it was no part of the
strict law of feudal honor to remain faithful to one's country.
Not indeed that the love of their country did not exist in the
hearts of our forefathers; but it constituted a dim and feeble
instinct, which has grown more clear and strong in proportion as
aristocratic classes have been abolished, and the supreme power
of the nation centralized. This may be clearly seen from the
contrary judgments which European nations have passed upon the
various events of their histories, according to the generations
by which such judgments have been formed. The circumstance which
most dishonored the Constable de Bourbon in the eyes of his
contemporaries was that he bore arms against his king: that which
most dishonors him in our eyes, is that he made war against his
country; we brand him as deeply as our forefathers did, but for
different reasons.
[Footnote b: Even the word "patrie" was not used by the French
writers until the sixteenth century.]
I have chosen the honor of feudal times by way of
illustration of my meaning, because its characteristics are more
distinctly marked and more familiar to us than those of any other
period; but I might have taken an example elsewhere, and I should
have reached the same conclusion by a different road. Although
we are less perfectly acquainted with the Romans than with our
own ancestors, yet we know that certain peculiar notions of glory
and disgrace obtained amongst them, which were not solely derived
from the general principles of right and wrong. Many human
actions were judged differently, according as they affected a
Roman citizen or a stranger, a freeman or a slave; certain vices
were blazoned abroad, certain virtues were extolled above all
others. "In that age," says Plutarch in the life of Coriolanus,
"martial prowess was more honored and prized in Rome than all the
other virtues, insomuch that it was called virtus, the name of
virtue itself, by applying the name of the kind to this
particular species; so that virtue in Latin was as much as to say
valor." Can anyone fail to recognize the peculiar want of that
singular community which was formed for the conquest of the
world?
Any nation would furnish us with similar grounds of
observation; for, as I have already remarked, whenever men
collect together as a distinct community, the notion of honor
instantly grows up amongst them; that is to say, a system of
opinions peculiar to themselves as to what is blamable or
commendable; and these peculiar rules always originate in the
special habits and special interests of the community. This is
applicable to a certain extent to democratic communities as well
as to others, as we shall now proceed to prove by the example of
the Americans. *c Some loose notions of the old aristocratic
honor of Europe are still to be found scattered amongst the
opinions of the Americans; but these traditional opinions are few
in number, they have but little root in the country, and but
little power. They are like a religion which has still some
temples left standing, though men have ceased to believe in it.
But amidst these half-obliterated notions of exotic honor, some
new opinions have sprung up, which constitute what may be termed
in our days American honor. I have shown how the Americans are
constantly driven to engage in commerce and industry. Their
origin, their social condition, their political institutions, and
even the spot they inhabit, urge them irresistibly in this
direction. Their present condition is then that of an almost
exclusively manufacturing and commercial association, placed in
the midst of a new and boundless country, which their principal
object is to explore for purposes of profit. This is the
characteristic which most peculiarly distinguishes the American
people from all others at the present time. All those quiet
virtues which tend to give a regular movement to the community,
and to encourage business, will therefore be held in peculiar
honor by that people, and to neglect those virtues will be to
incur public contempt. All the more turbulent virtues, which
often dazzle, but more frequently disturb society, will on the
contrary occupy a subordinate rank in the estimation of this same
people: they may be neglected without forfeiting the esteem of
the community - to acquire them would perhaps be to run a risk of
losing it.
[Footnote c: I speak here of the Americans inhabiting those
States where slavery does not exist; they alone can be said to
present a complete picture of democratic society.]
The Americans make a no less arbitrary classification of
men's vices. There are certain propensities which appear
censurable to the general reason and the universal conscience of
mankind, but which happen to agree with the peculiar and
temporary wants of the American community: these propensities are
lightly reproved, sometimes even encouraged; for instance, the
love of wealth and the secondary propensities connected with it
may be more particularly cited. To clear, to till, and to
transform the vast uninhabited continent which is his domain, the
American requires the daily support of an energetic passion; that
passion can only be the love of wealth; the passion for wealth is
therefore not reprobated in America, and provided it does not go
beyond the bounds assigned to it for public security, it is held
in honor. The American lauds as a noble and praiseworthy ambition
what our own forefathers in the Middle Ages stigmatized as
servile cupidity, just as he treats as a blind and barbarous
frenzy that ardor of conquest and martial temper which bore them
to battle. In the United States fortunes are lost and regained
without difficulty; the country is boundless, and its resources
inexhaustible. The people have all the wants and cravings of a
growing creature; and whatever be their efforts, they are always
surrounded by more than they can appropriate. It is not the ruin
of a few individuals which may be soon repaired, but the
inactivity and sloth of the community at large which would be
fatal to such a people. Boldness of enterprise is the foremost
cause of its rapid progress, its strength, and its greatness.
Commercial business is there like a vast lottery, by which a
small number of men continually lose, but the State is always a
gainer; such a people ought therefore to encourage and do honor
to boldness in commercial speculations. But any bold speculation
risks the fortune of the speculator and of all those who put
their trust in him. The Americans, who make a virtue of
commercial temerity, have no right in any case to brand with
disgrace those who practise it. Hence arises the strange
indulgence which is shown to bankrupts in the United States;
their honor does not suffer by such an accident. In this respect
the Americans differ, not only from the nations of Europe, but
from all the commercial nations of our time, and accordingly they
resemble none of them in their position or their wants.
In America all those vices which tend to impair the purity
of morals, and to destroy the conjugal tie, are treated with a
degree of severity which is unknown in the rest of the world. At
first sight this seems strangely at variance with the tolerance
shown there on other subjects, and one is surprised to meet with
a morality so relaxed and so austere amongst the selfsame people.
But these things are less incoherent than they seem to be. Public
opinion in the United States very gently represses that love of
wealth which promotes the commercial greatness and the prosperity
of the nation, and it especially condemns that laxity of morals
which diverts the human mind from the pursuit of well-being, and
disturbs the internal order of domestic life which is so
necessary to success in business. To earn the esteem of their
countrymen, the Americans are therefore constrained to adapt
themselves to orderly habits - and it may be said in this sense
that they make it a matter of honor to live chastely.
On one point American honor accords with the notions of
honor acknowledged in Europe; it places courage as the highest
virtue, and treats it as the greatest of the moral necessities of
man; but the notion of courage itself assumes a different aspect.
In the United States martial valor is but little prized; the
courage which is best known and most esteemed is that which
emboldens men to brave the dangers of the ocean, in order to
arrive earlier in port - to support the privations of the
wilderness without complaint, and solitude more cruel than
privations - the courage which renders them almost insensible to
the loss of a fortune laboriously acquired, and instantly prompts
to fresh exertions to make another. Courage of this kind is
peculiarly necessary to the maintenance and prosperity of the
American communities, and it is held by them in peculiar honor
and estimation; to betray a want of it is to incur certain
disgrace.
I have yet another characteristic point which may serve to
place the idea of this chapter in stronger relief. In a
democratic society like that of the United States, where fortunes
are scanty and insecure, everybody works, and work opens a way to
everything: this has changed the point of honor quite round, and
has turned it against idleness. I have sometimes met in America
with young men of wealth, personally disinclined to all laborious
exertion, but who had been compelled to embrace a profession.
Their disposition and their fortune allowed them to remain
without employment; public opinion forbade it, too imperiously to
be disobeyed. In the European countries, on the contrary, where
aristocracy is still struggling with the flood which overwhelms
it, I have often seen men, constantly spurred on by their wants
and desires, remain in idleness, in order not to lose the esteem
of their equals; and I have known them submit to ennui and
privations rather than to work. No one can fail to perceive that
these opposite obligations are two different rules of conduct,
both nevertheless originating in the notion of honor.
What our forefathers designated as honor absolutely was in
reality only one of its forms; they gave a generic name to what
was only a species. Honor therefore is to be found in democratic
as well as in aristocratic ages, but it will not be difficult to
show that it assumes a different aspect in the former. Not only
are its injunctions different, but we shall shortly see that they
are less numerous, less precise, and that its dictates are less
rigorously obeyed. The position of a caste is always much more
peculiar than that of a people. Nothing is so much out of the
way of the world as a small community invariably composed of the
same families (as was for instance the aristocracy of the Middle
Ages), whose object is to concentrate and to retain, exclusively
and hereditarily, education, wealth, and power amongst its own
members. But the more out of the way the position of a community
happens to be, the more numerous are its special wants, and the
more extensive are its notions of honor corresponding to those
wants. The rules of honor will therefore always be less numerous
amongst a people not divided into castes than amongst any other.
If ever any nations are constituted in which it may even be
difficult to find any peculiar classes of society, the notion of
honor will be confined to a small number of precepts, which will
be more and more in accordance with the moral laws adopted by the
mass of mankind. Thus the laws of honor will be less peculiar
and less multifarious amongst a democratic people than in an
aristocracy. They will also be more obscure; and this is a
necessary consequence of what goes before; for as the
distinguishing marks of honor are less numerous and less
peculiar, it must often be difficult to distinguish them. To
this, other reasons may be added. Amongst the aristocratic
nations of the Middle Ages, generation succeeded generation in
vain; each family was like a never-dying, ever-stationary man,
and the state of opinions was hardly more changeable than that of
conditions. Everyone then had always the same objects before his
eyes, which he contemplated from the same point; his eyes
gradually detected the smallest details, and his discernment
could not fail to become in the end clear and accurate. Thus not
only had the men of feudal times very extraordinary opinions in
matters of honor, but each of those opinions was present to their
minds under a clear and precise form.
This can never be the case in America, where all men are in
constant motion; and where society, transformed daily by its own
operations, changes its opinions together with its wants. In
such a country men have glimpses of the rules of honor, but they
have seldom time to fix attention upon them.
But even if society were motionless, it would still be
difficult to determine the meaning which ought to be attached to
the word "honor." In the Middle Ages, as each class had its own
honor, the same opinion was never received at the same time by a
large number of men; and this rendered it possible to give it a
determined and accurate form, which was the more easy, as all
those by whom it was received, having a perfectly identical and
most peculiar position, were naturally disposed to agree upon the
points of a law which was made for themselves alone. Thus the
code of honor became a complete and detailed system, in which
everything was anticipated and provided for beforehand, and a
fixed and always palpable standard was applied to human actions.
Amongst a democratic nation, like the Americans, in which ranks
are identified, and the whole of society forms one single mass,
composed of elements which are all analogous though not entirely
similar, it is impossible ever to agree beforehand on what shall
or shall not be allowed by the laws of honor. Amongst that
people, indeed, some national wants do exist which give rise to
opinions common to the whole nation on points of honor; but these
opinions never occur at the same time, in the same manner, or
with the same intensity to the minds of the whole community; the
law of honor exists, but it has no organs to promulgate it.
The confusion is far greater still in a democratic country
like France, where the different classes of which the former
fabric of society was composed, being brought together but not
yet mingled, import day by day into each other's circles various
and sometimes conflicting notions of honor -where every man, at
his own will and pleasure, forsakes one portion of his
forefathers' creed, and retains another; so that, amidst so many
arbitrary measures, no common rule can ever be established, and
it is almost impossible to predict which actions will be held in
honor and which will be thought disgraceful. Such times are
wretched, but they are of short duration.
As honor, amongst democratic nations, is imperfectly
defined, its influence is of course less powerful; for it is
difficult to apply with certainty and firmness a law which is not
distinctly known. Public opinion, the natural and supreme
interpreter of the laws of honor, not clearly discerning to which
side censure or approval ought to lean, can only pronounce a
hesitating judgment. Sometimes the opinion of the public may
contradict itself; more frequently it does not act, and lets
things pass.
The weakness of the sense of honor in democracies also
arises from several other causes. In aristocratic countries, the
same notions of honor are always entertained by only a few
persons, always limited in number, often separated from the rest
of their fellow-citizens. Honor is easily mingled and identified
in their minds with the idea of all that distinguishes their own
position; it appears to them as the chief characteristic of their
own rank; they apply its different rules with all the warmth of
personal interest, and they feel (if I may use the expression) a
passion for complying with its dictates. This truth is extremely
obvious in the old black-letter lawbooks on the subject of "trial
by battel." The nobles, in their disputes, were bound to use the
lance and sword; whereas the villains used only sticks amongst
themselves, "inasmuch as," to use the words of the old books,
"villains have no honor." This did not mean, as it may be
imagined at the present day, that these people were contemptible;
but simply that their actions were not to be judged by the same
rules which were applied to the actions of the aristocracy.
It is surprising, at first sight, that when the sense of
honor is most predominant, its injunctions are usually most
strange; so that the further it is removed from common reason the
better it is obeyed; whence it has sometimes been inferred that
the laws of honor were strengthened by their own extravagance.
The two things indeed originate from the same source, but the one
is not derived from the other. Honor becomes fantastical in
proportion to the peculiarity of the wants which it denotes, and
the paucity of the men by whom those wants are felt; and it is
because it denotes wants of this kind that its influence is
great. Thus the notion of honor is not the stronger for being
fantastical, but it is fantastical and strong from the selfsame
cause.
Further, amongst aristocratic nations each rank is
different, but all ranks are fixed; every man occupies a place in
his own sphere which he cannot relinquish, and he lives there
amidst other men who are bound by the same ties. Amongst these
nations no man can either hope or fear to escape being seen; no
man is placed so low but that he has a stage of his own, and none
can avoid censure or applause by his obscurity. In democratic
States on the contrary, where all the members of the community
are mingled in the same crowd and in constant agitation, public
opinion has no hold on men; they disappear at every instant, and
elude its power. Consequently the dictates of honor will be
there less imperious and less stringent; for honor acts solely
for the public eye - differing in this respect from mere virtue,
which lives upon itself contented with its own approval.
If the reader has distinctly apprehended all that goes
before, he will understand that there is a close and necessary
relation between the inequality of social conditions and what has
here been styled honor - a relation which, if I am not mistaken,
had not before been clearly pointed out. I shall therefore make
one more attempt to illustrate it satisfactorily. Suppose a
nation stands apart from the rest of mankind: independently of
certain general wants inherent in the human race, it will also
have wants and interests peculiar to itself: certain opinions of
censure or approbation forthwith arise in the community, which
are peculiar to itself, and which are styled honor by the members
of that community. Now suppose that in this same nation a caste
arises, which, in its turn, stands apart from all the other
classes, and contracts certain peculiar wants, which give rise in
their turn to special opinions. The honor of this caste,
composed of a medley of the peculiar notions of the nation, and
the still more peculiar notions of the caste, will be as remote
as it is possible to conceive from the simple and general
opinions of men.
Having reached this extreme point of the argument, I now
return. When ranks are commingled and privileges abolished, the
men of whom a nation is composed being once more equal and alike,
their interests and wants become identical, and all the peculiar
notions which each caste styled honor successively disappear: the
notion of honor no longer proceeds from any other source than the
wants peculiar to the nation at large, and it denotes the
individual character of that nation to the world. Lastly, if it
be allowable to suppose that all the races of mankind should be
commingled, and that all the peoples of earth should ultimately
come to have the same interests, the same wants, undistinguished
from each other by any characteristic peculiarities, no
conventional value whatever would then be attached to men's
actions; they would all be regarded by all in the same light; the
general necessities of mankind, revealed by conscience to every
man, would become the common standard. The simple and general
notions of right and wrong only would then be recognized in the
world, to which, by a natural and necessary tie, the idea of
censure or approbation would be attached. Thus, to comprise all
my meaning in a single proposition, the dissimilarities and
inequalities of men gave rise to the notion of honor; that notion
is weakened in proportion as these differences are obliterated,
and with them it would disappear.
Book Three - Chapters XIX-XXI
Chapter XIX: Why So Many Ambitious Men And So Little Lofty
Ambition Are To Be Found In The United States
The first thing which strikes a traveller in the United
States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to throw
off their original condition; and the second is the rarity of
lofty ambition to be observed in the midst of the universally
ambitious stir of society. No Americans are devoid of a yearning
desire to rise; but hardly any appear to entertain hopes of great
magnitude, or to drive at very lofty aims. All are constantly
seeking to acquire property, power, and reputation - few
contemplate these things upon a great scale; and this is the more
surprising, as nothing is to be discerned in the manners or laws
of America to limit desire, or to prevent it from spreading its
impulses in every direction. It seems difficult to attribute
this singular state of things to the equality of social
conditions; for at the instant when that same equality was
established in France, the flight of ambition became unbounded.
Nevertheless, I think that the principal cause which may be
assigned to this fact is to be found in the social condition and
democratic manners of the Americans.
All revolutions enlarge the ambition of men: this
proposition is more peculiarly true of those revolutions which
overthrow an aristocracy. When the former barriers which kept
back the multitude from fame and power are suddenly thrown down,
a violent and universal rise takes place towards that eminence so
long coveted and at length to be enjoyed. In this first burst of
triumph nothing seems impossible to anyone: not only are desires
boundless, but the power of satisfying them seems almost
boundless, too. Amidst the general and sudden renewal of laws and
customs, in this vast confusion of all men and all ordinances,
the various members of the community rise and sink again with
excessive rapidity; and power passes so quickly from hand to hand
that none need despair of catching it in turn. It must be
recollected, moreover, that the people who destroy an aristocracy
have lived under its laws; they have witnessed its splendor, and
they have unconsciously imbibed the feelings and notions which it
entertained. Thus at the moment when an aristocracy is
dissolved, its spirit still pervades the mass of the community,
and its tendencies are retained long after it has been defeated.
Ambition is therefore always extremely great as long as a
democratic revolution lasts, and it will remain so for some time
after the revolution is consummated. The reminiscence of the
extraordinary events which men have witnessed is not obliterated
from their memory in a day. The passions which a revolution has
roused do not disappear at its close. A sense of instability
remains in the midst of re-established order: a notion of easy
success survives the strange vicissitudes which gave it birth;
desires still remain extremely enlarged, when the means of
satisfying them are diminished day by day. The taste for large
fortunes subsists, though large fortunes are rare: and on every
side we trace the ravages of inordinate and hapless ambition
kindled in hearts which they consume in secret and in vain.
At length, however, the last vestiges of the struggle are
effaced; the remains of aristocracy completely disappear; the
great events by which its fall was attended are forgotten; peace
succeeds to war, and the sway of order is restored in the new
realm; desires are again adapted to the means by which they may
be fulfilled; the wants, the opinions, and the feelings of men
cohere once more; the level of the community is permanently
determined, and democratic society established. A democratic
nation, arrived at this permanent and regular state of things,
will present a very different spectacle from that which we have
just described; and we may readily conclude that, if ambition
becomes great whilst the conditions of society are growing equal,
it loses that quality when they have grown so. As wealth is
subdivided and knowledge diffused, no one is entirely destitute
of education or of property; the privileges and disqualifications
of caste being abolished, and men having shattered the bonds
which held them fixed, the notion of advancement suggests itself
to every mind, the desire to rise swells in every heart, and all
men want to mount above their station: ambition is the universal
feeling.
But if the equality of conditions gives some resources to
all the members of the community, it also prevents any of them
from having resources of great extent, which necessarily
circumscribes their desires within somewhat narrow limits. Thus
amongst democratic nations ambition is ardent and continual, but
its aim is not habitually lofty; and life is generally spent in
eagerly coveting small objects which are within reach. What
chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not
the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the
exertions they daily make to improve them. They strain their
faculties to the utmost to achieve paltry results, and this
cannot fail speedily to limit their discernment and to
circumscribe their powers. They might be much poorer and still
be greater. The small number of opulent citizens who are to be
found amidst a democracy do not constitute an exception to this
rule. A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power,
contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of
prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A
man cannot enlarge his mind as he would his house. The same
observation is applicable to the sons of such a man; they are
born, it is true, in a lofty position, but their parents were
humble; they have grown up amidst feelings and notions which they
cannot afterwards easily get rid of; and it may be presumed that
they will inherit the propensities of their father as well as his
wealth. It may happen, on the contrary, that the poorest scion
of a powerful aristocracy may display vast ambition, because the
traditional opinions of his race and the general spirit of his
order still buoy him up for some time above his fortune.
Another thing which prevents the men of democratic periods
from easily indulging in the pursuit of lofty objects, is the
lapse of time which they foresee must take place before they can
be ready to approach them. "It is a great advantage," says
Pascal, "to be a man of quality, since it brings one man as
forward at eighteen or twenty as another man would be at fifty,
which is a clear gain of thirty years." Those thirty years are
commonly wanting to the ambitious characters of democracies. The
principle of equality, which allows every man to arrive at
everything, prevents all men from rapid advancement.
In a democratic society, as well as elsewhere, there are
only a certain number of great fortunes to be made; and as the
paths which lead to them are indiscriminately open to all, the
progress of all must necessarily be slackened. As the candidates
appear to be nearly alike, and as it is difficult to make a
selection without infringing the principle of equality, which is
the supreme law of democratic societies, the first idea which
suggests itself is to make them all advance at the same rate and
submit to the same probation. Thus in proportion as men become
more alike, and the principle of equality is more peaceably and
deeply infused into the institutions and manners of the country,
the rules of advancement become more inflexible, advancement
itself slower, the difficulty of arriving quickly at a certain
height far greater. From hatred of privilege and from the
embarrassment of choosing, all men are at last constrained,
whatever may be their standard, to pass the same ordeal; all are
indiscriminately subjected to a multitude of petty preliminary
exercises, in which their youth is wasted and their imagination
quenched, so that they despair of ever fully attaining what is
held out to them; and when at length they are in a condition to
perform any extraordinary acts, the taste for such things has
forsaken them.
In China, where the equality of conditions is exceedingly
great and very ancient, no man passes from one public office to
another without undergoing a probationary trial. This probation
occurs afresh at every stage of his career; and the notion is now
so rooted in the manners of the people that I remember to have
read a Chinese novel, in which the hero, after numberless
crosses, succeeds at length in touching the heart of his mistress
by taking honors. A lofty ambition breathes with difficulty in
such an atmosphere.
The remark I apply to politics extends to everything;
equality everywhere produces the same effects; where the laws of
a country do not regulate and retard the advancement of men by
positive enactment, competition attains the same end. In a
well-established democratic community great and rapid elevation
is therefore rare; it forms an exception to the common rule; and
it is the singularity of such occurrences that makes men forget
how rarely they happen. Men living in democracies ultimately
discover these things; they find out at last that the laws of
their country open a boundless field of action before them, but
that no one can hope to hasten across it. Between them and the
final object of their desires, they perceive a multitude of small
intermediate impediments, which must be slowly surmounted: this
prospect wearies and discourages their ambition at once. They
therefore give up hopes so doubtful and remote, to search nearer
to themselves for less lofty and more easy enjoyments. Their
horizon is not bounded by the laws but narrowed by themselves.
I have remarked that lofty ambitions are more rare in the
ages of democracy than in times of aristocracy: I may add that
when, in spite of these natural obstacles, they do spring into
existence, their character is different. In aristocracies the
career of ambition is often wide, but its boundaries are
determined. In democracies ambition commonly ranges in a
narrower field, but if once it gets beyond that, hardly any
limits can be assigned to it. As men are individually weak - as
they live asunder, and in constant motion - as precedents are of
little authority and laws but of short duration, resistance to
novelty is languid, and the fabric of society never appears
perfectly erect or firmly consolidated. So that, when once an
ambitious man has the power in his grasp, there is nothing he may
noted are; and when it is gone from him, he meditates the
overthrow of the State to regain it. This gives to great
political ambition a character of revolutionary violence, which
it seldom exhibits to an equal degree in aristocratic
communities. The common aspect of democratic nations will
present a great number of small and very rational objects of
ambition, from amongst which a few ill-controlled desires of a
larger growth will at intervals break out: but no such a thing as
ambition conceived and contrived on a vast scale is to be met
with there.
I have shown elsewhere by what secret influence the
principle of equality makes the passion for physical
gratifications and the exclusive love of the present predominate
in the human heart: these different propensities mingle with the
sentiment of ambition, and tinge it, as it were, with their hues.
I believe that ambitious men in democracies are less engrossed
than any others with the interests and the judgment of posterity;
the present moment alone engages and absorbs them. They are more
apt to complete a number of undertakings with rapidity than to
raise lasting monuments of their achievements; and they care much
more for success than for fame. What they most ask of men is
obedience - what they most covet is empire. Their manners have
in almost all cases remained below the height of their station;
the consequence is that they frequently carry very low tastes
into their extraordinary fortunes, and that they seem to have
acquired the supreme power only to minister to their coarse or
paltry pleasures.
I think that in our time it is very necessary to cleanse, to
regulate, and to adapt the feeling of ambition, but that it would
be extremely dangerous to seek to impoverish and to repress it
over-much. We should attempt to lay down certain extreme limits,
which it should never be allowed to outstep; but its range within
those established limits should not be too much checked. I
confess that I apprehend much less for democratic society from
the boldness than from the mediocrity of desires. What appears
to me most to be dreaded is that, in the midst of the small
incessant occupations of private life, ambition should lose its
vigor and its greatness - that the passions of man should abate,
but at the same time be lowered, so that the march of society
should every day become more tranquil and less aspiring. I think
then that the leaders of modern society would be wrong to seek to
lull the community by a state of too uniform and too peaceful
happiness; and that it is well to expose it from time to time to
matters of difficulty and danger, in order to raise ambition and
to give it a field of action. Moralists are constantly
complaining that the ruling vice of the present time is pride.
This is true in one sense, for indeed no one thinks that he is
not better than his neighbor, or consents to obey his superior:
but it is extremely false in another; for the same man who cannot
endure subordination or equality, has so contemptible an opinion
of himself that he thinks he is only born to indulge in vulgar
pleasures. He willingly takes up with low desires, without
daring to embark in lofty enterprises, of which he scarcely
dreams. Thus, far from thinking that humility ought to be
preached to our contemporaries, I would have endeavors made to
give them a more enlarged idea of themselves and of their kind.
Humility is unwholesome to them; what they most want is, in my
opinion, pride. I would willingly exchange several of our small
virtues for this one vice.
Chapter XX: The Trade Of Place-Hunting In Certain Democratic
Countries
In the United States as soon as a man has acquired some
education and pecuniary resources, he either endeavors to get
rich by commerce or industry, or he buys land in the bush and
turns pioneer. All that he asks of the State is not to be
disturbed in his toil, and to be secure of his earnings. Amongst
the greater part of European nations, when a man begins to feel
his strength and to extend his desires, the first thing that
occurs to him is to get some public employment. These opposite
effects, originating in the same cause, deserve our passing
notice.
When public employments are few in number, ill-paid and
precarious, whilst the different lines of business are numerous
and lucrative, it is to business, and not to official duties,
that the new and eager desires engendered by the principle of
equality turn from every side. But if, whilst the ranks of
society are becoming more equal, the education of the people
remains incomplete, or their spirit the reverse of bold - if
commerce and industry, checked in their growth, afford only slow
and arduous means of making a fortune - the various members of
the community, despairing of ameliorating their own condition,
rush to the head of the State and demand its assistance. To
relieve their own necessities at the cost of the public treasury,
appears to them to be the easiest and most open, if not the only,
way they have to rise above a condition which no longer contents
them; place-hunting becomes the most generally followed of all
trades. This must especially be the case, in those great
centralized monarchies in which the number of paid offices is
immense, and the tenure of them tolerably secure, so that no one
despairs of obtaining a place, and of enjoying it as
undisturbedly as a hereditary fortune.
I shall not remark that the universal and inordinate desire
for place is a great social evil; that it destroys the spirit of
independence in the citizen, and diffuses a venal and servile
humor throughout the frame of society; that it stifles the
manlier virtues: nor shall I be at the pains to demonstrate that
this kind of traffic only creates an unproductive activity, which
agitates the country without adding to its resources: all these
things are obvious. But I would observe, that a government which
encourages this tendency risks its own tranquillity, and places
its very existence in great jeopardy. I am aware that at a time
like our own, when the love and respect which formerly clung to
authority are seen gradually to decline, it may appear necessary
to those in power to lay a closer hold on every man by his own
interest, and it may seem convenient to use his own passions to
keep him in order and in silence; but this cannot be so long, and
what may appear to be a source of strength for a certain time
will assuredly become in the end a great cause of embarrassment
and weakness.
Amongst democratic nations, as well as elsewhere, the number
of official appointments has in the end some limits; but amongst
those nations, the number of aspirants is unlimited; it
perpetually increases, with a gradual and irresistible rise in
proportion as social conditions become more equal, and is only
checked by the limits of the population. Thus, when public
employments afford the only outlet for ambition, the government
necessarily meets with a permanent opposition at last; for it is
tasked to satisfy with limited means unlimited desires. It is
very certain that of all people in the world the most difficult
to restrain and to manage are a people of solicitants. Whatever
endeavors are made by rulers, such a people can never be
contented; and it is always to be apprehended that they will
ultimately overturn the constitution of the country, and change
the aspect of the State, for the sole purpose of making a
clearance of places. The sovereigns of the present age, who
strive to fix upon themselves alone all those novel desires which
are aroused by equality, and to satisfy them, will repent in the
end, if I am not mistaken, that they ever embarked in this
policy: they will one day discover that they have hazarded their
own power, by making it so necessary; and that the more safe and
honest course would have been to teach their subjects the art of
providing for themselves. *a
[Footnote a: [As a matter of fact, more recent experience has
shown that place-hunting is quite as intense in the United States
as in any country in Europe. It is regarded by the Americans
themselves as one of the great evils of their social condition,
and it powerfully affects their political institutions. But the
American who seeks a place seeks not so much a means of
subsistence as the distinction which office and public employment
confer. In the absence of any true aristocracy, the public
service creates a spurious one, which is as much an object of
ambition as the distinctions of rank in aristocratic countries. -
Translator's Note.]]
Book Three - Chapters XXI-XXII
Chapter XXI: Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare
A people which has existed for centuries under a system of
castes and classes can only arrive at a democratic state of
society by passing through a long series of more or less critical
transformations, accomplished by violent efforts, and after
numerous vicissitudes; in the course of which, property,
opinions, and power are rapidly transferred from one hand to
another. Even after this great revolution is consummated, the
revolutionary habits engendered by it may long be traced, and it
will be followed by deep commotion. As all this takes place at
the very time at which social conditions are becoming more equal,
it is inferred that some concealed relation and secret tie exist
between the principle of equality itself and revolution, insomuch
that the one cannot exist without giving rise to the other.
On this point reasoning may seem to lead to the same result
as experience. Amongst a people whose ranks are nearly equal, no
ostensible bond connects men together, or keeps them settled in
their station. None of them have either a permanent right or
power to command - none are forced by their condition to obey;
but every man, finding himself possessed of some education and
some resources, may choose his won path and proceed apart from
all his fellow-men. The same causes which make the members of
the community independent of each other, continually impel them
to new and restless desires, and constantly spur them onwards.
It therefore seems natural that, in a democratic community, men,
things, and opinions should be forever changing their form and
place, and that democratic ages should be times of rapid and
incessant transformation.
But is this really the case? does the equality of social
conditions habitually and permanently lead men to revolution?
does that state of society contain some perturbing principle
which prevents the community from ever subsiding into calm, and
disposes the citizens to alter incessantly their laws, their
principles, and their manners? I do not believe it; and as the
subject is important, I beg for the reader's close attention.
Almost all the revolutions which have changed the aspect of
nations have been made to consolidate or to destroy social
inequality. Remove the secondary causes which have produced the
great convulsions of the world, and you will almost always find
the principle of inequality at the bottom. Either the poor have
attempted to plunder the rich, or the rich to enslave the poor.
If then a state of society can ever be founded in which every man
shall have something to keep, and little to take from others,
much will have been done for the peace of the world. I am aware
that amongst a great democratic people there will always be some
members of the community in great poverty, and others in great
opulence; but the poor, instead of forming the immense majority
of the nation, as is always the case in aristocratic communities,
are comparatively few in number, and the laws do not bind them
together by the ties of irremediable and hereditary penury. The
wealthy, on their side, are scarce and powerless; they have no
privileges which attract public observation; even their wealth,
as it is no longer incorporated and bound up with the soil, is
impalpable, and as it were invisible. As there is no longer a
race of poor men, so there is no longer a race of rich men; the
latter spring up daily from the multitude, and relapse into it
again. Hence they do not form a distinct class, which may be
easily marked out and plundered; and, moreover, as they are
connected with the mass of their fellow-citizens by a thousand
secret ties, the people cannot assail them without inflicting an
injury upon itself. Between these two extremes of democratic
communities stand an innumerable multitude of men almost alike,
who, without being exactly either rich or poor, are possessed of
sufficient property to desire the maintenance of order, yet not
enough to excite envy. Such men are the natural enemies of
violent commotions: their stillness keeps all beneath them and
above them still, and secures the balance of the fabric of
society. Not indeed that even these men are contented with what
they have gotten, or that they feel a natural abhorrence for a
revolution in which they might share the spoil without sharing
the calamity; on the contrary, they desire, with unexampled
ardor, to get rich, but the difficulty is to know from whom
riches can be taken. The same state of society which constantly
prompts desires, restrains these desires within necessary limits:
it gives men more liberty of changing and less interest in
change.
Not only are the men of democracies not naturally desirous
of revolutions, but they are afraid of them. All revolutions
more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those
who live in democratic countries are possessed of property - not
only are they possessed of property, but they live in the
condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.
If we attentively consider each of the classes of which society
is composed, it is easy to see that the passions engendered by
property are keenest and most tenacious amongst the middle
classes. The poor often care but little for what they possess,
because they suffer much more from the want of what they have
not, than they enjoy the little they have. The rich have many
other passions besides that of riches to satisfy; and, besides,
the long and arduous enjoyment of a great fortune sometimes makes
them in the end insensible to its charms. But the men who have a
competency, alike removed from opulence and from penury, attach
an enormous value to their possessions. As they are still almost
within the reach of poverty, they see its privations near at
hand, and dread them; between poverty and themselves there is
nothing but a scanty fortune, upon which they immediately fix
their apprehensions and their hopes. Every day increases the
interest they take in it, by the constant cares which it
occasions; and they are the more attached to it by their
continual exertions to increase the amount. The notion of
surrendering the smallest part of it is insupportable to them,
and they consider its total loss as the worst of misfortunes.
Now these eager and apprehensive men of small property constitute
the class which is constantly increased by the equality of
conditions. Hence, in democratic communities, the majority of
the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a
revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that
they might lose by one.
I have shown in another part of this work that the equality
of conditions naturally urges men to embark in commercial and
industrial pursuits, and that it tends to increase and to
distribute real property: I have also pointed out the means by
which it inspires every man with an eager and constant desire to
increase his welfare. Nothing is more opposed to revolutionary
passions than these things. It may happen that the final result
of a revolution is favorable to commerce and manufactures; but
its first consequence will almost always be the ruin of
manufactures and mercantile men, because it must always change at
once the general principles of consumption, and temporarily upset
the existing proportion between supply and demand. I know of
nothing more opposite to revolutionary manners than commercial
manners. Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent
passions; it loves to temporize, takes delight in compromise, and
studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating,
flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until
obliged by the most absolute necessity. Commerce renders men
independent of each other, gives them a lofty notion of their
personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own
affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore
prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions.
In a revolution the owners of personal property have more to fear
than all others; for on the one hand their property is often easy
to seize, and on the other it may totally disappear at any moment
- a subject of alarm to which the owners of real property are
less exposed, since, although they may lose the income of their
estates, they may hope to preserve the land itself through the
greatest vicissitudes. Hence the former are much more alarmed at
the symptoms of revolutionary commotion than the latter. Thus
nations are less disposed to make revolutions in proportion as
personal property is augmented and distributed amongst them, and
as the number of those possessing it increases. Moreover,
whatever profession men may embrace, and whatever species of
property they may possess, one characteristic is common to them
all. No one is fully contented with his present fortune - all
are perpetually striving in a thousand ways to improve it.
Consider any one of them at any period of his life, and he will
be found engaged with some new project for the purpose of
increasing what he has; talk not to him of the interests and the
rights of mankind: this small domestic concern absorbs for the
time all his thoughts, and inclines him to defer political
excitement to some other season. This not only prevents men from
making revolutions, but deters men from desiring them. Violent
political passions have but little hold on those who have devoted
all their faculties to the pursuit of their well-being. The
ardor which they display in small matters calms their zeal for
momentous undertakings.
From time to time indeed, enterprising and ambitious men
will arise in democratic communities, whose unbounded aspirations
cannot be contented by following the beaten track. Such men like
revolutions and hail their approach; but they have great
difficulty in bringing them about, unless unwonted events come to
their assistance. No man can struggle with advantage against the
spirit of his age and country; and, however powerful he may be
supposed to be, he will find it difficult to make his
contemporaries share in feelings and opinions which are repugnant
to t all their feelings and desires.
It is a mistake to believe that, when once the equality of
conditions has become the old and uncontested state of society,
and has imparted its characteristics to the manners of a nation,
men will easily allow themselves to be thrust into perilous risks
by an imprudent leader or a bold innovator. Not indeed that they
will resist him openly, by well-contrived schemes, or even by a
premeditated plan of resistance. They will not struggle
energetically against him, sometimes they will even applaud him -
but they do not follow him. To his vehemence they secretly
oppose their inertia; to his revolutionary tendencies their
conservative interests; their homely tastes to his adventurous
passions; their good sense to the flights of his genius; to his
poetry their prose. With immense exertion he raises them for an
instant, but they speedily escape from him, and fall back, as it
were, by their own weight. He strains himself to rouse the
indifferent and distracted multitude, and finds at last that he
is reduced to impotence, not because he is conquered, but because
he is alone.
I do not assert that men living in democratic communities
are naturally stationary; I think, on the contrary, that a
perpetual stir prevails in the bosom of those societies, and that
rest is unknown there; but I think that men bestir themselves
within certain limits beyond which they hardly ever go. They are
forever varying, altering, and restoring secondary matters; but
they carefully abstain from touching what is fundamental. They
love change, but they dread revolutions. Although the Americans
are constantly modifying or abrogating some of their laws, they
by no means display revolutionary passions. It may be easily
seen, from the promptitude with which they check and calm
themselves when public excitement begins to grow alarming, and at
the very moment when passions seem most roused, that they dread a
revolution as the worst of misfortunes, and that every one of
them is inwardly resolved to make great sacrifices to avoid such
a catastrophe. In no country in the world is the love of
property more active and more anxious than in the United States;
nowhere does the majority display less inclination for those
principles which threaten to alter, in whatever manner, the laws
of property. I have often remarked that theories which are of a
revolutionary nature, since they cannot be put in practice
without a complete and sometimes a sudden change in the state of
property and persons, are much less favorably viewed in the
United States than in the great monarchical countries of Europe:
if some men profess them, the bulk of the people reject them with
instinctive abhorrence. I do not hesitate to say that most of
the maxims commonly called democratic in France would be
proscribed by the democracy of the United States. This may
easily be understood: in America men have the opinions and
passions of democracy, in Europe we have still the passions and
opinions of revolution. If ever America undergoes great
revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the
black race on the soil of the United States -that is to say, they
will owe their origin, not to the equality, but to the
inequality, of conditions.
When social conditions are equal, every man is apt to live
apart, centred in himself and forgetful of the public. If the
rulers of democratic nations were either to neglect to correct
this fatal tendency, or to encourage it from a notion that it
weans men from political passions and thus wards off revolutions,
they might eventually produce the evil they seek to avoid, and a
time might come when the inordinate passions of a few men, aided
by the unintelligent selfishness or the pusillanimity of the
greater number, would ultimately compel society to pass through
strange vicissitudes. In democratic communities revolutions are
seldom desired except by a minority; but a minority may sometimes
effect them. I do not assert that democratic nations are secure
from revolutions; I merely say that the state of society in those
nations does not lead to revolutions, but rather wards them off.
A democratic people left to itself will not easily embark in
great hazards; it is only led to revolutions unawares; it may
sometimes undergo them, but it does not make them; and I will add
that, when such a people has been allowed to acquire sufficient
knowledge and experience, it will not suffer them to be made. I
am well aware that it this respect public institutions may
themselves do much; they may encourage or repress the tendencies
which originate in the state of society. I therefore do not
maintain, I repeat, that a people is secure from revolutions
simply because conditions are equal in the community; but I think
that, whatever the institutions of such a people may be, great
revolutions will always be far less violent and less frequent
than is supposed; and I can easily discern a state of polity,
which, when combined with the principle of equality, would render
society more stationary than it has ever been in our western
apart of the world.
The observations I have here made on events may also be
applied in part to opinions. Two things are surprising in the
United States - the mutability of the greater part of human
actions, and the singular stability of certain principles. Men
are in constant motion; the mind of man appears almost unmoved.
When once an opinion has spread over the country and struck root
there, it would seem that no power on earth is strong enough to
eradicate it. In the United States, general principles in
religion, philosophy, morality, and even politics, do not vary,
or at least are only modified by a hidden and often an
imperceptible process: even the grossest prejudices are
obliterated with incredible slowness, amidst the continual
friction of men and things. I hear it said that it is in the
nature and the habits of democracies to be constantly changing
their opinions and feelings. This may be true of small
democratic nations, like those of the ancient world, in which the
whole community could be assembled in a public place and then
excited at will by an orator. But I saw nothing of the kind
amongst the great democratic people which dwells upon the
opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean. What struck me in the
United States was the difficulty in shaking the majority in an
opinion once conceived, or of drawing it off from a leader once
adopted. Neither speaking nor writing can accomplish it; nothing
but experience will avail, and even experience must be repeated.
This is surprising at first sight, but a more attentive
investigation explains the fact. I do not think that it is as
easy as is supposed to uproot the prejudices of a democratic
people - to change its belief - to supersede principles once
established, by new principles in religion, politics, and morals
- in a word, to make great and frequent changes in men's minds.
Not that the human mind is there at rest -it is in constant
agitation; but it is engaged in infinitely varying the
consequences of known principles, and in seeking for new
consequences, rather than in seeking for new principles. Its
motion is one of rapid circumvolution, rather than of
straightforward impulse by rapid and direct effort; it extends
its orbit by small continual and hasty movements, but it does not
suddenly alter its position.
Men who are equal in rights, in education, in fortune, or,
to comprise all in one word, in their social condition, have
necessarily wants, habits, and tastes which are hardly
dissimilar. As they look at objects under the same aspect, their
minds naturally tend to analogous conclusions; and, though each
of them may deviate from his contemporaries and from opinions of
his own, they will involuntarily and unconsciously concur in a
certain number of received opinions. The more attentively I
consider the effects of equality upon the mind, the more am I
persuaded that the intellectual anarchy which we witness about us
is not, as many men suppose, the natural state of democratic
nations. I think it is rather to be regarded as an accident
peculiar to their youth, and that it only breaks out at that
period of transition when men have already snapped the former
ties which bound them together, but are still amazingly different
in origin, education, and manners; so that, having retained
opinions, propensities and tastes of great diversity, nothing any
longer prevents men from avowing them openly. The leading
opinions of men become similar in proportion as their conditions
assimilate; such appears to me to be the general and permanent
law - the rest is casual and transient.
I believe that it will rarely happen to any man amongst a
democratic community, suddenly to frame a system of notions very
remote from that which his contemporaries have adopted; and if
some such innovator appeared, I apprehend that he would have
great difficulty in finding listeners, still more in finding
believers. When the conditions of men are almost equal, they do
not easily allow themselves to be persuaded by each other. As
they all live in close intercourse, as they have learned the same
things together, and as they lead the same life, they are not
naturally disposed to take one of themselves for a guide, and to
follow him implicitly. Men seldom take the opinion of their
equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust. Not only is
confidence in the superior attainments of certain individuals
weakened amongst democratic nations, as I have elsewhere
remarked, but the general notion of the intellectual superiority
which any man whatsoever may acquire in relation to the rest of
the community is soon overshadowed. As men grow more like each
other, the doctrine of the equality of the intellect gradually
infuses itself into their opinions; and it becomes more difficult
for any innovator to acquire or to exert much influence over the
minds of a people. In such communities sudden intellectual
revolutions will therefore be rare; for, if we read aright the
history of the world, we shall find that great and rapid changes
in human opinions have been produced far less by the force of
reasoning than by the authority of a name. Observe, too, that as
the men who live in democratic societies are not connected with
each other by any tie, each of them must be convinced
individually; whilst in aristocratic society it is enough to
convince a few - the rest follow. If Luther had lived in an age
of equality, and had not had princes and potentates for his
audience, he would perhaps have found it more difficult to change
the aspect of Europe. Not indeed that the men of democracies are
naturally strongly persuaded of the certainty of their opinions,
or are unwavering in belief; they frequently entertain doubts
which no one, in their eyes, can remove. It sometimes happens at
such times that the human mind would willingly change its
position; but as nothing urges or guides it forwards, it
oscillates to and fro without progressive motion. *a
[Footnote a: If I inquire what state of society is most favorable
to the great revolutions of the mind, I find that it occurs
somewhere between the complete equality of the whole community
and the absolute separation of ranks. Under a system of castes
generations succeed each other without altering men's positions;
some have nothing more, others nothing better, to hope for. The
imagination slumbers amidst this universal silence and stillness,
and the very idea of change fades from the human mind. When
ranks have been abolished and social conditions are almost
equalized, all men are in ceaseless excitement, but each of them
stands alone, independent and weak. This latter state of things
is excessively different from the former one; yet it has one
point of analogy - great revolutions of the human mind seldom
occur in it. But between these two extremes of the history of
nations is an intermediate period - a period as glorious as it is
agitated - when the conditions of men are not sufficiently
settled for the mind to be lulled in torpor, when they are
sufficiently unequal for men to exercise a vast power on the
minds of one another, and when some few may modify the
convictions of all. It is at such times that great reformers
start up, and new opinions suddenly change the face of the
world.]
Even when the reliance of a democratic people has been won,
it is still no easy matter to gain their attention. It is
extremely difficult to obtain a hearing from men living in
democracies, unless it be to speak to them of themselves. They
do not attend to the things said to them, because they are always
fully engrossed with the things they are doing. For indeed few
men are idle in democratic nations; life is passed in the midst
of noise and excitement, and men are so engaged in acting that
little remains to them for thinking. I would especially remark
that they are not only employed, but that they are passionately
devoted to their employments. They are always in action, and
each of their actions absorbs their faculties: the zeal which
they display in business puts out the enthusiasm they might
otherwise entertain for idea. I think that it is extremely
difficult to excite the enthusiasm of a democratic people for any
theory which has not a palpable, direct, and immediate connection
with the daily occupations of life: therefore they will not
easily forsake their old opinions; for it is enthusiasm which
flings the minds of men out of the beaten track, and effects the
great revolutions of the intellect as well as the great
revolutions of the political world. Thus democratic nations have
neither time nor taste to go in search of novel opinions. Even
when those they possess become doubtful, they still retain them,
because it would take too much time and inquiry to change them -
they retain them, not as certain, but as established.
There are yet other and more cogent reasons which prevent
any great change from being easily effected in the principles of
a democratic people. I have already adverted to them at the
commencement of this part of my work. If the influence of
individuals is weak and hardly perceptible amongst such a people,
the power exercised by the mass upon the mind of each individual
is extremely great - I have already shown for what reasons. I
would now observe that it is wrong to suppose that this depends
solely upon the form of government, and that the majority would
lose its intellectual supremacy if it were to lose its political
power. In aristocracies men have often much greatness and
strength of their own: when they find themselves at variance with
the greater number of their fellow-countrymen, they withdraw to
their own circle, where they support and console themselves.
Such is not the case in a democratic country; there public favor
seems as necessary as the air we breathe, and to live at variance
with the multitude is, as it were, not to live. The multitude
requires no laws to coerce those who think not like itself:
public disapprobation is enough; a sense of their loneliness and
impotence overtakes them and drives them to despair.
Whenever social conditions are equal, public opinion presses
with enormous weight upon the mind of each individual; it
surrounds, directs, and oppresses him; and this arises from the
very constitution of society, much more than from its political
laws. As men grow more alike, each man feels himself weaker in
regard to all the rest; as he discerns nothing by which he is
considerably raised above them, or distinguished from them, he
mistrusts himself as soon as they assail him. Not only does he
mistrust his strength, but he even doubts of his right; and he is
very near acknowledging that he is in the wrong, when the greater
number of his countrymen assert that he is so. The majority do
not need to constrain him - they convince him. In whatever way
then the powers of a democratic community may be organized and
balanced, it will always be extremely difficult to believe what
the bulk of the people reject, or to profess what they condemn.
This circumstance is extraordinarily favorable to the
stability of opinions. When an opinion has taken root amongst a
democratic people, and established itself in the minds of the
bulk of the community, it afterwards subsists by itself and is
maintained without effort, because no one attacks it. Those who
at first rejected it as false, ultimately receive it as the
general impression; and those who still dispute it in their
hearts, conceal their dissent; they are careful not to engage in
a dangerous and useless conflict. It is true, that when the
majority of a democratic people change their opinions, they may
suddenly and arbitrarily effect strange revolutions in men's
minds; but their opinions do not change without much difficulty,
and it is almost as difficult to show that they are changed.
Time, events, or the unaided individual action of the mind,
will sometimes undermine or destroy an opinion, without any
outward sign of the change. It has not been openly assailed, no
conspiracy has been formed to make war on it, but its followers
one by one noiselessly secede - day by day a few of them abandon
it, until last it is only professed by a minority. In this state
it will still continue to prevail. As its enemies remain mute,
or only interchange their thoughts by stealth, they are
themselves unaware for a long period that a great revolution has
actually been effected; and in this state of uncertainly they
take no steps -they observe each other and are silent. The
majority have ceased to believe what they believed before; but
they still affect to believe, and this empty phantom of public
opinion in strong enough to chill innovators, and to keep them
silent and at respectful distance. We live at a time which has
witnessed the most rapid changes of opinion in the minds of men;
nevertheless it may be that the leading opinions of society will
ere long be more settled than they have been for several
centuries in our history: that time is not yet come, but it may
perhaps be approaching. As I examine more closely the natural
wants and tendencies of democratic nations, I grow persuaded that
if ever social equality is generally and permanently established
in the world, great intellectual and political revolutions will
become more difficult and less frequent than is supposed. Because
the men of democracies appear always excited, uncertain, eager,
changeable in their wills and in their positions, it is imagined
that they are suddenly to abrogate their laws, to adopt new
opinions, and to assume new manners. But if the principle of
equality predisposes men to change, it also suggests to them
certain interests and tastes which cannot be satisfied without a
settled order of things; equality urges them on, but at the same
time it holds them back; it spurs them, but fastens them to
earth; - it kindles their desires, but limits their powers. This,
however, is not perceived at first; the passions which tend to
sever the citizens of a democracy are obvious enough; but the
hidden force which restrains and unites them is not discernible
at a glance.
Amidst the ruins which surround me, shall I dare to say that
revolutions are not what I most fear coming generations? If men
continue to shut themselves more closely within the narrow circle
of domestic interests and to live upon that kind of excitement,
it is to be apprehended that they may ultimately become
inaccessible to those great and powerful public emotions which
perturb nations - but which enlarge them and recruit them. When
property becomes so fluctuating, and the love of property so
restless and so ardent, I cannot but fear that men may arrive at
such a state as to regard every new theory as a peril, every
innovation as an irksome toil, every social improvement as a
stepping-stone to revolution, and so refuse to move altogether
for fear of being moved too far. I dread, and I confess it, lest
they should at last so entirely give way to a cowardly love of
present enjoyment, as to lose sight of the interests of their
future selves and of those of their descendants; and to prefer to
glide along the easy current of life, rather than to make, when
it is necessary, a strong and sudden effort to a higher purpose.
It is believed by some that modern society will be ever changing
its aspect; for myself, I fear that it will ultimately be too
invariably fixed in the same institutions, the same prejudices,
the same manners, so that mankind will be stopped and
circumscribed; that the mind will swing backwards and forwards
forever, without begetting fresh ideas; that man will waste his
strength in bootless and solitary trifling; and, though in
continual motion, that humanity will cease to advance.
Chapter XXII: Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous Of
Peace, And Democratic Armies Of War
The same interests, the same fears, the same passions which
deter democratic nations from revolutions, deter them also from
war; the spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution
are weakened at the same time and by the same causes. The ever-
increasing numbers of men of property - lovers of peace, the
growth of personal wealth which war so rapidly consumes, the
mildness of manners, the gentleness of heart, those tendencies to
pity which are engendered by the equality of conditions, that
coolness of understanding which renders men comparatively
insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of arms - all
these causes concur to quench the military spirit. I think it may
be admitted as a general and constant rule, that, amongst
civilized nations, the warlike passions will become more rare and
less intense in proportion as social conditions shall be more
equal. War is nevertheless an occurrence to which all nations
are subject, democratic nations as well as others. Whatever
taste they may have for peace, they must hold themselves in
readiness to repel aggression, or in other words they must have
an army.
Fortune, which has conferred so many peculiar benefits upon
the inhabitants of the United States, has placed them in the
midst of a wilderness, where they have, so to speak, no
neighbors: a few thousand soldiers are sufficient for their
wants; but this is peculiar to America, not to democracy. The
equality of conditions, and the manners as well as the
institutions resulting from it, do not exempt a democratic people
from the necessity of standing armies, and their armies always
exercise a powerful influence over their fate. It is therefore
of singular importance to inquire what are the natural
propensities of the men of whom these armies are composed.
Amongst aristocratic nations, especially amongst those in
which birth is the only source of rank, the same inequality
exists in the army as in the nation; the officer is noble, the
soldier is a serf; the one is naturally called upon to command,
the other to obey. In aristocratic armies, the private soldier's
ambition is therefore circumscribed within very narrow limits.
Nor has the ambition of the officer an unlimited range. An
aristocratic body not only forms a part of the scale of ranks in
the nation, but it contains a scale of ranks within itself: the
members of whom it is composed are placed one above another, in a
particular and unvarying manner. Thus one man is born to the
command of a regiment, another to that of a company; when once
they have reached the utmost object of their hopes, they stop of
their own accord, and remain contented with their lot. There is,
besides, a strong cause, which, in aristocracies, weakens the
officer's desire of promotion. Amongst aristocratic nations, an
officer, independently of his rank in the army, also occupies an
elevated rank in society; the former is almost always in his eyes
only an appendage to the latter. A nobleman who embraces the
profession of arms follows it less from motives of ambition than
from a sense of the duties imposed on him by his birth. He
enters the army in order to find an honorable employment for the
idle years of his youth, and to be able to bring back to his home
and his peers some honorable recollections of military life; but
his principal object is not to obtain by that profession either
property, distinction, or power, for he possesses these
advantages in his own right, and enjoys them without leaving his
home.
In democratic armies all the soldiers may become officers,
which makes the desire of promotion general, and immeasurably
extends the bounds of military ambition. The officer, on his
part, sees nothing which naturally and necessarily stops him at
one grade more than at another; and each grade has immense
importance in his eyes, because his rank in society almost always
depends on his rank in the army. Amongst democratic nations it
often happens that an officer has no property but his pay, and no
distinction but that of military honors: consequently as often as
his duties change, his fortune changes, and he becomes, as it
were, a new man. What was only an appendage to his position in
aristocratic armies, has thus become the main point, the basis of
his whole condition. Under the old French monarchy officers were
always called by their titles of nobility; they are now always
called by the title of their military rank. This little change
in the forms of language suffices to show that a great revolution
has taken place in the constitution of society and in that of the
army. In democratic armies the desire of advancement is almost
universal: it is ardent, tenacious, perpetual; it is strengthened
by all other desires, and only extinguished with life itself. But
it is easy to see, that of all armies in the world, those in
which advancement must be slowest in time of peace are the armies
of democratic countries. As the number of commissions is
naturally limited, whilst the number of competitors is almost
unlimited, and as the strict law of equality is over all alike,
none can make rapid progress - many can make no progress at all.
Thus the desire of advancement is greater, and the opportunities
of advancement fewer, there than elsewhere. All the ambitious
spirits of a democratic army are consequently ardently desirous
of war, because war makes vacancies, and warrants the violation
of that law of seniority which is the sole privilege natural to
democracy.
We thus arrive at this singular consequence, that of all
armies those most ardently desirous of war are democratic armies,
and of all nations those most fond of peace are democratic
nations: and, what makes these facts still more extraordinary, is
that these contrary effects are produced at the same time by the
principle of equality.
All the members of the community, being alike, constantly
harbor the wish, and discover the possibility, of changing their
condition and improving their welfare: this makes them fond of
peace, which is favorable to industry, and allows every man to
pursue his own little undertakings to their completion. On the
other hand, this same equality makes soldiers dream of fields of
battle, by increasing the value of military honors in the eyes of
those who follow the profession of arms, and by rendering those
honors accessible to all. In either case the inquietude of the
heart is the same, the taste for enjoyment as insatiable, the
ambition of success as great - the means of gratifying it are
alone different.
These opposite tendencies of the nation and the army expose
democratic communities to great dangers. When a military spirit
forsakes a people, the profession of arms immediately ceases to
be held in honor, and military men fall to the lowest rank of the
public servants: they are little esteemed, and no longer
understood. The reverse of what takes place in aristocratic ages
then occurs; the men who enter the army are no longer those of
the highest, but of the lowest rank. Military ambition is only
indulged in when no other is possible. Hence arises a circle of
cause and consequence from which it is difficult to escape: the
best part of the nation shuns the military profession because
that profession is not honored, and the profession is not honored
because the best part of the nation has ceased to follow it. It
is then no matter of surprise that democratic armies are often
restless, ill-tempered, and dissatisfied with their lot, although
their physical condition is commonly far better, and their
discipline less strict than in other countries. The soldier
feels that he occupies an inferior position, and his wounded
pride either stimulates his taste for hostilities which would
render his services necessary, or gives him a turn for
revolutions, during which he may hope to win by force of arms the
political influence and personal importance now denied him. The
composition of democratic armies makes this last-mentioned danger
much to be feared. In democratic communities almost every man
has some property to preserve; but democratic armies are
generally led by men without property, most of whom have little
to lose in civil broils. The bulk of the nation is naturally
much more afraid of revolutions than in the ages of aristocracy,
but the leaders of the army much less so.
Moreover, as amongst democratic nations (to repeat what I
have just remarked) the wealthiest, the best educated, and the
most able men seldom adopt the military profession, the army,
taken collectively, eventually forms a small nation by itself,
where the mind is less enlarged, and habits are more rude than in
the nation at large. Now, this small uncivilized nation has arms
in its possession, and alone knows how to use them: for, indeed,
the pacific temper of the community increases the danger to which
a democratic people is exposed from the military and turbulent
spirit of the army. Nothing is so dangerous as an army amidst an
unwarlike nation; the excessive love of the whole community for
quiet continually puts its constitution at the mercy of the
soldiery. It may therefore be asserted, generally speaking, that
if democratic nations are naturally prone to peace from their
interests and their propensities, they are constantly drawn to
war and revolutions by their armies. Military revolutions, which
are scarcely ever to be apprehended in aristocracies, are always
to be dreaded amongst democratic nations. These perils must be
reckoned amongst the most formidable which beset their future
fate, and the attention of statesmen should be sedulously applied
to find a remedy for the evil.
When a nation perceives that it is inwardly affected by the
restless ambition of its army, the first thought which occurs is
to give this inconvenient ambition an object by going to war. I
speak no ill of war: war almost always enlarges the mind of a
people, and raises their character. In some cases it is the only
check to the excessive growth of certain propensities which
naturally spring out of the equality of conditions, and it must
be considered as a necessary corrective to certain inveterate
diseases to which democratic communities are liable. War has
great advantages, but we must not flatter ourselves that it can
diminish the danger I have just pointed out. That peril is only
suspended by it, to return more fiercely when the war is over;
for armies are much more impatient of peace after having tasted
military exploits. War could only be a remedy for a people which
should always be athirst for military glory. I foresee that all
the military rulers who may rise up in great democratic nations,
will find it easier to conquer with their armies, than to make
their armies live at peace after conquest. There are two things
which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to
begin a war, and to end it.
Again, if war has some peculiar advantages for democratic
nations, on the other hand it exposes them to certain dangers
which aristocracies have no cause to dread to an equal extent. I
shall only point out two of these. Although war gratifies the
army, it embarrasses and often exasperates that countless
multitude of men whose minor passions every day require peace in
order to be satisfied. Thus there is some risk of its causing,
under another form, the disturbance it is intended to prevent.
No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a
democratic country. Not indeed that after every victory it is to
be apprehended that the victorious generals will possess
themselves by force of the supreme power, after the manner of
Sylla and Caesar: the danger is of another kind. War does not
always give over democratic communities to military government,
but it must invariably and immeasurably increase the powers of
civil government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the
direction of all men and the management of all things in the
hands of the administration. If it lead not to despotism by
sudden violence, it prepares men for it more gently by their
habits. All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a
democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the
shortest means to accomplish it. This is the first axiom of the
science.
One remedy, which appears to be obvious when the ambition of
soldiers and officers becomes the subject of alarm, is to augment
the number of commissions to be distributed by increasing the
army. This affords temporary relief, but it plunges the country
into deeper difficulties at some future period. To increase the
army may produce a lasting effect in an aristocratic community,
because military ambition is there confined to one class of men,
and the ambition of each individual stops, as it were, at a
certain limit; so that it may be possible to satisfy all who feel
its influence. But nothing is gained by increasing the army
amongst a democratic people, because the number of aspirants
always rises in exactly the same ratio as the army itself. Those
whose claims have been satisfied by the creation of new
commissions are instantly succeeded by a fresh multitude beyond
all power of satisfaction; and even those who were but now
satisfied soon begin to crave more advancement; for the same
excitement prevails in the ranks of the army as in the civil
classes of democratic society, and what men want is not to reach
a certain grade, but to have constant promotion. Though these
wants may not be very vast, they are perpetually recurring. Thus
a democratic nation, by augmenting its army, only allays for a
time the ambition of the military profession, which soon becomes
even more formidable, because the number of those who feel it is
increased. I am of opinion that a restless and turbulent spirit
is an evil inherent in the very constitution of democratic
armies, and beyond hope of cure. The legislators of democracies
must not expect to devise any military organization capable by
its influence of calming and restraining the military profession:
their efforts would exhaust their powers, before the object is
attained.
The remedy for the vices of the army is not to be found in
the army itself, but in the country. Democratic nations are
naturally afraid of disturbance and of despotism; the object is
to turn these natural instincts into well-digested, deliberate,
and lasting tastes. When men have at last learned to make a
peaceful and profitable use of freedom, and have felt its
blessings - when they have conceived a manly love of order, and
have freely submitted themselves to discipline - these same men,
if they follow the profession of arms, bring into it,
unconsciously and almost against their will, these same habits
and manners. The general spirit of the nation being infused into
the spirit peculiar to the army, tempers the opinions and desires
engendered by military life, or represses them by the mighty
force of public opinion. Teach but the citizens to be educated,
orderly, firm, and free, the soldiers will be disciplined and
obedient. Any law which, in repressing the turbulent spirit of
the army, should tend to diminish the spirit of freedom in the
nation, and to overshadow the notion of law and right, would
defeat its object: it would do much more to favor, than to
defeat, the establishment of military tyranny.
After all, and in spite of all precautions, a large army
amidst a democratic people will always be a source of great
danger; the most effectual means of diminishing that danger would
be to reduce the army, but this is a remedy which all nations
have it not in their power to use.
Book Three - Chapters XXIII-XVI
Chapter XXIII: Which Is The Most Warlike And Most Revolutionary
Class In Democratic Armies?
It is a part of the essence of a democratic army to be very
numerous in proportion to the people to which it belongs, as I
shall hereafter show. On the other hand, men living in
democratic times seldom choose a military life. Democratic
nations are therefore soon led to give up the system of voluntary
recruiting for that of compulsory enlistment. The necessity of
their social condition compels them to resort to the latter
means, and it may easily be foreseen that they will all
eventually adopt it. When military service is compulsory, the
burden is indiscriminately and equally borne by the whole
community. This is another necessary consequence of the social
condition of these nations, and of their notions. The government
may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it appeals to the
whole community at once: it is the unequal distribution of the
weight, not the weight itself, which commonly occasions
resistance. But as military service is common to all the
citizens, the evident consequence is that each of them remains
but for a few years on active duty. Thus it is in the nature of
things that the soldier in democracies only passes through the
army, whilst among most aristocratic nations the military
profession is one which the soldier adopts, or which is imposed
upon him, for life.
This has important consequences. Amongst the soldiers of a
democratic army, some acquire a taste for military life, but the
majority, being enlisted against their will, and ever ready to go
back to their homes, do not consider themselves as seriously
engaged in the military profession, and are always thinking of
quitting it. Such men do not contract the wants, and only half
partake in the passions, which that mode of life engenders. They
adapt themselves to their military duties, but their minds are
still attached to the interests and the duties which engaged them
in civil life. They do not therefore imbibe the spirit of the
army - or rather, they infuse the spirit of the community at
large into the army, and retain it there. Amongst democratic
nations the private soldiers remain most like civilians: upon
them the habits of the nation have the firmest hold, and public
opinion most influence. It is by the instrumentality of the
private soldiers especially that it may be possible to infuse
into a democratic army the love of freedom and the respect of
rights, if these principles have once been successfully
inculcated on the people at large. The reverse happens amongst
aristocratic nations, where the soldiery have eventually nothing
in common with their fellow-citizens, and where they live amongst
them as strangers, and often as enemies. In aristocratic armies
the officers are the conservative element, because the officers
alone have retained a strict connection with civil society, and
never forego their purpose of resuming their place in it sooner
or later: in democratic armies the private soldiers stand in this
position, and from the same cause.
It often happens, on the contrary, that in these same
democratic armies the officers contract tastes and wants wholly
distinct from those of the nation - a fact which may be thus
accounted for. Amongst democratic nations, the man who becomes
an officer severs all the ties which bound him to civil life; he
leaves it forever; he has no interest to resume it. His true
country is the army, since he owes all he has to the rank he has
attained in it; he therefore follows the fortunes of the army,
rises or sinks with it, and henceforward directs all his hopes to
that quarter only. As the wants of an officer are distinct from
those of the country, he may perhaps ardently desire war, or
labor to bring about a revolution at the very moment when the
nation is most desirous of stability and peace. There are,
nevertheless, some causes which allay this restless and warlike
spirit. Though ambition is universal and continual amongst
democratic nations, we have seen that it is seldom great. A man
who, being born in the lower classes of the community, has risen
from the ranks to be an officer, has already taken a prodigious
step. He has gained a footing in a sphere above that which he
filled in civil life, and he has acquired rights which most
democratic nations will ever consider as inalienable. *a He is
willing to pause after so great an effort, and to enjoy what he
has won. The fear of risking what he has already obtained damps
the desire of acquiring what he has not got. Having conquered the
first and greatest impediment which opposed his advancement, he
resigns himself with less impatience to the slowness of his
progress. His ambition will be more and more cooled in
proportion as the increasing distinction of his rank teaches him
that he has more to put in jeopardy. If I am not mistaken, the
least warlike, and also the least revolutionary part, of a
democratic army, will always be its chief commanders.
[Footnote a: The position of officers is indeed much more secure
amongst democratic nations than elsewhere; the lower the personal
standing of the man, the greater is the comparative importance of
his military grade, and the more just and necessary is it that
the enjoyment of that rank should be secured by the laws.]
But the remarks I have just made on officers and soldiers
are not applicable to a numerous class which in all armies fills
the intermediate space between them - I mean the class of non-
commissioned officers. This class of non-commissioned officers
which have never acted a part in history until the present
century, is henceforward destined, I think, to play one of some
importance. Like the officers, non-commissioned officers have
broken, in their minds, all the ties which bound them to civil
life; like the former, they devote themselves permanently to the
service, and perhaps make it even more exclusively the object of
all their desires: but non-commissioned officers are men who have
not yet reached a firm and lofty post at which they may pause and
breathe more freely, ere they can attain further promotion. By
the very nature of his duties, which is invariable, a
non-commissioned officer is doomed to lead an obscure, confined,
comfortless, and precarious existence; as yet he sees nothing of
military life but its dangers; he knows nothing but its
privations and its discipline - more difficult to support than
dangers: he suffers the more from his present miseries, from
knowing that the constitution of society and of the army allow
him to rise above them; he may, indeed, at any time obtain his
commission, and enter at once upon command, honors, independence,
rights, and enjoyments. Not only does this object of his hopes
appear to him of immense importance, but he is never sure of
reaching it till it is actually his own; the grade he fills is by
no means irrevocable; he is always entirely abandoned to the
arbitrary pleasure of his commanding officer, for this is
imperiously required by the necessity of discipline: a slight
fault, a whim, may always deprive him in an instant of the fruits
of many years of toil and endeavor; until he has reached the
grade to which he aspires he has accomplished nothing; not till
he reaches that grade does his career seem to begin. A desperate
ambition cannot fail to be kindled in a man thus incessantly
goaded on by his youth, his wants, his passions, the spirit of
his age, his hopes, and his age, his hopes, and his fears.
Non-commissioned officers are therefore bent on war - on war
always, and at any cost; but if war be denied them, then they
desire revolutions to suspend the authority of established
regulations, and to enable them, aided by the general confusion
and the political passions of the time, to get rid of their
superior officers and to take their places. Nor is it impossible
for them to bring about such a crisis, because their common
origin and habits give them much influence over the soldiers,
however different may be their passions and their desires.
It would be an error to suppose that these various
characteristics of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men,
belong to any particular time or country; they will always occur
at all times, and amongst all democratic nations. In every
democratic army the non-commissioned officers will be the worst
representatives of the pacific and orderly spirit of the country,
and the private soldiers will be the best. The latter will carry
with them into military life the strength or weakness of the
manners of the nation; they will display a faithful reflection of
the community: if that community is ignorant and weak, they will
allow themselves to be drawn by their leaders into disturbances,
either unconsciously or against their will; if it is enlightened
and energetic, the community will itself keep them within the
bounds of order.
Chapter XXIV: Causes Which Render Democratic Armies Weaker Than
Other Armies At The Outset Of A Campaign, And More Formidable In
Protracted Warfare
Any army is in danger of being conquered at the outset of a
campaign, after a long peace; any army which has long been
engaged in warfare has strong chances of victory: this truth is
peculiarly applicable to democratic armies. In aristocracies the
military profession, being a privileged career, is held in honor
even in time of peace. Men of great talents, great attainments,
and great ambition embrace it; the army is in all respects on a
level with the nation, and frequently above it. We have seen, on
the contrary, that amongst a democratic people the choicer minds
of the nation are gradually drawn away from the military
profession, to seek by other paths, distinction, power, and
especially wealth. After a long peace - and in democratic ages
the periods of peace are long - the army is always inferior to
the country itself. In this state it is called into active
service; and until war has altered it, there is danger for the
country as well as for the army.
I have shown that in democratic armies, and in time of
peace, the rule of seniority is the supreme and inflexible law of
advancement. This is not only a consequence, as I have before
observed, of the constitution of these armies, but of the
constitution of the people, and it will always occur. Again, as
amongst these nations the officer derives his position in the
country solely from his position in the army, and as he draws all
the distinction and the competency he enjoys from the same
source, he does not retire from his profession, or is not
super-annuated, till towards the extreme close of life. The
consequence of these two causes is, that when a democratic people
goes to war after a long interval of peace all the leading
officers of the army are old men. I speak not only of the
generals, but of the non-commissioned officers, who have most of
them been stationary, or have only advanced step by step. It may
be remarked with surprise, that in a democratic army after a long
peace all the soldiers are mere boys, and all the superior
officers in declining years; so that the former are wanting in
experience, the latter in vigor. This is a strong element of
defeat, for the first condition of successful generalship is
youth: I should not have ventured to say so if the greatest
captain of modern times had not made the observation.
These two causes do not act in the same manner upon
aristocratic armies: as men are promoted in them by right of
birth much more than by right of seniority, there are in all
ranks a certain number of young men, who bring to their
profession all the early vigor of body and mind. Again, as the
men who seek for military honors amongst an aristocratic people,
enjoy a settled position in civil society, they seldom continue
in the army until old age overtakes them. After having devoted
the most vigorous years of youth to the career of arms, they
voluntarily retire, and spend at home the remainder of their
maturer years.
A long peace not only fills democratic armies with elderly
officers, but it also gives to all the officers habits both of
body and mind which render them unfit for actual service. The
man who has long lived amidst the calm and lukewarm atmosphere of
democratic manners can at first ill adapt himself to the harder
toils and sterner duties of warfare; and if he has not absolutely
lost the taste for arms, at least he has assumed a mode of life
which unfits him for conquest.
Amongst aristocratic nations, the ease of civil life
exercises less influence on the manners of the army, because
amongst those nations the aristocracy commands the army: and an
aristocracy, however plunged in luxurious pleasures, has always
many other passions besides that of its own well-being, and to
satisfy those passions more thoroughly its well-being will be
readily sacrificed. *a
[Footnote a: See Appendix V.]
I have shown that in democratic armies, in time of peace,
promotion is extremely slow. The officers at first support this
state of things with impatience, they grow excited, restless,
exasperated, but in the end most of them make up their minds to
it. Those who have the largest share of ambition and of
resources quit the army; others, adapting their tastes and their
desires to their scanty fortunes, ultimately look upon the
military profession in a civil point of view. The quality they
value most in it is the competency and security which attend it:
their whole notion of the future rests upon the certainty of this
little provision, and all they require is peaceably to enjoy it.
Thus not only does a long peace fill an army with old men, but it
is frequently imparts the views of old men to those who are still
in the prime of life.
I have also shown that amongst democratic nations in time of
peace the military profession is held in little honor and
indifferently followed. This want of public favor is a heavy
discouragement to the army; it weighs down the minds of the
troops, and when war breaks out at last, they cannot immediately
resume their spring and vigor. No similar cause of moral
weakness occurs in aristocratic armies: there the officers are
never lowered either in their own eyes or in those of their
countrymen, because, independently of their military greatness,
they are personally great. But even if the influence of peace
operated on the two kinds of armies in the same manner, the
results would still be different. When the officers of an
aristocratic army have lost their warlike spirit and the desire
of raising themselves by service, they still retain a certain
respect for the honor of their class, and an old habit of being
foremost to set an example. But when the officers of a
democratic army have no longer the love of war and the ambition
of arms, nothing whatever remains to them.
I am therefore of opinion that, when a democratic people
engages in a war after a long peace, it incurs much more risk of
defeat than any other nation; but it ought not easily to be cast
down by its reverses, for the chances of success for such an army
are increased by the duration of the war. When a war has at
length, by its long continuance, roused the whole community from
their peaceful occupations and ruined their minor undertakings,
the same passions which made them attach so much importance to
the maintenance of peace will be turned to arms. War, after it
has destroyed all modes of speculation, becomes itself the great
and sole speculation, to which all the ardent and ambitious
desires which equality engenders are exclusively directed. Hence
it is that the selfsame democratic nations which are so reluctant
to engage in hostilities, sometimes perform prodigious
achievements when once they have taken the field. As the war
attracts more and more of public attention, and is seen to create
high reputations and great fortunes in a short space of time, the
choicest spirits of the nation enter the military profession: all
the enterprising, proud, and martial minds, no longer of the
aristocracy solely, but of the whole country, are drawn in this
direction. As the number of competitors for military honors is
immense, and war drives every man to his proper level, great
generals are always sure to spring up. A long war produces upon
a democratic army the same effects that a revolution produces
upon a people; it breaks through regulations, and allows
extraordinary men to rise above the common level. Those officers
whose bodies and minds have grown old in peace, are removed, or
superannuated, or they die. In their stead a host of young men
are pressing on, whose frames are already hardened, whose desires
are extended and inflamed by active service. They are bent on
advancement at all hazards, and perpetual advancement; they are
followed by others with the same passions and desires, and after
these are others yet unlimited by aught but the size of the army.
The principle of equality opens the door of ambition to all, and
death provides chances for ambition. Death is constantly
thinning the ranks, making vacancies, closing and opening the
career of arms.
There is moreover a secret connection between the military
character and the character of democracies, which war brings to
light. The men of democracies are naturally passionately eager
to acquire what they covet, and to enjoy it on easy conditions.
They for the most part worship chance, and are much less afraid
of death than of difficulty. This is the spirit which they bring
to commerce and manufactures; and this same spirit, carried with
them to the field of battle, induces them willingly to expose
their lives in order to secure in a moment the rewards of
victory. No kind of greatness is more pleasing to the
imagination of a democratic people than military greatness - a
greatness of vivid and sudden lustre, obtained without toil, by
nothing but the risk of life. Thus, whilst the interests and the
tastes of the members of a democratic community divert them from
war, their habits of mind fit them for carrying on war well; they
soon make good soldiers, when they are roused from their business
and their enjoyments. If peace is peculiarly hurtful to
democratic armies, war secures to them advantages which no other
armies ever possess; and these advantages, however little felt at
first, cannot fail in the end to give them the victory. An
aristocratic nation, which in a contest with a democratic people
does not succeed in ruining the latter at the outset of the war,
always runs a great risk of being conquered by it.
Chapter XXV: Of Discipline In Democratic Armies
It is a very general opinion, especially in aristocratic
countries, that the great social equality which prevails in
democracies ultimately renders the private soldier independent of
the officer, and thus destroys the bond of discipline. This is a
mistake, for there are two kinds of discipline, which it is
important not to confound. When the officer is noble and the
soldier a serf - one rich, the other poor - the former educated
and strong, the latter ignorant and weak - the strictest bond of
obedience may easily be established between the two men. The
soldier is broken in to military discipline, as it were, before
he enters the army; or rather, military discipline is nothing but
an enhancement of social servitude. In aristocratic armies the
soldier will soon become insensible to everything but the orders
of his superior officers; he acts without reflection, triumphs
without enthusiasm, and dies without complaint: in this state he
is no longer a man, but he is still a most formidable animal
trained for war.
A democratic people must despair of ever obtaining from
soldiers that blind, minute, submissive, and invariable obedience
which an aristocratic people may impose on them without
difficulty. The state of society does not prepare them for it,
and the nation might be in danger of losing its natural
advantages if it sought artificially to acquire advantages of
this particular kind. Amongst democratic communities, military
discipline ought not to attempt to annihilate the free spring of
the faculties; all that can be done by discipline is to direct
it; the obedience thus inculcated is less exact, but it is more
eager and more intelligent. It has its root in the will of him
who obeys: it rests not only on his instinct, but on his reason;
and consequently it will often spontaneously become more strict
as danger requires it. The discipline of an aristocratic army is
apt to be relaxed in war, because that discipline is founded upon
habits, and war disturbs those habits. The discipline of a
democratic army on the contrary is strengthened in sight of the
enemy, because every soldier then clearly perceives that he must
be silent and obedient in order to conquer.
The nations which have performed the greatest warlike
achievements knew no other discipline than that which I speak of.
Amongst the ancients none were admitted into the armies but
freemen and citizens, who differed but little from one another,
and were accustomed to treat each other as equals. In this
respect it may be said that the armies of antiquity were
democratic, although they came out of the bosom of aristocracy;
the consequence was that in those armies a sort of fraternal
familiarity prevailed between the officers and the men.
Plutarch's lives of great commanders furnish convincing instances
of the fact: the soldiers were in the constant habit of freely
addressing their general, and the general listened to and
answered whatever the soldiers had to say: they were kept in
order by language and by example, far more than by constraint or
punishment; the general was as much their companion as their
chief. I know not whether the soldiers of Greece and Rome ever
carried the minutiae of military discipline to the same degree of
perfection as the Russians have done; but this did not prevent
Alexander from conquering Asia - and Rome, the world.
Chapter XXVI: Some Considerations On War In Democratic
Communities
When the principle of equality is in growth, not only
amongst a single nation, but amongst several neighboring nations
at the same time, as is now the case in Europe, the inhabitants
of these different countries, notwithstanding the dissimilarity
of language, of customs, and of laws, nevertheless resemble each
other in their equal dread of war and their common love of peace.
*a It is in vain that ambition or anger puts arms in the hands of
princes; they are appeased in spite of themselves by a species of
general apathy and goodwill, which makes the sword drop from
their grasp, and wars become more rare. As the spread of
equality, taking place in several countries at once,
simultaneously impels their various inhabitants to follow
manufactures and commerce, not only do their tastes grow alike,
but their interests are so mixed and entangled with one another
that no nation can inflict evils on other nations without those
evils falling back upon itself; and all nations ultimately regard
war as a calamity, almost as severe to the conqueror as to the
conquered. Thus, on the one hand, it is extremely difficult in
democratic ages to draw nations into hostilities; but on the
other hand, it is almost impossible that any two of them should
go to war without embroiling the rest. The interests of all are
so interlaced, their opinions and their wants so much alike, that
none can remain quiet when the others stir. Wars therefore
become more rare, but when they break out they spread over a
larger field. Neighboring democratic nations not only become
alike in some respects, but they eventually grow to resemble each
other in almost all. *b This similitude of nations has
consequences of great importance in relation to war.
[Footnote a: It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that the
dread of war displayed by the nations of Europe is not solely
attributable to the progress made by the principle of equality
amongst them; independently of this permanent cause several other
accidental causes of great weight might be pointed out, and I may
mention before all the rest the extreme lassitude which the wars
of the Revolution and the Empire have left behind them.]
[Footnote b: This is not only because these nations have the same
social condition, but it arises from the very nature of that
social condition which leads men to imitate and identify
themselves with each other. When the members of a community are
divided into castes and classes, they not only differ from one
another, but they have no taste and no desire to be alike; on the
contrary, everyone endeavors, more and more, to keep his own
opinions undisturbed, to retain his own peculiar habits, and to
remain himself. The characteristics of individuals are very
strongly marked. When the state of society amongst a people is
democratic - that is to say, when there are no longer any castes
or classes in the community, and all its members are nearly equal
in education and in property - the human mind follows the
opposite direction. Men are much alike, and they are annoyed, as
it were, by any deviation from that likeness: far from seeking to
preserve their own distinguishing singularities, they endeavor to
shake them off, in order to identify themselves with the general
mass of the people, which is the sole representative of right and
of might to their eyes. The characteristics of individuals are
nearly obliterated. In the ages of aristocracy even those who
are naturally alike strive to create imaginary differences
between themselves: in the ages of democracy even those who are
not alike seek only to become so, and to copy each other - so
strongly is the mind of every man always carried away by the
general impulse of mankind. Something of the same kind may be
observed between nations: two nations having the same
aristocratic social condition, might remain thoroughly distinct
and extremely different, because the spirit of aristocracy is to
retain strong individual characteristics; but if two neighboring
nations have the same democratic social condition, they cannot
fail to adopt similar opinions and manners, because the spirit of
democracy tends to assimilate men to each other.]
If I inquire why it is that the Helvetic Confederacy made
the greatest and most powerful nations of Europe tremble in the
fifteenth century, whilst at the present day the power of that
country is exactly proportioned to its population, I perceive
that the Swiss are become like all the surrounding communities,
and those surrounding communities like the Swiss: so that as
numerical strength now forms the only difference between them,
victory necessarily attends the largest army. Thus one of the
consequences of the democratic revolution which is going on in
Europe is to make numerical strength preponderate on all fields
of battle, and to constrain all small nations to incorporate
themselves with large States, or at least to adopt the policy of
the latter. As numbers are the determining cause of victory,
each people ought of course to strive by all the means in its
power to bring the greatest possible number of men into the
field. When it was possible to enlist a kind of troops superior
to all others, such as the Swiss infantry or the French horse of
the sixteenth century, it was not thought necessary to raise very
large armies; but the case is altered when one soldier is as
efficient as another.
The same cause which begets this new want also supplies
means of satisfying it; for, as I have already observed, when men
are all alike, they are all weak, and the supreme power of the
State is naturally much stronger amongst democratic nations than
elsewhere. Hence, whilst these nations are desirous of enrolling
the whole male population in the ranks of the army, they have the
power of effecting this object: the consequence is, that in
democratic ages armies seem to grow larger in proportion as the
love of war declines. In the same ages, too, the manner of
carrying on war is likewise altered by the same causes.
Machiavelli observes in "The Prince," "that it is much more
difficult to subdue a people which has a prince and his barons
for its leaders, than a nation which is commanded by a prince and
his slaves." To avoid offence, let us read public functionaries
for slaves, and this important truth will be strictly applicable
to our own time.
A great aristocratic people cannot either conquer its
neighbors, or be conquered by them, without great difficulty. It
cannot conquer them, because all its forces can never be
collected and held together for a considerable period: it cannot
be conquered, because an enemy meets at every step small centres
of resistance by which invasion is arrested. War against an
aristocracy may be compared to war in a mountainous country; the
defeated party has constant opportunities of rallying its forces
to make a stand in a new position. Exactly the reverse occurs
amongst democratic nations: they easily bring their whole
disposable force into the field, and when the nation is wealthy
and populous it soon becomes victorious; but if ever it is
conquered, and its territory invaded, it has few resources at
command; and if the enemy takes the capital, the nation is lost.
This may very well be explained: as each member of the community
is individually isolated and extremely powerless, no one of the
whole body can either defend himself or present a rallying point
to others. Nothing is strong in a democratic country except the
State; as the military strength of the State is destroyed by the
destruction of the army, and its civil power paralyzed by the
capture of the chief city, all that remains is only a multitude
without strength or government, unable to resist the organized
power by which it is assailed. I am aware that this danger may be
lessened by the creation of provincial liberties, and
consequently of provincial powers, but this remedy will always be
insufficient. For after such a catastrophe, not only is the
population unable to carry on hostilities, but it may be
apprehended that they will not be inclined to attempt it.
In accordance with the law of nations adopted in civilized
countries, the object of wars is not to seize the property of
private individuals, but simply to get possession of political
power. The destruction of private property is only occasionally
resorted to for the purpose of attaining the latter object. When
an aristocratic country is invaded after the defeat of its army,
the nobles, although they are at the same time the wealthiest
members of the community, will continue to defend themselves
individually rather than submit; for if the conqueror remained
master of the country, he would deprive them of their political
power, to which they cling even more closely than to their
property. They therefore prefer fighting to subjection, which is
to them the greatest of all misfortunes; and they readily carry
the people along with them because the people has long been used
to follow and obey them, and besides has but little to risk in
the war. Amongst a nation in which equality of conditions
prevails, each citizen, on the contrary, has but slender share of
political power, and often has no share at all; on the other
hand, all are independent, and all have something to lose; so
that they are much less afraid of being conquered, and much more
afraid of war, than an aristocratic people. It will always be
extremely difficult to decide a democratic population to take up
arms, when hostilities have reached its own territory. Hence the
necessity of giving to such a people the rights and the political
character which may impart to every citizen some of those
interests that cause the nobles to act for the public welfare in
aristocratic countries.
It should never be forgotten by the princes and other
leaders of democratic nations, that nothing but the passion and
the habit of freedom can maintain an advantageous contest with
the passion and the habit of physical well-being. I can conceive
nothing better prepared for subjection, in case of defeat, than a
democratic people without free institutions.
Formerly it was customary to take the field with a small
body of troops, to fight in small engagements, and to make long,
regular sieges: modern tactics consist in fighting decisive
battles, and, as soon as a line of march is open before the army,
in rushing upon the capital city, in order to terminate the war
at a single blow. Napoleon, it is said, was the inventor of this
new system; but the invention of such a system did not depend on
any individual man, whoever he might be. The mode in which
Napoleon carried on war was suggested to him by the state of
society in his time; that mode was successful, because it was
eminently adapted to that state of society, and because he was
the first to employ it. Napoleon was the first commander who
marched at the head of an army from capital to capital, but the
road was opened for him by the ruin of feudal society. It may
fairly be believed that, if that extraordinary man had been born
three hundred years ago, he would not have derived the same
results from his method of warfare, or, rather, that he would
have had a different method.
I shall add but a few words on civil wars, for fear of
exhausting the patience of the reader. Most of the remarks which
I have made respecting foreign wars are applicable a fortiori to
civil wars. Men living in democracies are not naturally prone to
the military character; they sometimes assume it, when they have
been dragged by compulsion to the field; but to rise in a body
and voluntarily to expose themselves to the horrors of war, and
especially of civil war, is a course which the men of democracies
are not apt to adopt. None but the most adventurous members of
the community consent to run into such risks; the bulk of the
population remains motionless. But even if the population were
inclined to act, considerable obstacles would stand in their way;
for they can resort to no old and well-established influence
which they are willing to obey - no well-known leaders to rally
the discontented, as well as to discipline and to lead them - no
political powers subordinate to the supreme power of the nation,
which afford an effectual support to the resistance directed
against the government. In democratic countries the moral power
of the majority is immense, and the physical resources which it
has at its command are out of all proportion to the physical
resources which may be combined against it. Therefore the party
which occupies the seat of the majority, which speaks in its name
and wields its power, triumphs instantaneously and irresistibly
over all private resistance; it does not even give such
opposition time to exist, but nips it in the bud. Those who in
such nations seek to effect a revolution by force of arms have no
other resource than suddenly to seize upon the whole engine of
government as it stands, which can better be done by a single
blow than by a war; for as soon as there is a regular war, the
party which represents the State is always certain to conquer.
The only case in which a civil war could arise is, if the army
should divide itself into two factions, the one raising the
standard of rebellion, the other remaining true to its
allegiance. An army constitutes a small community, very closely
united together, endowed with great powers of vitality, and able
to supply its own wants for some time. Such a war might be
bloody, but it could not be long; for either the rebellious army
would gain over the government by the sole display of its
resources, or by its first victory, and then the war would be
over; or the struggle would take place, and then that portion of
the army which should not be supported by the organized powers of
the State would speedily either disband itself or be destroyed.
It may therefore be admitted as a general truth, that in ages of
equality civil wars will become much less frequent and less
protracted. *c
[Footnote c: It should be borne in mind that I speak here of
sovereign and independent democratic nations, not of confederate
democracies; in confederacies, as the preponderating power always
resides, in spite of all political fictions, in the state
governments, and not in the federal government, civil wars are in
fact nothing but foreign wars in disguise.]
Book Four - Chapters I-IV
Influence Of Democratic Opinions On Political Society
Chapter I: That Equality Naturally Gives Men A Taste For Free
Institutions
I should imperfectly fulfil the purpose of this book, if,
after having shown what opinions and sentiments are suggested by
the principle of equality, I did not point out, ere I conclude,
the general influence which these same opinions and sentiments
may exercise upon the government of human societies. To succeed
in this object I shall frequently have to retrace my steps; but I
trust the reader will not refuse to follow me through paths
already known to him, which may lead to some new truth.
The principle of equality, which makes men independent of
each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following, in
their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This
complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their
equals and in the intercourse of private life, tends to make them
look upon all authority with a jealous eye, and speedily suggests
to them the notion and the love of political freedom. Men living
at such times have a natural bias to free institutions. Take any
one of them at a venture, and search if you can his most
deep-seated instincts; you will find that of all governments he
will soonest conceive and most highly value that government,
whose head he has himself elected, and whose administration he
may control. Of all the political effects produced by the
equality of conditions, this love of independence is the first to
strike the observing, and to alarm the timid; nor can it be said
that their alarm is wholly misplaced, for anarchy has a more
formidable aspect in democratic countries than elsewhere. As the
citizens have no direct influence on each other, as soon as the
supreme power of the nation fails, which kept them all in their
several stations, it would seem that disorder must instantly
reach its utmost pitch, and that, every man drawing aside in a
different direction, the fabric of society must at once crumble
away.
I am, however, persuaded that anarchy is not the principal
evil which democratic ages have to fear, but the least. For the
principle of equality begets two tendencies; the one leads men
straight to independence, and may suddenly drive them into
anarchy; the other conducts them by a longer, more secret, but
more certain road, to servitude. Nations readily discern the
former tendency, and are prepared to resist it; they are led away
by the latter, without perceiving its drift; hence it is
peculiarly important to point it out. For myself, I am so far
from urging as a reproach to the principle of equality that it
renders men untractable, that this very circumstance principally
calls forth my approbation. I admire to see how it deposits in
the mind and heart of man the dim conception and instinctive love
of political independence, thus preparing the remedy for the evil
which it engenders; it is on this very account that I am attached
to it.
Chapter II: That The Notions Of Democratic Nations On Government
Are Naturally Favorable To The Concentration Of Power
The notion of secondary powers, placed between the sovereign
and his subjects, occurred naturally to the imagination of
aristocratic nations, because those communities contained
individuals or families raised above the common level, and
apparently destined to command by their birth, their education,
and their wealth. This same notion is naturally wanting in the
minds of men in democratic ages, for converse reasons: it can
only be introduced artificially, it can only be kept there with
difficulty; whereas they conceive, as it were, without thinking
upon the subject, the notion of a sole and central power which
governs the whole community by its direct influence. Moreover in
politics, as well as in philosophy and in religion, the intellect
of democratic nations is peculiarly open to simple and general
notions. Complicated systems are repugnant to it, and its
favorite conception is that of a great nation composed of
citizens all resembling the same pattern, and all governed by a
single power.
The very next notion to that of a sole and central power, which
presents itself to the minds of men in the ages of
equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation. As every
man sees that he differs but little from those about him, he
cannot understand why a rule which is applicable to one man
should not be equally applicable to all others. Hence the
slightest privileges are repugnant to his reason; the faintest
dissimilarities in the political institutions of the same people
offend him, and uniformity of legislation appears to him to be
the first condition of good government. I find, on the contrary,
that this same notion of a uniform rule, equally binding on all
the members of the community, was almost unknown to the human
mind in aristocratic ages; it was either never entertained, or it
was rejected. These contrary tendencies of opinion ultimately
turn on either side to such blind instincts and such ungovernable
habits that they still direct the actions of men, in spite of
particular exceptions. Notwithstanding the immense variety of
conditions in the Middle Ages, a certain number of persons
existed at that period in precisely similar circumstances; but
this did not prevent the laws then in force from assigning to
each of them distinct duties and different rights. On the
contrary, at the present time all the powers of government are
exerted to impose the same customs and the same laws on
populations which have as yet but few points of resemblance. As
the conditions of men become equal amongst a people, individuals
seem of less importance, and society of greater dimensions; or
rather, every citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost
in the crowd, and nothing stands conspicuous but the great and
imposing image of the people at large. This naturally gives the
men of democratic periods a lofty opinion of the privileges of
society, and a very humble notion of the rights of individuals;
they are ready to admit that the interests of the former are
everything, and those of the latter nothing. They are willing to
acknowledge that the power which represents the community has far
more information and wisdom than any of the members of that
community; and that it is the duty, as well as the right, of that
power to guide as well as govern each private citizen.
If we closely scrutinize our contemporaries, and penetrate
to the root of their political opinions, we shall detect some of
the notions which I have just pointed out, and we shall perhaps
be surprised to find so much accordance between men who are so
often at variance. The Americans hold, that in every State the
supreme power ought to emanate from the people; but when once
that power is constituted, they can conceive, as it were, no
limits to it, and they are ready to admit that it has the right
to do whatever it pleases. They have not the slightest notion of
peculiar privileges granted to cities, families, or persons:
their minds appear never to have foreseen that it might be
possible not to apply with strict uniformity the same laws to
every part, and to all the inhabitants. These same opinions are
more and more diffused in Europe; they even insinuate themselves
amongst those nations which most vehemently reject the principle
of the sovereignty of the people. Such nations assign a different
origin to the supreme power, but they ascribe to that power the
same characteristics. Amongst them all, the idea of intermediate
powers is weakened and obliterated: the idea of rights inherent
in certain individuals is rapidly disappearing from the minds of
men; the idea of the omnipotence and sole authority of society at
large rises to fill its place. These ideas take root and spread
in proportion as social conditions become more equal, and men
more alike; they are engendered by equality, and in turn they
hasten the progress of equality.
In France, where the revolution of which I am speaking has
gone further than in any other European country, these opinions
have got complete hold of the public mind. If we listen
attentively to the language of the various parties in France, we
shall find that there is not one which has not adopted them.
Most of these parties censure the conduct of the government, but
they all hold that the government ought perpetually to act and
interfere in everything that is done. Even those which are most
at variance are nevertheless agreed upon this head. The unity,
the ubiquity, the omnipotence of the supreme power, and the
uniformity of its rules, constitute the principal characteristics
of all the political systems which have been put forward in our
age. They recur even in the wildest visions of political
regeneration: the human mind pursues them in its dreams. If
these notions spontaneously arise in the minds of private
individuals, they suggest themselves still more forcibly to the
minds of princes. Whilst the ancient fabric of European society
is altered and dissolved, sovereigns acquire new conceptions of
their opportunities and their duties; they learn for the first
time that the central power which they represent may and ought to
administer by its own agency, and on a uniform plan, all the
concerns of the whole community. This opinion, which, I will
venture to say, was never conceived before our time by the
monarchs of Europe, now sinks deeply into the minds of kings, and
abides there amidst all the agitation of more unsettled thoughts.
Our contemporaries are therefore much less divided than is
commonly supposed; they are constantly disputing as to the hands
in which supremacy is to be vested, but they readily agree upon
the duties and the rights of that supremacy. The notion they all
form of government is that of a sole, simple, providential, and
creative power. All secondary opinions in politics are
unsettled; this one remains fixed, invariable, and consistent.
It is adopted by statesmen and political philosophers; it is
eagerly laid hold of by the multitude; those who govern and those
who are governed agree to pursue it with equal ardor: it is the
foremost notion of their minds, it seems inborn. It originates
therefore in no caprice of the human intellect, but it is a
necessary condition of the present state of mankind.
Chapter III: That The Sentiments Of Democratic Nations Accord
With Their Opinions In Leading Them To Concentrate Political
Power
If it be true that, in ages of equality, men readily adopt
the notion of a great central power, it cannot be doubted on the
other hand that their habits and sentiments predispose them to
recognize such a power and to give it their support. This may be
demonstrated in a few words, as the greater part of the reasons,
to which the fact may be attributed, have been previously stated.
*a As the men who inhabit democratic countries have no superiors,
no inferiors, and no habitual or necessary partners in their
undertakings, they readily fall back upon themselves and consider
themselves as beings apart. I had occasion to point this out at
considerable length in treating of individualism. Hence such men
can never, without an effort, tear themselves from their private
affairs to engage in public business; their natural bias leads
them to abandon the latter to the sole visible and permanent
representative of the interests of the community, that is to say,
to the State. Not only are they naturally wanting in a taste for
public business, but they have frequently no time to attend to
it. Private life is so busy in democratic periods, so excited,
so full of wishes and of work, that hardly any energy or leisure
remains to each individual for public life. I am the last man to
contend that these propensities are unconquerable, since my chief
object in writing this book has been to combat them. I only
maintain that at the present day a secret power is fostering them
in the human heart, and that if they are not checked they will
wholly overgrow it.
[Footnote a: See Appendix W.]
I have also had occasion to show how the increasing love of
well-being, and the fluctuating character of property, cause
democratic nations to dread all violent disturbance. The love of
public tranquillity is frequently the only passion which these
nations retain, and it becomes more active and powerful amongst
them in proportion as all other passions droop and die. This
naturally disposes the members of the community constantly to
give or to surrender additional rights to the central power,
which alone seems to be interested in defending them by the same
means that it uses to defend itself. As in ages of equality no
man is compelled to lend his assistance to his fellow-men, and
none has any right to expect much support from them, everyone is
at once independent and powerless. These two conditions, which
must never be either separately considered or confounded
together, inspire the citizen of a democratic country with very
contrary propensities. His independence fills him with
self-reliance and pride amongst his equals; his debility makes
him feel from time to time the want of some outward assistance,
which he cannot expect from any of them, because they are all
impotent and unsympathizing. In this predicament he naturally
turns his eyes to that imposing power which alone rises above the
level of universal depression. Of that power his wants and
especially his desires continually remind him, until he
ultimately views it as the sole and necessary support of his own
weakness. *b This may more completely explain what frequently
takes place in democratic countries, where the very men who are
so impatient of superiors patiently submit to a master,
exhibiting at once their pride and their servility.
[Footnote b: In democratic communities nothing but the central
power has any stability in its position or any permanence in its
undertakings. All the members of society are in ceaseless stir
and transformation. Now it is in the nature of all governments
to seek constantly to enlarge their sphere of action; hence it is
almost impossible that such a government should not ultimately
succeed, because it acts with a fixed principle and a constant
will, upon men, whose position, whose notions, and whose desires
are in continual vacillation. It frequently happens that the
members of the community promote the influence of the central
power without intending it. Democratic ages are periods of
experiment, innovation, and adventure. At such times there are
always a multitude of men engaged in difficult or novel
undertakings, which they follow alone, without caring for their
fellowmen. Such persons may be ready to admit, as a general
principle, that the public authority ought not to interfere in
private concerns; but, by an exception to that rule, each of them
craves for its assistance in the particular concern on which he
is engaged, and seeks to draw upon the influence of the
government for his own benefit, though he would restrict it on
all other occasions. If a large number of men apply this
particular exception to a great variety of different purposes,
the sphere of the central power extends insensibly in all
directions, although each of them wishes it to be circumscribed.
Thus a democratic government increases its power simply by the
fact of its permanence. Time is on its side; every incident
befriends it; the passions of individuals unconsciously promote
it; and it may be asserted, that the older a democratic community
is, the more centralized will its government become.]
The hatred which men bear to privilege increases in
proportion as privileges become more scarce and less
considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most
fiercely at the very time when they have least fuel. I have
already given the reason of this phenomenon. When all conditions
are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye;
whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of
general uniformity: the more complete is this uniformity, the
more insupportable does the sight of such a difference become.
Hence it is natural that the love of equality should constantly
increase together with equality itself, and that it should grow
by what it feeds upon. This never-dying, ever- kindling hatred,
which sets a democratic people against the smallest privileges,
is peculiarly favorable to the gradual concentration of all
political rights in the hands of the representative of the State
alone. The sovereign, being necessarily and incontestably above
all the citizens, excites not their envy, and each of them thinks
that he strips his equals of the prerogative which he concedes to
the crown. The man of a democratic age is extremely reluctant to
obey his neighbor who is his equal; he refuses to acknowledge in
such a person ability superior to his own; he mistrusts his
justice, and is jealous of his power; he fears and he contemns
him; and he loves continually to remind him of the common
dependence in which both of them stand to the same master. Every
central power which follows its natural tendencies courts and
encourages the principle of equality; for equality singularly
facilitates, extends, and secures the influence of a central
power.
In like manner it may be said that every central government
worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an
infinite number of small details which must be attended to if
rules were to be adapted to men, instead of indiscriminately
subjecting men to rules: thus the government likes what the
citizens like, and naturally hates what they hate. These common
sentiments, which, in democratic nations, constantly unite the
sovereign and every member of the community in one and the same
conviction, establish a secret and lasting sympathy between them.
The faults of the government are pardoned for the sake of its
tastes; public confidence is only reluctantly withdrawn in the
midst even of its excesses and its errors, and it is restored at
the first call. Democratic nations often hate those in whose
hands the central power is vested; but they always love that
power itself.
Thus, by two separate paths, I have reached the same
conclusion. I have shown that the principle of equality suggests
to men the notion of a sole, uniform, and strong government: I
have now shown that the principle of equality imparts to them a
taste for it. To governments of this kind the nations of our age
are therefore tending. They are drawn thither by the natural
inclination of mind and heart; and in order to reach that result,
it is enough that they do not check themselves in their course.
I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are opening
upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be
the produce of artificial contrivance; that centralization will
be the natural form of government. *c
[Footnote c: See Appendix X.]
Chapter IV: Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which
Either Lead A People To Complete Centralization Of Government, Or
Which Divert Them From It
If all democratic nations are instinctively led to the
centralization of government, they tend to this result in an
unequal manner. This depends on the particular circumstances
which may promote or prevent the natural consequences of that
state of society - circumstances which are exceedingly numerous;
but I shall only advert to a few of them. Amongst men who have
lived free long before they became equal, the tendencies derived
from free institutions combat, to a certain extent, the
propensities superinduced by the principle of equality; and
although the central power may increase its privileges amongst
such a people, the private members of such a community will never
entirely forfeit their independence. But when the equality of
conditions grows up amongst a people which has never known, or
has long ceased to know, what freedom is (and such is the case
upon the Continent of Europe), as the former habits of the nation
are suddenly combined, by some sort of natural attraction, with
the novel habits and principles engendered by the state of
society, all powers seem spontaneously to rush to the centre.
These powers accumulate there with astonishing rapidity, and the
State instantly attains the utmost limits of its strength, whilst
private persons allow themselves to sink as suddenly to the
lowest degree of weakness.
The English who emigrated three hundred years ago to found a
democratic commonwealth on the shores of the New World, had all
learned to take a part in public affairs in their mother-country;
they were conversant with trial by jury; they were accustomed to
liberty of speech and of the press - to personal freedom, to the
notion of rights and the practice of asserting them. They carried
with them to America these free institutions and manly customs,
and these institutions preserved them against the encroachments
of the State. Thus amongst the Americans it is freedom which is
old - equality is of comparatively modern date. The reverse is
occurring in Europe, where equality, introduced by absolute power
and under the rule of kings, was already infused into the habits
of nations long before freedom had entered into their
conceptions.
I have said that amongst democratic nations the notion of
government naturally presents itself to the mind under the form
of a sole and central power, and that the notion of intermediate
powers is not familiar to them. This is peculiarly applicable to
the democratic nations which have witnessed the triumph of the
principle of equality by means of a violent revolution. As the
classes which managed local affairs have been suddenly swept away
by the storm, and as the confused mass which remains has as yet
neither the organization nor the habits which fit it to assume
the administration of these same affairs, the State alone seems
capable of taking upon itself all the details of government, and
centralization becomes, as it were, the unavoidable state of the
country. Napoleon deserves neither praise nor censure for having
centred in his own hands almost all the administrative power of
France; for, after the abrupt disappearance of the nobility and
the higher rank of the middle classes, these powers devolved on
him of course: it would have been almost as difficult for him to
reject as to assume them. But no necessity of this kind has ever
been felt by the Americans, who, having passed through no
revolution, and having governed themselves from the first, never
had to call upon the State to act for a time as their guardian.
Thus the progress of centralization amongst a democratic people
depends not only on the progress of equality, but on the manner
in which this equality has been established.
At the commencement of a great democratic revolution, when
hostilities have but just broken out between the different
classes of society, the people endeavors to centralize the public
administration in the hands of the government, in order to wrest
the management of local affairs from the aristocracy. Towards
the close of such a revolution, on the contrary, it is usually
the conquered aristocracy that endeavors to make over the
management of all affairs to the State, because such an
aristocracy dreads the tyranny of a people which has become its
equal, and not unfrequently its master. Thus it is not always the
same class of the community which strives to increase the
prerogative of the government; but as long as the democratic
revolution lasts there is always one class in the nation,
powerful in numbers or in wealth, which is induced, by peculiar
passions or interests, to centralize the public administration,
independently of that hatred of being governed by one's neighbor,
which is a general and permanent feeling amongst democratic
nations. It may be remarked, that at the present day the lower
orders in England are striving with all their might to destroy
local independence, and to transfer the administration from all
points of the circumference to the centre; whereas the higher
classes are endeavoring to retain this administration within its
ancient boundaries. I venture to predict that a time will come
when the very reverse will happen.
These observations explain why the supreme power is always
stronger, and private individuals weaker, amongst a democratic
people which has passed through a long and arduous struggle to
reach a state of equality than amongst a democratic community in
which the citizens have been equal from the first. The example of
the Americans completely demonstrates the fact. The inhabitants
of the United States were never divided by any privileges; they
have never known the mutual relation of master and inferior, and
as they neither dread nor hate each other, they have never known
the necessity of calling in the supreme power to manage their
affairs. The lot of the Americans is singular: they have derived
from the aristocracy of England the notion of private rights and
the taste for local freedom; and they have been able to retain
both the one and the other, because they have had no aristocracy
to combat.
If at all times education enables men to defend their
independence, this is most especially true in democratic ages.
When all men are alike, it is easy to found a sole and
all-powerful government, by the aid of mere instinct. But men
require much intelligence, knowledge, and art to organize and to
maintain secondary powers under similar circumstances, and to
create amidst the independence and individual weakness of the
citizens such free associations as may be in a condition to
struggle against tyranny without destroying public order.
Hence the concentration of power and the subjection of
individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in
the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion
as their ignorance. It is true, that in ages of imperfect
civilization the government is frequently as wanting in the
knowledge required to impose a despotism upon the people as the
people are wanting in the knowledge required to shake it off; but
the effect is not the same on both sides. However rude a
democratic people may be, the central power which rules it is
never completely devoid of cultivation, because it readily draws
to its own uses what little cultivation is to be found in the
country, and, if necessary, may seek assistance elsewhere.
Hence, amongst a nation which is ignorant as well as democratic,
an amazing difference cannot fail speedily to arise between the
intellectual capacity of the ruler and that of each of his
subjects. This completes the easy concentration of all power in
his hands: the administrative function of the State is
perpetually extended, because the State alone is competent to
administer the affairs of the country. Aristocratic nations,
however unenlightened they may be, never afford the same
spectacle, because in them instruction is nearly equally diffused
between the monarch and the leading members of the community.
The pacha who now rules in Egypt found the population of
that country composed of men exceedingly ignorant and equal, and
he has borrowed the science and ability of Europe to govern that
people. As the personal attainments of the sovereign are thus
combined with the ignorance and democratic weakness of his
subjects, the utmost centralization has been established without
impediment, and the pacha has made the country his manufactory,
and the inhabitants his workmen.
I think that extreme centralization of government ultimately
enervates society, and thus after a length of time weakens the
government itself; but I do not deny that a centralized social
power may be able to execute great undertakings with facility in
a given time and on a particular point. This is more especially
true of war, in which success depends much more on the means of
transferring all the resources of a nation to one single point,
than on the extent of those resources. Hence it is chiefly in
war that nations desire and frequently require to increase the
powers of the central government. All men of military genius are
fond of centralization, which increases their strength; and all
men of centralizing genius are fond of war, which compels nations
to combine all their powers in the hands of the government. Thus
the democratic tendency which leads men unceasingly to multiply
the privileges of the State, and to circumscribe the rights of
private persons, is much more rapid and constant amongst those
democratic nations which are exposed by their position to great
and frequent wars, than amongst all others.
I have shown how the dread of disturbance and the love of
well-being insensibly lead democratic nations to increase the
functions of central government, as the only power which appears
to be intrinsically sufficiently strong, enlightened, and secure,
to protect them from anarchy. I would now add, that all the
particular circumstances which tend to make the state of a
democratic community agitated and precarious, enhance this
general propensity, and lead private persons more and more to
sacrifice their rights to their tranquility. A people is
therefore never so disposed to increase the functions of central
government as at the close of a long and bloody revolution,
which, after having wrested property from the hands of its former
possessors, has shaken all belief, and filled the nation with
fierce hatreds, conflicting interests, and contending factions.
The love of public tranquillity becomes at such times an
indiscriminating passion, and the members of the community are
apt to conceive a most inordinate devotion to order.
I have already examined several of the incidents which may
concur to promote the centralization of power, but the principal
cause still remains to be noticed. The foremost of the
incidental causes which may draw the management of all affairs
into the hands of the ruler in democratic countries, is the
origin of that ruler himself, and his own propensities. Men who
live in the ages of equality are naturally fond of central power,
and are willing to extend its privileges; but if it happens that
this same power faithfully represents their own interests, and
exactly copies their own inclinations, the confidence they place
in it knows no bounds, and they think that whatever they bestow
upon it is bestowed upon themselves.
The attraction of administrative powers to the centre will
always be less easy and less rapid under the reign of kings who
are still in some way connected with the old aristocratic order,
than under new princes, the children of their own achievements,
whose birth, prejudices, propensities, and habits appear to bind
them indissolubly to the cause of equality. I do not mean that
princes of aristocratic origin who live in democratic ages do not
attempt to centralize; I believe they apply themselves to that
object as diligently as any others. For them, the sole
advantages of equality lie in that direction; but their
opportunities are less great, because the community, instead of
volunteering compliance with their desires, frequently obeys them
with reluctance. In democratic communities the rule is that
centralization must increase in proportion as the sovereign is
less aristocratic. When an ancient race of kings stands at the
head of an aristocracy, as the natural prejudices of the
sovereign perfectly accord with the natural prejudices of the
nobility, the vices inherent in aristocratic communities have a
free course, and meet with no corrective. The reverse is the
case when the scion of a feudal stock is placed at the head of a
democratic people. The sovereign is constantly led, by his
education, his habits, and his associations, to adopt sentiments
suggested by the inequality of conditions, and the people tend as
constantly, by their social condition, to those manners which are
engendered by equality. At such times it often happens that the
citizens seek to control the central power far less as a
tyrannical than as an aristocratical power, and that they persist
in the firm defence of their independence, not only because they
would remain free, but especially because they are determined to
remain equal. A revolution which overthrows an ancient regal
family, in order to place men of more recent growth at the head
of a democratic people, may temporarily weaken the central power;
but however anarchical such a revolution may appear at first, we
need not hesitate to predict that its final and certain
consequence will be to extend and to secure the prerogatives of
that power. The foremost or indeed the sole condition which is
required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in
a democratic community, is to love equality, or to get men to
believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was
once so complex, is simplified, and reduced as it were to a
single principle.
Book Four - Chapter V
Chapter V: That Amongst The European Nations Of Our Time The
Power Of Governments Is Increasing, Although The Persons Who
Govern Are Less Stable
On reflecting upon what has already been said, the reader
will be startled and alarmed to find that in Europe everything
seems to conduce to the indefinite extension of the prerogatives
of government, and to render all that enjoyed the rights of
private independence more weak, more subordinate, and more
precarious. The democratic nations of Europe have all the
general and permanent tendencies which urge the Americans to the
centralization of government, and they are moreover exposed to a
number of secondary and incidental causes with which the
Americans are unacquainted. It would seem as if every step they
make towards equality brings them nearer to despotism. And indeed
if we do but cast our looks around, we shall be convinced that
such is the fact. During the aristocratic ages which preceded
the present time, the sovereigns of Europe had been deprived of,
or had relinquished, many of the rights inherent in their power.
Not a hundred years ago, amongst the greater part of European
nations, numerous private persons and corporations were
sufficiently independent to administer justice, to raise and
maintain troops, to levy taxes, and frequently even to make or
interpret the law. The State has everywhere resumed to itself
alone these natural attributes of sovereign power; in all matters
of government the State tolerates no intermediate agent between
itself and the people, and in general business it directs the
people by its own immediate influence. I am far from blaming
this concentration of power, I simply point it out.
At the same period a great number of secondary powers
existed in Europe, which represented local interests and
administered local affairs. Most of these local authorities have
already disappeared; all are speedily tending to disappear, or to
fall into the most complete dependence. From one end of Europe
to the other the privileges of the nobility, the liberties of
cities, and the powers of provincial bodies, are either destroyed
or upon the verge of destruction. Europe has endured, in the
course of the last half- century, many revolutions and
counter-revolutions which have agitated it in opposite
directions: but all these perturbations resemble each other in
one respect -they have all shaken or destroyed the secondary
powers of government. The local privileges which the French did
not abolish in the countries they conquered, have finally
succumbed to the policy of the princes who conquered the French.
Those princes rejected all the innovations of the French
Revolution except centralization: that is the only principle they
consented to receive from such a source. My object is to remark,
that all these various rights, which have been successively
wrested, in our time, from classes, corporations, and
individuals, have not served to raise new secondary powers on a
more democratic basis, but have uniformly been concentrated in
the hands of the sovereign. Everywhere the State acquires more
and more direct control over the humblest members of the
community, and a more exclusive power of governing each of them
in his smallest concerns. *a Almost all the charitable
establishments of Europe were formerly in the hands of private
persons or of corporations; they are now almost all dependent on
the supreme government, and in many countries are actually
administered by that power. The State almost exclusively
undertakes to supply bread to the hungry, assistance and shelter
to the sick, work to the idle, and to act as the sole reliever of
all kinds of misery. Education, as well as charity, is become in
most countries at the present day a national concern. The State
receives, and often takes, the child from the arms of the mother,
to hand it over to official agents: the State undertakes to train
the heart and to instruct the mind of each generation.
Uniformity prevails in the courses of public instruction as in
everything else; diversity, as well as freedom, is disappearing
day by day. Nor do I hesitate to affirm, that amongst almost all
the Christian nations of our days, Catholic as well as
Protestant, religion is in danger of falling into the hands of
the government. Not that rulers are over-jealous of the right of
settling points of doctrine, but they get more and more hold upon
the will of those by whom doctrines are expounded; they deprive
the clergy of their property, and pay them by salaries; they
divert to their own use the influence of the priesthood, they
make them their own ministers - often their own servants - and by
this alliance with religion they reach the inner depths of the
soul of man. *b
[Footnote a: This gradual weakening of individuals in relation to
society at large may be traced in a thousand ways. I shall
select from amongst these examples one derived from the law of
wills. In aristocracies it is common to profess the greatest
reverence for the last testamentary dispositions of a man; this
feeling sometimes even became superstitious amongst the older
nations of Europe: the power of the State, far from interfering
with the caprices of a dying man, gave full force to the very
least of them, and insured to him a perpetual power. When all
living men are enfeebled, the will of the dead is less respected:
it is circumscribed within a narrow range, beyond which it is
annulled or checked by the supreme power of the laws. In the
Middle Ages, testamentary power had, so to speak, no limits:
amongst the French at the present day, a man cannot distribute
his fortune amongst his children without the interference of the
State; after having domineered over a whole life, the law insists
upon regulating the very last act of it.]
[Footnote b: In proportion as the duties of the central power are
augmented, the number of public officers by whom that power is
represented must increase also. They form a nation in each
nation; and as they share the stability of the government, they
more and more fill up the place of an aristocracy.
In almost every part of Europe the government rules in two
ways; it rules one portion of the community by the fear which
they entertain of its agents, and the other by the hope they have
of becoming its agents.]
But this is as yet only one side of the picture. The
authority of government has not only spread, as we have just
seen, throughout the sphere of all existing powers, till that
sphere can no longer contain it, but it goes further, and invades
the domain heretofore reserved to private independence. A
multitude of actions, which were formerly entirely beyond the
control of the public administration, have been subjected to that
control in our time, and the number of them is constantly
increasing. Amongst aristocratic nations the supreme government
usually contented itself with managing and superintending the
community in whatever directly and ostensibly concerned the
national honor; but in all other respects the people were left to
work out their own free will. Amongst these nations the
government often seemed to forget that there is a point at which
the faults and the sufferings of private persons involve the
general prosperity, and that to prevent the ruin of a private
individual must sometimes be a matter of public importance. The
democratic nations of our time lean to the opposite extreme. It
is evident that most of our rulers will not content themselves
with governing the people collectively: it would seem as if they
thought themselves responsible for the actions and private
condition of their subjects - as if they had undertaken to guide
and to instruct each of them in the various incidents of life,
and to secure their happiness quite independently of their own
consent. On the other hand private individuals grow more and
more apt to look upon the supreme power in the same light; they
invoke its assistance in all their necessities, and they fix
their eyes upon the administration as their mentor or their
guide.
I assert that there is no country in Europe in which the
public administration has not become, not only more centralized,
but more inquisitive and more minute it everywhere interferes in
private concerns more than it did; it regulates more
undertakings, and undertakings of a lesser kind; and it gains a
firmer footing every day about, above, and around all private
persons, to assist, to advise, and to coerce them. Formerly a
sovereign lived upon the income of his lands, or the revenue of
his taxes; this is no longer the case now that his wants have
increased as well as his power. Under the same circumstances
which formerly compelled a prince to put on a new tax, he now has
recourse to a loan. Thus the State gradually becomes the debtor
of most of the wealthier members of the community, and
centralizes the largest amounts of capital in its own hands.
Small capital is drawn into its keeping by another method. As
men are intermingled and conditions become more equal, the poor
have more resources, more education, and more desires; they
conceive the notion of bettering their condition, and this
teaches them to save. These savings are daily producing an
infinite number of small capitals, the slow and gradual produce
of labor, which are always increasing. But the greater part of
this money would be unproductive if it remained scattered in the
hands of its owners. This circumstance has given rise to a
philanthropic institution, which will soon become, if I am not
mistaken, one of our most important political institutions. Some
charitable persons conceived the notion of collecting the savings
of the poor and placing them out at interest. In some countries
these benevolent associations are still completely distinct from
the State; but in almost all they manifestly tend to identify
themselves with the government; and in some of them the
government has superseded them, taking upon itself the enormous
task of centralizing in one place, and putting out at interest on
its own responsibility, the daily savings of many millions of the
working classes. Thus the State draws to itself the wealth of the
rich by loans, and has the poor man's mite at its disposal in the
savings banks. The wealth of the country is perpetually flowing
around the government and passing through its hands; the
accumulation increases in the same proportion as the equality of
conditions; for in a democratic country the State alone inspires
private individuals with confidence, because the State alone
appears to be endowed with strength and durability. *c Thus the
sovereign does not confine himself to the management of the
public treasury; he interferes in private money matters; he is
the superior, and often the master, of all the members of the
community; and, in addition to this, he assumes the part of their
steward and paymaster.
[Footnote c: On the one hand the taste for worldly welfare is
perpetually increasing, and on the other the government gets more
and more complete possession of the sources of that welfare.
Thus men are following two separate roads to servitude: the taste
for their own welfare withholds them from taking a part in the
government, and their love of that welfare places them in closer
dependence upon those who govern.]
The central power not only fulfils of itself the whole of
the duties formerly discharged by various authorities - extending
those duties, and surpassing those authorities - but it performs
them with more alertness, strength, and independence than it
displayed before. All the governments of Europe have in our time
singularly improved the science of administration: they do more
things, and they do everything with more order, more celerity,
and at less expense; they seem to be constantly enriched by all
the experience of which they have stripped private persons. From
day to day the princes of Europe hold their subordinate officers
under stricter control, and they invent new methods for guiding
them more closely, and inspecting them with less trouble. Not
content with managing everything by their agents, they undertake
to manage the conduct of their agents in everything; so that the
public administration not only depends upon one and the same
power, but it is more and more confined to one spot and
concentrated in the same hands. The government centralizes its
agency whilst it increases its prerogative - hence a twofold
increase of strength.
In examining the ancient constitution of the judicial power,
amongst most European nations, two things strike the mind - the
independence of that power, and the extent of its functions. Not
only did the courts of justice decide almost all differences
between private persons, but in very many cases they acted as
arbiters between private persons and the State. I do not here
allude to the political and administrative offices which courts
of judicature had in some countries usurped, but the judicial
office common to them all. In most of the countries of Europe,
there were, and there still are, many private rights, connected
for the most part with the general right of property, which stood
under the protection of the courts of justice, and which the
State could not violate without their sanction. It was this
semi-political power which mainly distinguished the European
courts of judicature from all others; for all nations have had
judges, but all have not invested their judges with the same
privileges. Upon examining what is now occurring amongst the
democratic nations of Europe which are called free, as well as
amongst the others, it will be observed that new and more
dependent courts are everywhere springing up by the side of the
old ones, for the express purpose of deciding, by an
extraordinary jurisdiction, such litigated matters as may arise
between the government and private persons. The elder judicial
power retains its independence, but its jurisdiction is narrowed;
and there is a growing tendency to reduce it to be exclusively
the arbiter between private interests. The number of these
special courts of justice is continually increasing, and their
functions increase likewise. Thus the government is more and
more absolved from the necessity of subjecting its policy and its
rights to the sanction of another power. As judges cannot be
dispensed with, at least the State is to select them, and always
to hold them under its control; so that, between the government
and private individuals, they place the effigy of justice rather
than justice itself. The State is not satisfied with drawing all
concerns to itself, but it acquires an ever-increasing power of
deciding on them all without restriction and without appeal. *d
[Footnote d: A strange sophism has been made on this head in
France. When a suit arises between the government and a private
person, it is not to be tried before an ordinary judge - in
order, they say, not to mix the administrative and the judicial
powers; as if it were not to mix those powers, and to mix them in
the most dangerous and oppressive manner, to invest the
government with the office of judging and administering at the
same time.]
There exists amongst the modern nations of Europe one great
cause, independent of all those which have already been pointed
out, which perpetually contributes to extend the agency or to
strengthen the prerogative of the supreme power, though it has
not been sufficiently attended to: I mean the growth of
manufactures, which is fostered by the progress of social
equality. Manufactures generally collect a multitude of men of
the same spot, amongst whom new and complex relations spring up.
These men are exposed by their calling to great and sudden
alternations of plenty and want, during which public tranquillity
is endangered. It may also happen that these employments
sacrifice the health, and even the life, of those who gain by
them, or of those who live by them. Thus the manufacturing
classes require more regulation, superintendence, and restraint
than the other classes of society, and it is natural that the
powers of government should increase in the same proportion as
those classes.
This is a truth of general application; what follows more
especially concerns the nations of Europe. In the centuries
which preceded that in which we live, the aristocracy was in
possession of the soil, and was competent to defend it: landed
property was therefore surrounded by ample securities, and its
possessors enjoyed great independence. This gave rise to laws
and customs which have been perpetuated, notwithstanding the
subdivision of lands and the ruin of the nobility; and, at the
present time, landowners and agriculturists are still those
amongst the community who must easily escape from the control of
the supreme power. In these same aristocratic ages, in which all
the sources of our history are to be traced, personal property
was of small importance, and those who possessed it were despised
and weak: the manufacturing class formed an exception in the
midst of those aristocratic communities; as it had no certain
patronage, it was not outwardly protected, and was often unable
to protect itself.
Hence a habit sprung up of considering manufacturing property as
something of a peculiar nature, not entitled to the same
deference, and not worthy of the same securities as property in
general; and manufacturers were looked upon as a small class in
the bulk of the people, whose independence was of small
importance, and who might with propriety be abandoned to the
disciplinary passions of princes. On glancing over the codes of
the middle ages, one is surprised to see, in those periods of
personal independence, with what incessant royal regulations
manufactures were hampered, even in their smallest details: on
this point centralization was as active and as minute as it can
ever be. Since that time a great revolution has taken place in
the world; manufacturing property, which was then only in the
germ, has spread till it covers Europe: the manufacturing class
has been multiplied and enriched by the remnants of all other
ranks; it has grown and is still perpetually growing in number,
in importance, in wealth. Almost all those who do not belong to
it are connected with it at least on some one point; after having
been an exception in society, it threatens to become the chief,
if not the only, class; nevertheless the notions and political
precedents engendered by it of old still cling about it. These
notions and these precedents remain unchanged, because they are
old, and also because they happen to be in perfect accordance
with the new notions and general habits of our contemporaries.
Manufacturing property then does not extend its rights in the
same ratio as its importance. The manufacturing classes do not
become less dependent, whilst they become more numerous; but, on
the contrary, it would seem as if despotism lurked within them,
and naturally grew with their growth. *e As a nation becomes more
engaged in manufactures, the want of roads, canals, harbors, and
other works of a semi-public nature, which facilitate the
acquisition of wealth, is more strongly felt; and as a nation
becomes more democratic, private individuals are less able, and
the State more able, to execute works of such magnitude. I do
not hesitate to assert that the manifest tendency of all
governments at the present time is to take upon themselves alone
the execution of these undertakings; by which means they daily
hold in closer dependence the population which they govern.
[Footnote e: I shall quote a few facts in corroboration of this
remark. Mines are the natural sources of manufacturing wealth: as
manufactures have grown up in Europe, as the produce of mines has
become of more general importance, and good mining more difficult
from the subdivision of property which is a consequence of the
equality of conditions, most governments have asserted a right of
owning the soil in which the mines lie, and of inspecting the
works; which has never been the case with any other kind of
property. Thus mines, which were private property, liable to the
same obligations and sheltered by the same guarantees as all
other landed property, have fallen under the control of the
State. The State either works them or farms them; the owners of
them are mere tenants, deriving their rights from the State; and,
moreover, the State almost everywhere claims the power of
directing their operations: it lays down rules, enforces the
adoption of particular methods, subjects the mining adventurers
to constant superintendence, and, if refractory, they are ousted
by a government court of justice, and the government transfers
their contract to other hands; so that the government not only
possesses the mines, but has all the adventurers in its power.
Nevertheless, as manufactures increase, the working of old mines
increases also; new ones are opened, the mining population
extends and grows up; day by day governments augment their
subterranean dominions, and people them with their agents.]
On the other hand, in proportion as the power of a State
increases, and its necessities are augmented, the State
consumption of manufactured produce is always growing larger, and
toese commodities are generally made in the arsenals or
establishments of the government. Thus, in every kingdom, the
ruler becomes the principal manufacturer; he collects and retains
in his service a vast number of engineers, architects, mechanics,
and handicraftsmen. Not only is he the principal manufacturer,
but he tends more and more to become the chief, or rather the
master of all other manufacturers. As private persons become
more powerless by becoming more equal, they can effect nothing in
manufactures without combination; but the government naturally
seeks to place these combinations under its own control.
It must be admitted that these collective beings, which are
called combinations, are stronger and more formidable than a
private individual can ever be, and that they have less of the
responsibility of their own actions; whence it seems reasonable
that they should not be allowed to retain so great an
independence of the supreme government as might be conceded to a
private individual.
Rulers are the more apt to follow this line of policy, as
their own inclinations invite them to it. Amongst democratic
nations it is only by association that the resistance of the
people to the government can ever display itself: hence the
latter always looks with ill-favor on those associations which
are not in its own power; and it is well worthy of remark, that
amongst democratic nations, the people themselves often entertain
a secret feeling of fear and jealousy against these very
associations, which prevents the citizens from defending the
institutions of which they stand so much in need. The power and
the duration of these small private bodies, in the midst of the
weakness and instability of the whole community, astonish and
alarm the people; and the free use which each association makes
of its natural powers is almost regarded as a dangerous
privilege. All the associations which spring up in our age are,
moreover, new corporate powers, whose rights have not been
sanctioned by time; they come into existence at a time when the
notion ofprivate rights is weak, and when the power of government
is unbounded; hence it is not surprising that they lose their
freedom at their birth. Amongst all European nations there are
some kinds of associations which cannot be formed until the State
has examined their by-laws, and authorized their existence. In
several others, attempts are made to extend this rule to all
associations; the consequences of such a policy, if it were
successful, may easily be foreseen. If once the sovereign had a
general right of authorizing associations of all kinds upon
certain conditions, he would not be long without claiming the
right of superintending and managing them, in order to prevent
them from departing from the rules laid down by himself. In this
manner, the State, after having reduced all who are desirous of
forming associations into dependence, would proceed to reduce
into the same condition all who belong to associations already
formed - that is to say, almost all the men who are now in
existence. Governments thus appropriate to themselves, and
convert to their own purposes, the greater part of this new power
which manufacturing interests have in our time brought into the
world. Manufacturers govern us - they govern manufactures.
I attach so much importance to all that I have just been
saying, that I am tormented by the fear of having impaired my
meaning in seeking to render it more clear. If the reader thinks
that the examples I have adduced to support my observations are
insufficient or ill-chosen - if he imagines that I have anywhere
exaggerated the encroachments of the supreme power, and, on the
other hand, that I have underrated the extent of the sphere which
still remains open to the exertions of individual independence, I
entreat him to lay down the book for a moment, and to turn his
mind to reflect for himself upon the subjects I have attempted to
explain. Let him attentively examine what is taking place in
France and in other countries - let him inquire of those about
him - let him search himself, and I am much mistaken if he does
not arrive, without my guidance, and by other paths, at the point
to which I have sought to lead him. He will perceive that for
the last half-century, centralization has everywhere been growing
up in a thousand different ways. Wars, revolutions, conquests,
have served to promote it: all men have labored to increase it.
In the course of the same period, during which men have succeeded
each other with singular rapidity at the head of affairs, their
notions, interests, and passions have been infinitely
diversified; but all have by some means or other sought to
centralize. This instinctive centralization has been the only
settled point amidst the extreme mutability of their lives and of
their thoughts.
If the reader, after having investigated these details of
human affairs, will seek to survey the wide prospect as a whole,
he will be struck by the result. On the one hand the most
settled dynasties shaken or overthrown - the people everywhere
escaping by violence from the sway of their laws -abolishing or
limiting the authority of their rulers or their princes - the
nations, which are not in open revolution, restless at least, and
excited -all of them animated by the same spirit of revolt: and
on the other hand, at this very period of anarchy, and amongst
these untractable nations, the incessant increase of the
prerogative of the supreme government, becoming more centralized,
more adventurous, more absolute, more extensive - the people
perpetually falling under the control of the public
administration - led insensibly to surrender to it some further
portion of their individual independence, till the very men, who
from time to time upset a throne and trample on a race of kings,
bend more and more obsequiously to the slightest dictate of a
clerk. Thus two contrary revolutions appear in our days to be
going on; the one continually weakening the supreme power, the
other as continually strengthening it: at no other period in our
history has it appeared so weak or so strong. But upon a more
attentive examination of the state of the world, it appears that
these two revolutions are intimately connected together, that
they originate in the same source, and that after having followed
a separate course, they lead men at last to the same result. I
may venture once more to repeat what I have already said or
implied in several parts of this book: great care must be taken
not to confound the principle of equality itself with the
revolution which finally establishes that principle in the social
condition and the laws of a nation: here lies the reason of
almost all the phenomena which occasion our astonishment. All
the old political powers of Europe, the greatest as well as the
least, were founded in ages of aristocracy, and they more or less
represented or defended the principles of inequality and of
privilege. To make the novel wants and interests, which the
growing principle of equality introduced, preponderate in
government, our contemporaries had to overturn or to coerce the
established powers. This led them to make revolutions, and
breathed into many of them, that fierce love of disturbance and
independence, which all revolutions, whatever be their object,
always engender. I do not believe that there is a single country
in Europe in which the progress of equality has not been preceded
or followed by some violent changes in the state of property and
persons; and almost all these changes have been attended with
much anarchy and license, because they have been made by the
least civilized portion of the nation against that which is most
civilized. Hence proceeded the two-fold contrary tendencies
which I have just pointed out. As long as the democratic
revolution was glowing with heat, the men who were bent upon the
destruction of old aristocratic powers hostile to that
revolution, displayed a strong spirit of independence; but as the
victory or the principle of equality became more complete, they
gradually surrendered themselves to the propensities natural to
that condition of equality, and they strengthened and centralized
their governments. They had sought to be free in order to make
themselves equal; but in proportion as equality was more
established by the aid of freedom, freedom itself was thereby
rendered of more difficult attainment.
These two states of a nation have sometimes been
contemporaneous: the last generation in France showed how a
people might organize a stupendous tyranny in the community, at
the very time when they were baffling the authority of the
nobility and braving the power of all kings - at once teaching
the world the way to win freedom, and the way to lose it. In our
days men see that constituted powers are dilapidated on every
side - they see all ancient authority gasping away, all ancient
barriers tottering to their fall, and the judgment of the wisest
is troubled at the sight: they attend only to the amazing
revolution which is taking place before their eyes, and they
imagine that mankind is about to fall into perpetual anarchy: if
they looked to the final consequences of this revolution, their
fears would perhaps assume a different shape. For myself, I
confess that I put no trust in the spirit of freedom which
appears to animate my contemporaries. I see well enough that the
nations of this age are turbulent, but I do not clearly perceive
that they are liberal; and I fear lest, at the close of those
perturbations which rock the base of thrones, the domination of
sovereigns may prove more powerful than it ever was before.
Book Four - Chapters VI,VII
Chapter VI: What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To
Fear
I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a
democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans,
might offer singular facilities for the establishment of
despotism; and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much
use had already been made by most of our rulers, of the notions,
the sentiments, and the wants engendered by this same social
condition, for the purpose of extending the circle of their
power. This led me to think that the nations of Christendom
would perhaps eventually undergo some sort of oppression like
that which hung over several of the nations of the ancient world.
A more accurate examination of the subject, and five years of
further meditations, have not diminished my apprehensions, but
they have changed the object of them. No sovereign ever lived in
former ages so absolute or so powerful as to undertake to
administer by his own agency, and without the assistance of
intermediate powers, all the parts of a great empire: none ever
attempted to subject all his subjects indiscriminately to strict
uniformity of regulation, and personally to tutor and direct
every member of the community. The notion of such an undertaking
never occurred to the human mind; and if any man had conceived
it, the want of information, the imperfection of the
administrative system, and above all, the natural obstacles
caused by the inequality of conditions, would speedily have
checked the execution of so vast a design. When the Roman
emperors were at the height of their power, the different nations
of the empire still preserved manners and customs of great
diversity; although they were subject to the same monarch, most
of the provinces were separately administered; they abounded in
powerful and active municipalities; and although the whole
government of the empire was centred in the hands of the emperor
alone, and he always remained, upon occasions, the supreme
arbiter in all matters, yet the details of social life and
private occupations lay for the most part beyond his control.
The emperors possessed, it is true, an immense and unchecked
power, which allowed them to gratify all their whimsical tastes,
and to employ for that purpose the whole strength of the State.
They frequently abused that power arbitrarily to deprive their
subjects of property or of life: their tyranny was extremely
onerous to the few, but it did not reach the greater number; it
was fixed to some few main objects, and neglected the rest; it
was violent, but its range was limited.
But it would seem that if despotism were to be established
amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a
different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it
would degrade men without tormenting them. I do not question,
that in an age of instruction and equality like our own,
sovereigns might more easily succeed in collecting all political
power into their own hands, and might interfere more habitually
and decidedly within the circle of private interests, than any
sovereign of antiquity could ever do. But this same principle of
equality which facilitates despotism, tempers its rigor. We have
seen how the manners of society become more humane and gentle in
proportion as men become more equal and alike. When no member of
the community has much power or much wealth, tyranny is, as it
were, without opportunities and a field of action. As all
fortunes are scanty, the passions of men are naturally
circumscribed - their imagination limited, their pleasures
simple. This universal moderation moderates the sovereign
himself, and checks within certain limits the inordinate extent
of his desires.
Independently of these reasons drawn from the nature of the
state of society itself, I might add many others arising from
causes beyond my subject; but I shall keep within the limits I
have laid down to myself. Democratic governments may become
violent and even cruel at certain periods of extreme
effervescence or of great danger: but these crises will be rare
and brief. When I consider the petty passions of our
contemporaries, the mildness of their manners, the extent of
their education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of
their morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the
restraint which they almost all observe in their vices no less
than in their virtues, I have no fear that they will meet with
tyrants in their rulers, but rather guardians. *a I think then
that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are
menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the
world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their
memories. I am trying myself to choose an expression which will
accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it, but
in vain; the old words "despotism" and "tyranny" are
inappropriate: the thing itself is new; and since I cannot name
it, I must attempt to define it.
[Footnote a: See Appendix Y.]
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may
appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the
observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and
alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry
pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living
apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest - his
children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of
mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to
them, but he sees them not - he touches them, but he feels them
not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his
kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have
lost his country. Above this race of men stands an immense and
tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their
gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is
absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like
the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object
was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to
keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the
people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but
rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly
labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter
of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and
supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages
their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the
descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances - what
remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the
trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the
free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it
circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually
robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality
has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to
endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the
community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the
supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It
covers the surface of society with a net-work of small
complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most
original minds and the most energetic characters cannot
penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not
shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced
by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting:
such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does
not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and
stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing
better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which
the government is the shepherd. I have always thought that
servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have
just described, might be combined more easily than is commonly
believed with some of the outward forms of freedom; and that it
might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of
the people. Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two
conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to
remain free: as they cannot destroy either one or the other of
these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at
once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of
government, but elected by the people. They combine the
principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this
gives them a respite; they console themselves for being in
tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own
guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings,
because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons,
but the people at large that holds the end of his chain. By this
system the people shake off their state of dependence just long
enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A
great many persons at the present day are quite contented with
this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the
sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough
for the protection of individual freedom when they have
surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not
satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me
than the fact of extorted obedience.
I do not however deny that a constitution of this kind
appears to me to be infinitely preferable to one, which, after
having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest
them in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons.
Of all the forms which democratic despotism could assume, the
latter would assuredly be the worst. When the sovereign is
elective, or narrowly watched by a legislature which is really
elective and independent, the oppression which he exercises over
individuals is sometimes greater, but it is always less
degrading; because every man, when he is oppressed and disarmed,
may still imagine, that whilst he yields obedience it is to
himself he yields it, and that it is to one of his own
inclinations that all the rest give way. In like manner I can
understand that when the sovereign represents the nation, and is
dependent upon the people, the rights and the power of which
every citizen is deprived, not only serve the head of the State,
but the State itself; and that private persons derive some return
from the sacrifice of their independence which they have made to
the public. To create a representation of the people in every
centralized country, is therefore, to diminish the evil which
extreme centralization may produce, but not to get rid of it. I
admit that by this means room is left for the intervention of
individuals in the more important affairs; but it is not the less
suppressed in the smaller and more private ones. It must not be
forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the
minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to
think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones,
if it were possible to be secure of the one without possessing
the other. Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day, and
is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not
drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till
they are led to surrender the exercise of their will. Thus their
spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated; whereas
that obedience, which is exacted on a few important but rare
occasions, only exhibits servitude at certain intervals, and
throws the burden of it upon a small number of men. It is in vain
to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the
central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of
that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice,
however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually
losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for
themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of
humanity. *b I add that they will soon become incapable of
exercising the great and only privilege which remains to them.
The democratic nations which have introduced freedom into their
political constitution, at the very time when they were
augmenting the despotism of their administrative constitution,
have been led into strange paradoxes. To manage those minor
affairs in which good sense is all that is wanted - the people
are held to be unequal to the task, but when the government of
the country is at stake, the people are invested with immense
powers; they are alternately made the playthings of their ruler,
and his masters - more than kings, and less than men. After
having exhausted all the different modes of election, without
finding one to suit their purpose, they are still amazed, and
still bent on seeking further; as if the evil they remark did not
originate in the constitution of the country far more than in
that of the electoral body. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive
how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government
should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they
are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal,
wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a
subservient people. A constitution, which should be republican
in its head and ultra- monarchical in all its other parts, has
ever appeared to me to be a short-lived monster. The vices of
rulers and the ineptitude of the people would speedily bring
about its ruin; and the nation, weary of its representatives and
of itself, would create freer institutions, or soon return to
stretch itself at the feet of a single master.
[Footnote b: See Appendix Z.]
Chapter VII: Continuation Of The Preceding Chapters
I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and
despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of
society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that if
such a government were once established amongst such a people, it
would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of
them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism
therefore appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic
ages. I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but
in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. On the
other hand, I am persuaded that all who shall attempt, in the
ages upon which we are entering, to base freedom upon
aristocratic privilege, will fail - that all who shall attempt to
draw and to retain authority within a single class, will fail.
At the present day no ruler is skilful or strong enough to found
a despotism, by re-establishing permanent distinctions of rank
amongst his subjects: no legislator is wise or powerful enough to
preserve free institutions, if he does not take equality for his
first principle and his watchword. All those of our
contemporaries who would establish or secure the independence and
the dignity of their fellow-men, must show themselves the friends
of equality; and the only worthy means of showing themselves as
such, is to be so: upon this depends the success of their holy
enterprise. Thus the question is not how to reconstruct
aristocratic society, but how to make liberty proceed out of that
democratic state of society in which God has placed us.
These two truths appear to me simple, clear, and fertile in
consequences; and they naturally lead me to consider what kind of
free government can be established amongst a people in which
social conditions are equal. It results from the very
constitution of democratic nations and from their necessities,
that the power of government amongst them must be more uniform,
more centralized, more extensive, more searching, and more
efficient than in other countries. Society at large is naturally
stronger and more active, individuals more subordinate and weak;
the former does more, the latter less; and this is inevitably the
case. It is not therefore to be expected that the range of
private independence will ever be as extensive in democratic as
in aristocratic countries - nor is this to be desired; for,
amongst aristocratic nations, the mass is often sacrificed to the
individual, and the prosperity of the greater number to the
greatness of the few. It is both necessary and desirable that
the government of a democratic people should be active and
powerful: and our object should not be to render it weak or
indolent, but solely to prevent it from abusing its aptitude and
its strength.
The circumstance which most contributed to secure the
independence of private persons in aristocratic ages, was, that
the supreme power did not affect to take upon itself alone the
government and administration of the community; those functions
were necessarily partially left to the members of the
aristocracy: so that as the supreme power was always divided, it
never weighed with its whole weight and in the same manner on
each individual. Not only did the government not perform
everything by its immediate agency; but as most of the agents who
discharged its duties derived their power not from the State, but
from the circumstance of their birth, they were not perpetually
under its control. The government could not make or unmake them
in an instant, at pleasure, nor bend them in strict uniformity to
its slightest caprice - this was an additional guarantee of
private independence. I readily admit that recourse cannot be had
to the same means at the present time: but I discover certain
democratic expedients which may be substituted for them. Instead
of vesting in the government alone all the administrative powers
of which corporations and nobles have been deprived, a portion of
them may be entrusted to secondary public bodies, temporarily
composed of private citizens: thus the liberty of private persons
will be more secure, and their equality will not be diminished.
The Americans, who care less for words than the French,
still designate by the name of "county" the largest of their
administrative districts: but the duties of the count or lord-
lieutenant are in part performed by a provincial assembly. At a
period of equality like our own it would be unjust and
unreasonable to institute hereditary officers; but there is
nothing to prevent us from substituting elective public officers
to a certain extent. Election is a democratic expedient which
insures the independence of the public officer in relation to the
government, as much and even more than hereditary rank can insure
it amongst aristocratic nations. Aristocratic countries abound
in wealthy and influential persons who are competent to provide
for themselves, and who cannot be easily or secretly oppressed:
such persons restrain a government within general habits of
moderation and reserve. I am very well aware that democratic
countries contain no such persons naturally; but something
analogous to them may be created by artificial means. I firmly
believe that an aristocracy cannot again be founded in the world;
but I think that private citizens, by combining together, may
constitute bodies of great wealth, influence, and strength,
corresponding to the persons of an aristocracy. By this means
many of the greatest political advantages of aristocracy would be
obtained without its injustice or its dangers. An association
for political, commercial, or manufacturing purposes, or even for
those of science and literature, is a powerful and enlightened
member of the community, which cannot be disposed of at pleasure,
or oppressed without remonstrance; and which, by defending its
own rights against the encroachments of the government, saves the
common liberties of the country.
In periods of aristocracy every man is always bound so
closely to many of his fellow-citizens, that he cannot be
assailed without their coming to his assistance. In ages of
equality every man naturally stands alone; he has no hereditary
friends whose co- operation he may demand - no class upon whose
sympathy he may rely: he is easily got rid of, and he is trampled
on with impunity. At the present time, an oppressed member of
the community has therefore only one method of self-defence - he
may appeal to the whole nation; and if the whole nation is deaf
to his complaint, he may appeal to mankind: the only means he has
of making this appeal is by the press. Thus the liberty of the
press is infinitely more valuable amongst democratic nations than
amongst all others; it is the only cure for the evils which
equality may produce. Equality sets men apart and weakens them;
but the press places a powerful weapon within every man's reach,
which the weakest and loneliest of them all may use. Equality
deprives a man of the support of his connections; but the press
enables him to summon all his fellow- countrymen and all his
fellow-men to his assistance. Printing has accelerated the
progress of equality, and it is also one of its best correctives.
I think that men living in aristocracies may, strictly
speaking, do without the liberty of the press: but such is not
the case with those who live in democratic countries. To protect
their personal independence I trust not to great political
assemblies, to parliamentary privilege, or to the assertion of
popular sovereignty. All these things may, to a certain extent,
be reconciled with personal servitude - but that servitude cannot
be complete if the press is free: the press is the chiefest
democratic instrument of freedom.
Something analogous may be said of the judicial power. It
is a part of the essence of judicial power to attend to private
interests, and to fix itself with predilection on minute objects
submitted to its observation; another essential quality of
judicial power is never to volunteer its assistance to the
oppressed, but always to be at the disposal of the humblest of
those who solicit it; their complaint, however feeble they may
themselves be, will force itself upon the ear of justice and
claim redress, for this is inherent in the very constitution of
the courts of justice. A power of this kind is therefore
peculiarly adapted to the wants of freedom, at a time when the
eye and finger of the government are constantly intruding into
the minutest details of human actions, and when private persons
are at once too weak to protect themselves, and too much isolated
for them to reckon upon the assistance of their fellows. The
strength of the courts of law has ever been the greatest security
which can be offered to personal independence; but this is more
especially the case in democratic ages: private rights and
interests are in constant danger, if the judicial power does not
grow more extensive and more strong to keep pace with the growing
equality of conditions.
Equality awakens in men several propensities extremely
dangerous to freedom, to which the attention of the legislator
ought constantly to be directed. I shall only remind the reader
of the most important amongst them. Men living in democratic ages
do not readily comprehend the utility of forms: they feel an
instinctive contempt for them - I have elsewhere shown for what
reasons. Forms excite their contempt and often their hatred; as
they commonly aspire to none but easy and present gratifications,
they rush onwards to the object of their desires, and the
slightest delay exasperates them. This same temper, carried with
them into political life, renders them hostile to forms, which
perpetually retard or arrest them in some of their projects. Yet
this objection which the men of democracies make to forms is the
very thing which renders forms so useful to freedom; for their
chief merit is to serve as a barrier between the strong and the
weak, the ruler and the people, to retard the one, and give the
other time to look about him. Forms become more necessary in
proportion as the government becomes more active and more
powerful, whilst private persons are becoming more indolent and
more feeble. Thus democratic nations naturally stand more in need
of forms than other nations, and they naturally respect them
less. This deserves most serious attention. Nothing is more
pitiful than the arrogant disdain of most of our contemporaries
for questions of form; for the smallest questions of form have
acquired in our time an importance which they never had before:
many of the greatest interests of mankind depend upon them. I
think that if the statesmen of aristocratic ages could sometimes
contemn forms with impunity, and frequently rise above them, the
statesmen to whom the government of nations is now confided ought
to treat the very least among them with respect, and not neglect
them without imperious necessity. In aristocracies the
observance of forms was superstitious; amongst us they ought to
be kept with a deliberate and enlightened deference.
Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic
nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them ta
despise and undervalue the rights of private persons. The
attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they
display for it, is generally proportioned to its importance, or
to the length of time during which they have enjoyed it. The
rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly
of small importance, of recent growth, and extremely precarious -
the consequence is that they are often sacrificed without regret,
and almost always violated without remorse. But it happens that
at the same period and amongst the same nations in which men
conceive a natural contempt for the rights of private persons,
the rights of society at large are naturally extended and
consolidated: in other words, men become less attached to private
rights at the very time at which it would be most necessary to
retain and to defend what little remains of them. It is
therefore most especially in the present democratic ages, that
the true friends of the liberty and the greatness of man ought
constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of government
from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the
general execution of its designs. At such times no citizen is so
obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be
oppressed - no private rights are so unimportant that they can be
surrendered with impunity to the caprices of a government. The
reason is plain: - if the private right of an individual is
violated at a time when the human mind is fully impressed with
the importance and the sanctity of such rights, the injury done
is confined to the individual whose right is infringed; but to
violate such a right, at the present day, is deeply to corrupt
the manners of the nation and to put the whole community in
jeopardy, because the very notion of this kind of right
constantly tends amongst us to be impaired and lost.
There are certain habits, certain notions, and certain vices
which are peculiar to a state of revolution, and which a
protracted revolution cannot fail to engender and to propagate,
whatever be, in other respects, its character, its purpose, and
the scene on which it takes place. When any nation has, within a
short space of time, repeatedly varied its rulers, its opinions,
and its laws, the men of whom it is composed eventually contract
a taste for change, and grow accustomed to see all changes
effected by sudden violence. Thus they naturally conceive a
contempt for forms which daily prove ineffectual; and they do not
support without impatience the dominion of rules which they have
so often seen infringed. As the ordinary notions of equity and
morality no longer suffice to explain and justify all the
innovations daily begotten by a revolution, the principle of
public utility is called in, the doctrine of political necessity
is conjured up, and men accustom themselves to sacrifice private
interests without scruple, and to trample on the rights of
individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public
purpose.
These habits and notions, which I shall call revolutionary,
because all revolutions produce them, occur in aristocracies just
as much as amongst democratic nations; but amongst the former
they are often less powerful and always less lasting, because
there they meet with habits, notions, defects, and impediments,
which counteract them: they consequently disappear as soon as the
revolution is terminated, and the nation reverts to its former
political courses. This is not always the case in democratic
countries, in which it is ever to be feared that revolutionary
tendencies, becoming more gentle and more regular, without
entirely disappearing from society, will be gradually transformed
into habits of subjection to the administrative authority of the
government. I know of no countries in which revolutions re more
dangerous than in democratic countries; because, independently of
the accidental and transient evils which must always attend them,
they may always create some evils which are permanent and
unending. I believe that there are such things as justifiable
resistance and legitimate rebellion: I do not therefore assert,
as an absolute proposition, that the men of democratic ages ought
never to make revolutions; but I think that they have especial
reason to hesitate before they embark in them, and that it is far
better to endure many grievances in their present condition than
to have recourse to so perilous a remedy.
I shall conclude by one general idea, which comprises not
only all the particular ideas which have been expressed in the
present chapter, but also most of those which it is the object of
this book to treat of. In the ages of aristocracy which preceded
our own, there were private persons of great power, and a social
authority of extreme weakness. The outline of society itself was
not easily discernible, and constantly confounded with the
different powers by which the community was ruled. The principal
efforts of the men of those times were required to strengthen,
aggrandize, and secure the supreme power; and on the other hand,
to circumscribe individual independence within narrower limits,
and to subject private interests to the interests of the public.
Other perils and other cares await the men of our age. Amongst
the greater part of modern nations, the government, whatever may
be its origin, its constitution, or its name, has become almost
omnipotent, and private persons are falling, more and more, into
the lowest stage of weakness and dependence. In olden society
everything was different; unity and uniformity were nowhere to be
met with. In modern society everything threatens to become so
much alike, that the peculiar characteristics of each individual
will soon be entirely lost in the general aspect of the world.
Our forefathers were ever prone to make an improper use of the
notion, that private rights ought to be respected; and we are
naturally prone on the other hand to exaggerate the idea that the
interest of a private individual ought always to bend to the
interest of the many. The political world is metamorphosed: new
remedies must henceforth be sought for new disorders. To lay
down extensive, but distinct and settled limits, to the action of
the government; to confer certain rights on private persons, and
to secure to them the undisputed enjoyment of those rights; to
enable individual man to maintain whatever independence,
strength, and original power he still possesses; to raise him by
the side of society at large, and uphold him in that position -
these appear to me the main objects of legislators in the ages
upon which we are now entering. It would seem as if the rulers
of our time sought only to use men in order to make things great;
I wish that they would try a little more to make great men; that
they would set less value on the work, and more upon the workman;
that they would never forget that a nation cannot long remain
strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak, and
that no form or combination of social polity has yet been
devised, to make an energetic people out of a community of
pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.
I trace amongst our contemporaries two contrary notions
which are equally injurious. One set of men can perceive nothing
in the principle of equality but the anarchical tendencies which
it engenders: they dread their own free agency - they fear
themselves. Other thinkers, less numerous but more enlightened,
take a different view: besides that track which starts from the
principle of equality to terminate in anarchy, they have at last
discovered the road which seems to lead men to inevitable
servitude. They shape their souls beforehand to this necessary
condition; and, despairing of remaining free, they already do
obeisance in their hearts to the master who is soon to appear.
The former abandon freedom, because they think it dangerous; the
latter, because they hold it to be impossible. If I had
entertained the latter conviction, I should not have written this
book, but I should have confined myself to deploring in secret
the destiny of mankind. I have sought to point out the dangers to
which the principle of equality exposes the independence of man,
because I firmly believe that these dangers are the most
formidable, as well as the least foreseen, of all those which
futurity holds in store: but I do not think that they are
insurmountable. The men who live in the democratic ages upon
which we are entering have naturally a taste for independence:
they are naturally impatient of regulation, and they are wearied
by the permanence even of the condition they themselves prefer.
They are fond of power; but they are prone to despise and hate
those who wield it, and they easily elude its grasp by their own
mobility and insignificance. These propensities will always
manifest themselves, because they originate in the groundwork of
society, which will undergo no change: for a long time they will
prevent the establishment of any despotism, and they will furnish
fresh weapons to each succeeding generation which shall struggle
in favor of the liberty of mankind. Let us then look forward to
the future with that salutary fear which makes men keep watch and
ward for freedom, not with that faint and idle terror which
depresses and enervates the heart.
Book Four - Chapter VIII
Chapter VIII: General Survey Of The Subject
Before I close forever the theme that has detained me so
long, I would fain take a parting survey of all the various
characteristics of modern society, and appreciate at last the
general influence to be exercised by the principle of equality
upon the fate of mankind; but I am stopped by the difficulty of
the task, and in presence of so great an object my sight is
troubled, and my reason fails. The society of the modern world
which I have sought to delineate, and which I seek to judge, has
but just come into existence. Time has not yet shaped it into
perfect form: the great revolution by which it has been created
is not yet over: and amidst the occurrences of our time, it is
almost impossible to discern what will pass away with the
revolution itself, and what will survive its close. The world
which is rising into existence is still half encumbered by the
remains of the world which is waning into decay; and amidst the
vast perplexity of human affairs, none can say how much of
ancient institutions and former manners will remain, or how much
will completely disappear. Although the revolution which is
taking place in the social condition, the laws, the opinions, and
the feelings of men, is still very far from being terminated, yet
its results already admit of no comparison with anything that the
world has ever before witnessed. I go back from age to age up to
the remotest antiquity; but I find no parallel to what is
occurring before my eyes: as the past has ceased to throw its
light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
Nevertheless, in the midst of a prospect so wide, so novel
and so confused, some of the more prominent characteristics may
already be discerned and pointed out. The good things and the
evils of life are more equally distributed in the world: great
wealth tends to disappear, the number of small fortunes to
increase; desires and gratifications are multiplied, but
extraordinary prosperity and irremediable penury are alike
unknown. The sentiment of ambition is universal, but the scope
of ambition is seldom vast. Each individual stands apart in
solitary weakness; but society at large is active, provident, and
powerful: the performances of private persons are insignificant,
those of the State immense. There is little energy of character;
but manners are mild, and laws humane. If there be few instances
of exalted heroism or of virtues of the highest, brightest, and
purest temper, men's habits are regular, violence is rare, and
cruelty almost unknown. Human existence becomes longer, and
property more secure: life is not adorned with brilliant
trophies, but it is extremely easy and tranquil. Few pleasures
are either very refined or very coarse; and highly polished
manners are as uncommon as great brutality of tastes. Neither
men of great learning, nor extremely ignorant communities, are to
be met with; genius becomes more rare, information more diffused.
The human mind is impelled by the small efforts of all mankind
combined together, not by the strenuous activity of certain men.
There is less perfection, but more abundance, in all the
productions of the arts. The ties of race, of rank, and of
country are relaxed; the great bond of humanity is strengthened.
If I endeavor to find out the most general and the most prominent
of all these different characteristics, I shall have occasion to
perceive, that what is taking place in men's fortunes manifests
itself under a thousand other forms. Almost all extremes are
softened or blunted: all that was most prominent is superseded by
some mean term, at once less lofty and less low, less brilliant
and less obscure, than what before existed in the world.
When I survey this countless multitude of beings, shaped in
each other's likeness, amidst whom nothing rises and nothing
falls, the sight of such universal uniformity saddens and chills
me, and I am tempted to regret that state of society which has
ceased to be. When the world was full of men of great importance
and extreme insignificance, of great wealth and extreme poverty,
of great learning and extreme ignorance, I turned aside from the
latter to fix my observation on the former alone, who gratified
my sympathies. But I admit that this gratification arose from my
own weakness: it is because I am unable to see at once all that
is around me, that I am allowed thus to select and separate the
objects of my predilection from among so many others. Such is not
the case with that almighty and eternal Being whose gaze
necessarily includes the whole of created things, and who surveys
distinctly, though at once, mankind and man. We may naturally
believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but
the greater well-being of all, which is most pleasing in the
sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to
be man's decline, is to His eye advancement; what afflicts me is
acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated,
but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness
and its beauty. I would strive then to raise myself to this
point of the divine contemplation, and thence to view and to
judge the concerns of men.
No man, upon the earth, can as yet affirm absolutely and
generally, that the new state of the world is better than its
former one; but it is already easy to perceive that this state is
different. Some vices and some virtues were so inherent in the
constitution of an aristocratic nation, and are so opposite to
the character of a modern people, that they can never be infused
into it; some good tendencies and some bad propensities which
were unknown to the former, are natural to the latter; some ideas
suggest themselves spontaneously to the imagination of the one,
which are utterly repugnant to the mind of the other. They are
like two distinct orders of human beings, each of which has its
own merits and defects, its own advantages and its own evils.
Care must therefore be taken not to judge the state of society,
which is now coming into existence, by notions derived from a
state of society which no longer exists; for as these states of
society are exceedingly different in their structure, they cannot
be submitted to a just or fair comparison. It would be scarcely
more reasonable to require of our own contemporaries the peculiar
virtues which originated in the social condition of their
forefathers, since that social condition is itself fallen, and
has drawn into one promiscuous ruin the good and evil which
belonged to it.
But as yet these things are imperfectly understood. I find
that a great number of my contemporaries undertake to make a
certain selection from amongst the institutions, the opinions,
and the ideas which originated in the aristocratic constitution
of society as it was: a portion of these elements they would
willingly relinquish, but they would keep the remainder and
transplant them into their new world. I apprehend that such men
are wasting their time and their strength in virtuous but
unprofitable efforts. The object is not to retain the peculiar
advantages which the inequality of conditions bestows upon
mankind, but to secure the new benefits which equality may
supply. We have not to seek to make ourselves like our
progenitors, but to strive to work out that species of greatness
and happiness which is our own. For myself, who now look back
from this extreme limit of my task, and discover from afar, but
at once, the various objects which have attracted my more
attentive investigation upon my way, I am full of apprehensions
and of hopes. I perceive mighty dangers which it is possible to
ward off - mighty evils which may be avoided or alleviated; and I
cling with a firmer hold to the belief, that for democratic
nations to be virtuous and prosperous they require but to will
it. I am aware that many of my contemporaries maintain that
nations are never their own masters here below, and that they
necessarily obey some insurmountable and unintelligent power,
arising from anterior events, from their race, or from the
soil and climate of their country. Such principles are false and
cowardly; such principles can never produce aught but feeble men
and pusillanimous nations. Providence has not created mankind
entirely independent or entirely free. It is true that around
every man a fatal circle is traced, beyond which he cannot pass;
but within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free:
as it is with man, so with communities. The nations of our time
cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal; but it
depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to
lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to
prosperity or to wretchedness.
Part I.
Appendix A
For information concerning all the countries of the West
which have not been visited by Europeans, consult the account of
two expeditions undertaken at the expense of Congress by Major
Long. This traveller particularly mentions, on the subject of
the great American desert, that a line may be drawn nearly
parallel to the 20th degree of longitude *a (meridian of
Washington), beginning from the Red River and ending at the River
Platte. From this imaginary line to the Rocky Mountains, which
bound the valley of the Mississippi on the west, lie immense
plains, which are almost entirely covered with sand, incapable of
cultivation, or scattered over with masses of granite. In summer,
these plains are quite destitute of water, and nothing is to be
seen on them but herds of buffaloes and wild horses. Some hordes
of Indians are also found there, but in no great numbers. Major
Long was told that in travelling northwards from the River Platte
you find the same desert lying constantly on the left; but he was
unable to ascertain the truth of this report. However worthy of
confidence may be the narrative of Major Long, it must be
remembered that he only passed through the country of which he
speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he had
traced out for his journey.
[Footnote a: The 20th degree of longitude, according to the
meridian of Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th degree
on the meridian of Greenwich.]
Appendix B
South America, in the region between the tropics, produces
an incredible profusion of climbing plants, of which the flora of
the Antilles alone presents us with forty different species.
Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower,
which, according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the
Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which
it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant
festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, and fragrant
with perfume. The Mimosa scandens (Acacia a grandes gousses) is
a creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to
tree, and sometimes covers more than half a league.
Appendix C
The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America,
from the Pole to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the
same model, and subject to the same grammatical rules; whence it
may fairly be concluded that all the Indian nations sprang from
the same stock. Each tribe of the American continent speaks a
different dialect; but the number of languages, properly so
called, is very small, a fact which tends to prove that the
nations of the New World had not a very remote origin. Moreover,
the languages of America have a great degree of regularity, from
which it seems probable that the tribes which employ them had not
undergone any great revolutions, or been incorporated voluntarily
or by constraint, with foreign nations. For it is generally the
union of several languages into one which produces grammatical
irregularities. It is not long since the American languages,
especially those of the North, first attracted the serious
attention of philologists, when the discovery was made that this
idiom of a barbarous people was the product of a complicated
system of ideas and very learned combinations. These languages
were found to be very rich, and great pains had been taken at
their formation to render them agreeable to the ear. The
grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others in
several points, but especially in the following: -
Some nations of Europe, amongst others the Germans, have the
power of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus
giving a complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given
a most surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the
means of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term.
This will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted
by Mr. Duponceau, in the "Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of
America": A Delaware woman playing with a cat or a young dog,
says this writer, is heard to pronounce the word kuligatschis,
which is thus composed: k is the sign of the second person, and
signifies "thou" or "thy"; uli is a part of the word wulit, which
signifies "beautiful," "pretty"; gat is another fragment, of the
word wichgat, which means "paw"; and, lastly, schis is a
diminutive giving the idea of smallness. Thus in one word the
Indian woman has expressed "Thy pretty little paw." Take another
example of the felicity with which the savages of America have
composed their words. A young man of Delaware is called pilape.
This word is formed from pilsit, "chaste," "innocent"; and
lenape, "man"; viz., "man in his purity and innocence." This
facility of combining words is most remarkable in the strange
formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often
expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades
of an idea by the modification of its construction. Those who
may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have
only glanced at superficially, should read: -
1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr.
Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages, which is to be found
in the first volume of the "Memoirs of the Philosophical Society
of America," published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small;
vol. i. p. 356-464.
2. The "Grammar of the Delaware or the Lenape Language," by
Geiberger, and the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in
the same collection, vol. iii.
3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end
of the sixth volume of the American Encyclopaedia.
Appendix D
See in Charlevoix, vol. i. p. 235, the history of the first
war which the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610,
against the Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows,
offered a desperate resistance to the French and their allies.
Charlevoix is not a great painter, yet he exhibits clearly
enough, in this narrative, the contrast between the European
manners and those of savages, as well as the different way in
which the two races of men understood the sense of honor. When
the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which covered
the Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies, were
greatly offended at this proceeding; but without hesitation they
set to work in their usual manner, inflicting horrid cruelties
upon the prisoners, and devouring one of those who had been
killed, which made the Frenchmen shudder. The barbarians prided
themselves upon a scrupulousness which they were surprised at not
finding in our nation, and could not understand that there was
less to reprehend in the stripping of dead bodies than in the
devouring of their flesh like wild beasts. Charlevoix, in
another place (vol. i. p. 230), thus describes the first torture
of which Champlain was an eyewitness, and the return of the
Hurons into their own village. Having proceeded about eight
leagues, says he, our allies halted; and having singled out one
of their captives, they reproached him with all the cruelties
which he had practised upon the warriors of their nation who had
fallen into his hands, and told him that he might expect to be
treated in like manner; adding, that if he had any spirit he
would prove it by singing. He immediately chanted forth his
death-song, and then his war-song, and all the songs he knew,
"but in a very mournful strain," says Champlain, who was not then
aware that all savage music has a melancholy character. The
tortures which succeeded, accompanied by all the horrors which we
shall mention hereafter, terrified the French, who made every
effort to put a stop to them, but in vain. The following night,
one of the Hurons having dreamt that they were pursued, the
retreat was changed to a real flight, and the savages never
stopped until they were out of the reach of danger. The moment
they perceived the cabins of their own village, they cut
themselves long sticks, to which they fastened the scalps which
had fallen to their share, and carried them in triumph. At this
sight, the women swam to the canoes, where they received the
bloody scalps from the hands of their husbands, and tied them
round their necks. The warriors offered one of these horrible
trophies to Champlain; they also presented him with some bows and
arrows - the only spoils of the Iroquois which they had ventured
to seize - entreating him to show them to the King of France.
Champlain lived a whole winter quite alone among these
barbarians, without being under any alarm for his person or
property.
Appendix E
Although the Puritanical strictness which presided over the
establishment of the English colonies in America is now much
relaxed, remarkable traces of it are still found in their habits
and their laws. In 1792, at the very time when the
anti-Christian republic of France began its ephemeral existence,
the legislative body of Massachusetts promulgated the following
law, to compel the citizens to observe the Sabbath. We give the
preamble and the principal articles of this law, which is worthy
of the reader's attention: "Whereas," says the legislator, "the
observation of the Sunday is an affair of public interest;
inasmuch as it produces a necessary suspension of labor, leads
men to reflect upon the duties of life, and the errors to which
human nature is liable, and provides for the public and private
worship of God, the creator and governor of the universe, and for
the performance of such acts of charity as are the ornament and
comfort of Christian societies: - Whereas irreligious or
light-minded persons, forgetting the duties which the Sabbath
imposes, and the benefits which these duties confer on society,
are known to profane its sanctity, by following their pleasures
or their affairs; this way of acting being contrary to their own
interest as Christians, and calculated to annoy those who do not
follow their example; being also of great injury to society at
large, by spreading a taste for dissipation and dissolute
manners; Be it enacted and ordained by the Governor, Council, and
Representatives convened in General Court of Assembly, that all
and every person and persons shall on that day carefully apply
themselves to the duties of religion and piety, that no tradesman
or labourer shall exercise his ordinary calling, and that no game
or recreation shall be used on the Lord's Day, upon pain of
forfeiting ten shillings.
"That no one shall travel on that day, or any part thereof,
under pain of forfeiting twenty shillings; that no vessel shall
leave a harbour of the colony; that no persons shall keep outside
the meeting-house during the time of public worship, or profane
the time by playing or talking, on penalty of five shillings.
"Public-houses shall not entertain any other than strangers
or lodgers, under penalty of five shillings for every person
found drinking and abiding therein.
"Any person in health, who, without sufficient reason, shall
omit to worship God in public during three months, shall be
condemned to a fine of ten shillings.
"Any person guilty of misbehaviour in a place of public
worship, shall be fined from five to forty shillings.
"These laws are to be enforced by the tything-men of each
township, who have authority to visit public-houses on the
Sunday. The innkeeper who shall refuse them admittance, shall be
fined forty shillings for such offence.
"The tything-men are to stop travellers, and require of them
their reason for being on the road on Sunday; anyone refusing to
answer, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding five
pounds sterling. If the reason given by the traveller be not
deemed by the tything-man sufficient, he may bring the traveller
before the justice of the peace of the district." (Law of March
8, 1792; General Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 410.)
On March 11, 1797, a new law increased the amount of fines,
half of which was to be given to the informer. (Same collection,
vol. ii. p. 525.) On February 16, 1816, a new law confirmed these
same measures. (Same collection, vol. ii. p. 405.) Similar
enactments exist in the laws of the State of New York, revised in
1827 and 1828. (See Revised Statutes, Part I. chapter 20, p.
675.) In these it is declared that no one is allowed on the
Sabbath to sport, to fish, to play at games, or to frequent
houses where liquor is sold. No one can travel, except in case
of necessity. And this is not the only trace which the religious
strictness and austere manners of the first emigrants have left
behind them in the American laws. In the Revised Statutes of the
State of New York, vol. i. p. 662, is the following clause: -
"Whoever shall win or lose in the space of twenty-four
hours, by gaming or betting, the sum of twenty-five dollars,
shall be found guilty of a misdemeanour, and upon conviction
shall be condemned to pay a fine equal to at least five times the
value of the sum lost or won; which shall be paid to the
inspector of the poor of the township. He that loses twenty-five
dollars or more may bring an action to recover them; and if he
neglects to do so the inspector of the poor may prosecute the
winner, and oblige him to pay into the poor's box both the sum he
has gained and three times as much besides."
The laws we quote from are of recent date; but they are
unintelligible without going back to the very origin of the
colonies. I have no doubt that in our days the penal part of
these laws is very rarely applied. Laws preserve their
inflexibility, long after the manners of a nation have yielded to
the influence of time. It is still true, however, that nothing
strikes a foreigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than
the regard paid to the Sabbath. There is one, in particular, of
the large American cities, in which all social movements begin to
be suspended even on Saturday evening. You traverse its streets
at the hour at which you expect men in the middle of life to be
engaged in business, and young people in pleasure; and you meet
with solitude and silence. Not only have all ceased to work, but
they appear to have ceased to exist. Neither the movements of
industry are heard, nor the accents of joy, nor even the confused
murmur which arises from the midst of a great city. Chains are
hung across the streets in the neighborhood of the churches; the
half-closed shutters of the houses scarcely admit a ray of sun
into the dwellings of the citizens. Now and then you perceive a
solitary individual who glides silently along the deserted
streets and lanes. Next day, at early dawn, the rolling of
carriages, the noise of hammers, the cries of the population,
begin to make themselves heard again. The city is awake. An
eager crowd hastens towards the resort of commerce and industry;
everything around you bespeaks motion, bustle, hurry. A feverish
activity succeeds to the lethargic stupor of yesterday; you might
almost suppose that they had but one day to acquire wealth and to
enjoy it.
Appendix F
It is unnecessary for me to say, that in the chapter which
has just been read, I have not had the intention of giving a
history of America. My only object was to enable the reader to
appreciate the influence which the opinions and manners of the
first emigrants had exercised upon the fate of the different
colonies, and of the Union in general. I have therefore confined
myself to the quotation of a few detached fragments. I do not
know whether I am deceived, but it appears to me that, by
pursuing the path which I have merely pointed out, it would be
easy to present such pictures of the American republics as would
not be unworthy the attention of the public, and could not fail
to suggest to the statesman matter for reflection. Not being
able to devote myself to this labor, I am anxious to render it
easy to others; and, for this purpose, I subjoin a short
catalogue and analysis of the works which seem to me the most
important to consult.
At the head of the general documents which it would be
advantageous to examine I place the work entitled "An Historical
Collection of State Papers, and other authentic Documents,
intended as Materials for a History of the United States of
America," by Ebenezer Hasard. The first volume of this
compilation, which was printed at Philadelphia in 1792, contains
a literal copy of all the charters granted by the Crown of
England to the emigrants, as well as the principal acts of the
colonial governments, during the commencement of their existence.
Amongst other authentic documents, we here find a great many
relating to the affairs of New England and Virginia during this
period. The second volume is almost entirely devoted to the acts
of the Confederation of 1643. This federal compact, which was
entered into by the colonies of New England with the view of
resisting the Indians, was the first instance of union afforded
by the Anglo-Americans. There were besides many other
confederations of the same nature, before the famous one of 1776,
which brought about the independence of the colonies.
Each colony has, besides, its own historic monuments, some
of which are extremely curious; beginning with Virginia, the
State which was first peopled. The earliest historian of Virginia
was its founder, Captain John Smith. Captain Smith has left us an
octavo volume, entitled "The generall Historie of Virginia and
New England, by Captain John Smith, sometymes Governor in those
Countryes, and Admirall of New England"; printed at London in
1627. The work is adorned with curious maps and engravings of
the time when it appeared; the narrative extends from the year
1584 to 1626. Smith's work is highly and deservedly esteemed.
The author was one of the most celebrated adventurers of a period
of remarkable adventure; his book breathes that ardor for
discovery, that spirit of enterprise, which characterized the men
of his time, when the manners of chivalry were united to zeal for
commerce, and made subservient to the acquisition of wealth. But
Captain Smith is most remarkable for uniting to the virtues which
characterized his contemporaries several qualities to which they
were generally strangers; his style is simple and concise, his
narratives bear the stamp of truth, and his descriptions are free
from false ornament. This author throws most valuable light upon
the state and condition of the Indians at the time when North
America was first discovered.
The second historian to consult is Beverley, who commences
his narrative with the year 1585, and ends it with 1700. The
first part of his book contains historical documents, properly so
called, relative to the infancy of the colony. The second
affords a most curious picture of the state of the Indians at
this remote period. The third conveys very clear ideas
concerning the manners, social conditions, laws, and political
customs of the Virginians in the author's lifetime. Beverley was
a native of Virginia, which occasions him to say at the beginning
of his book, that he entreats his readers not to exercise their
critical severity upon it, since, having been born in the Indies,
he does not aspire to purity of language. Notwithstanding this
colonial modesty, the author shows throughout his book the
impatience with which he endures the supremacy of the
mother-country. In this work of Beverley are also found numerous
traces of that spirit of civil liberty which animated the English
colonies of America at the time when he wrote. He also shows the
dissensions which existed among them, and retarded their
independence. Beverley detests his Catholic neighbors of
Maryland even more than he hates the English government: his
style is simple, his narrative interesting, and apparently
trustworthy.
I saw in America another work which ought to be consulted,
entitled "The History of Virginia," by William Stith. This book
affords some curious details, but I thought it long and diffuse.
The most ancient as well as the best document to be
consulted on the history of Carolina, is a work in small quarto,
entitled "The History of Carolina," by John Lawson, printed at
London in 1718. This work contains, in the first part, a journey
of discovery in the west of Carolina; the account of which, given
in the form of a journal, is in general confused and superficial;
but it contains a very striking description of the mortality
caused among the savages of that time both by the smallpox and
the immoderate use of brandy; with a curious picture of the
corruption of manners prevalent amongst them, which was increased
by the presence of Europeans. The second part of Lawson's book
is taken up with a description of the physical condition of
Carolina, and its productions. In the third part, the author
gives an interesting account of the manners, customs, and
government of the Indians at that period. There is a good deal
of talent and originality in this part of the work. Lawson
concludes his history with a copy of the charter granted to the
Carolinas in the reign of Charles II. The general tone of this
work is light, and often licentious, forming a perfect contrast
to the solemn style of the works published at the same period in
New England. Lawson's history is extremely scarce in America, and
cannot be procured in Europe. There is, however, a copy of it in
the Royal Library at Paris.
From the southern extremity of the United States, I pass at
once to the northern limit; as the intermediate space was not
peopled till a later period. I must first point out a very
curious compilation, entitled "Collection of the Massachusetts
Historical Society," printed for the first time at Boston in
1792, and reprinted in 1806. The collection of which I speak,
and which is continued to the present day, contains a great
number of very valuable documents relating to the history of the
different States in New England. Among them are letters which
have never been published, and authentic pieces which had been
buried in provincial archives. The whole work of Gookin,
concerning the Indians, is inserted there.
I have mentioned several times in the chapter to which this
note relates, the work of Nathaniel Norton entitled "New
England's Memorial"; sufficiently, perhaps, to prove that it
deserves the attention of those who would be conversant with the
history of New England. This book is in octavo, and was
reprinted at Boston in 1826.
The most valuable and important authority which exists upon
the history of New England, is the work of the Rev. Cotton
Mather, entitled "Magnalia Christi Americana, or the
Ecclesiastical History of New England, 1620-1698, 2 vols. 8vo,
reprinted at Hartford, United States, in 1820." *b The author
divided his work into seven books. The first presents the
history of the events which prepared and brought about the
establishment of New England. The second contains the lives of
the first governors and chief magistrates who presided over the
country. The third is devoted to the lives and labors of the
evangelical ministers who, during the same period, had the care
of souls. In the fourth the author relates the institution and
progress of the University of Cambridge (Massachusetts). In the
fifth he describes the principles and the discipline of the
Church of New England. The sixth is taken up in retracing
certain facts, which, in the opinion of Mather, prove the
merciful interposition of Providence in behalf of the inhabitants
of New England. Lastly, in the seventh, the author gives an
account of the heresies and the troubles to which the Church of
New England was exposed. Cotton Mather was an evangelical
minister who was born at Boston, and passed his life there. His
narratives are distinguished by the same ardor and religious zeal
which led to the foundation of the colonies of New England.
Traces of bad taste sometimes occur in his manner of writing; but
he interests, because he is full of enthusiasm. He is often
intolerant, still oftener credulous, but he never betrays an
intention to deceive. Sometimes his book contains fine passages,
and true and profound reflections, such as the following: -
"Before the arrival of the Puritans," says he (vol.
i. chap. iv.), "there were more than a few attempts of the
English to people and improve the parts of New England which were
to the northward of New Plymouth; but the designs of those
attempts being aimed no higher than the advancement of some
worldly interests, a constant series of disasters has confounded
them, until there was a plantation erected upon the nobler
designs of Christianity: and that plantation though it has had
more adversaries than perhaps any one upon earth, yet, having
obtained help from God, it continues to this day." Mather
occasionally relieves the austerity of his descriptions with
images full of tender feeling: after having spoken of an English
lady whose religious ardor had brought her to America with her
husband, and who soon after sank under the fatigues and
privations of exile, he adds, "As for her virtuous husband, Isaac
Johnson,
He tryed
To live without her, liked it not, and dyed."
[Footnote b: A folio edition of this work was published in London
in 1702.]
Mather's work gives an admirable picture of the time and
country which he describes. In his account of the motives which
led the Puritans to seek an asylum beyond seas, he says: -
"The God of Heaven served, as it were, a summons upon the
spirits of his people in the English nation, stirring up the
spirits of thousands which never saw the faces of each other,
with a most unanimous inclination to leave all the pleasant
accommodations of their native country, and go over a terrible
ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment of all
his ordinances. It is now reasonable that, before we pass any
further, the reasons of his undertaking should be more exactly
made known unto posterity, especially unto the posterity of those
that were the undertakers, lest they come at length to forget and
neglect the true interest of New England. Wherefore I shall now
transcribe some of them from a manuscript, wherein they were then
tendered unto consideration:
"General Considerations for the Plantation of New England
"First, It will be a service unto the Church of great
consequence, to carry the Gospel unto those parts of the world,
and raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist, which the
Jesuits labour to rear up in all parts of the world.
"Secondly, All other Churches of Europe have been brought
under desolations; and it may be feared that the like judgments
are coming upon us; and who knows but God hath provided this
place to be a refuge for many whom he means to save out of the
general destruction?
"Thirdly, The land grows weary of her inhabitants, insomuch
that man, which is the most precious of all creatures, is here
more vile and base than the earth he treads upon; children,
neighbours, and friends, especially the poor, are counted the
greatest burdens, which, if things were right, would be the
chiefest of earthly blessings.
"Fourthly, We are grown to that intemperance in all excess
of riot, as no mean estate almost will suffice a man to keep sail
with his equals, and he that fails in it must live in scorn and
contempt: hence it comes to pass, that all arts and trades are
carried in that deceitful manner and unrighteous course, as it is
almost impossible for a good upright man to maintain his constant
charge and live comfortably in them.
"Fifthly, The schools of learning and religion are so
corrupted, as (besides the unsupportable charge of education)
most children, even the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes,
are perverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude
of evil examples and licentious behaviours in these seminaries.
"Sixthly, The whole earth is the Lord's garden, and he hath
given it to the sons of Adam, to be tilled and improved by them:
why, then, should we stand starving here for places of
habitation, and in the meantime suffer whole countries, as
profitable for the use of man, to lie waste without any
improvement?
"Seventhly, What can be a better or nobler work, and more
worthy of a Christian, than to erect and support a reformed
particular Church in its infancy, and unite our forces with such
a company of faithful people, as by timely assistance may grow
stronger and prosper; but for want of it, may be put to great
hazards, if not be wholly ruined?
"Eighthly, If any such as are known to be godly, and live in
wealth and prosperity here, shall forsake all this to join with
this reformed Church, and with it run the hazard of an hard and
mean condition, it will be an example of great use, both for the
removing of scandal and to give more life unto the faith of God's
people in their prayers for the plantation, and also to encourage
others to join the more willingly in it."
Further on, when he declares the principles of the Church of
New England with respect to morals, Mather inveighs with violence
against the custom of drinking healths at table, which he
denounces as a pagan and abominable practice. He proscribes with
the same rigor all ornaments for the hair used by the female sex,
as well as their custom of having the arms and neck uncovered.
In another part of his work he relates several instances of
witchcraft which had alarmed New England. It is plain that the
visible action of the devil in the affairs of this world appeared
to him an incontestable and evident fact.
This work of Cotton Mather displays, in many places, the
spirit of civil liberty and political independence which
characterized the times in which he lived. Their principles
respecting government are discoverable at every page. Thus, for
instance, the inhabitants of Massachusetts, in the year 1630, ten
years after the foundation of Plymouth, are found to have devoted
Pound 400 sterling to the establishment of the University of
Cambridge. In passing from the general documents relative to the
history of New England to those which describe the several States
comprised within its limits, I ought first to notice "The History
of the Colony of Massachusetts," by Hutchinson,
Lieutenant-Governor of the Massachusetts Province, 2 vols. 8vo.
The history of Hutchinson, which I have several times quoted in
the chapter to which this note relates, commences in the year
1628, and ends in 1750. Throughout the work there is a striking
air of truth and the greatest simplicity of style: it is full of
minute details. The best history to consult concerning
Connecticut is that of Benjamin Trumbull, entitled "A Complete
History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical," 1630-1764, 2
vols. 8vo, printed in 1818 at New Haven. This history contains a
clear and calm account of all the events which happened in
Connecticut during the period given in the title. The author drew
from the best sources, and his narrative bears the stamp of
truth. All that he says of the early days of Connecticut is
extremely curious. See especially the Constitution of 1639, vol.
i. ch. vi. p. 100; and also the Penal Laws of Connecticut, vol.
i. ch. vii. p. 123.
"The History of New Hampshire," by Jeremy Belknap, is a work
held in merited estimation. It was printed at Boston in 1792, in
2 vols. 8vo. The third chapter of the first volume is
particularly worthy of attention for the valuable details it
affords on the political and religious principles of the
Puritans, on the causes of their emigration, and on their laws.
The following curious quotation is given from a sermon delivered
in 1663: - "It concerneth New England always to remember that
they are a plantation religious, not a plantation of trade. The
profession of the purity of doctrine, worship, and discipline, is
written upon her forehead. Let merchants, and such as are
increasing cent. per cent., remember this, that worldly gain was
not the end and design of the people of New England, but
religion. And if any man among us make religion as twelve, and
the world as thirteen, such an one hath not the spirit of a true
New Englishman." The reader of Belknap will find in his work more
general ideas, and more strength of thought, than are to be met
with in the American historians even to the present day.
Among the Central States which deserve our attention for
their remote origin, New York and Pennsylvania are the foremost.
The best history we have of the former is entitled "A History of
New York," by William Smith, printed at London in 1757. Smith
gives us important details of the wars between the French and
English in America. His is the best account of the famous
confederation of the Iroquois.
With respect to Pennsylvania, I cannot do better than point
out the work of Proud, entitled "The History of Pennsylvania,
from the original Institution and Settlement of that Province,
under the first Proprietor and Governor, William Penn, in 1681,
till after the year 1742," by Robert Proud, 2 vols. 8vo, printed
at Philadelphia in 1797. This work is deserving of the especial
attention of the reader; it contains a mass of curious documents
concerning Penn, the doctrine of the Quakers, and the character,
manners, and customs of the first inhabitants of Pennsylvania. I
need not add that among the most important documents relating to
this State are the works of Penn himself, and those of Franklin.
Part II.
Appendix G
We read in Jefferson's "Memoirs" as follows: -
"At the time of the first settlement of the English in
Virginia, when land was to be had for little or nothing, some
provident persons having obtained large grants of it, and being
desirous of maintaining the splendor of their families, entailed
their property upon their descendants. The transmission of these
estates from generation to generation, to men who bore the same
name, had the effect of raising up a distinct class of families,
who, possessing by law the privilege of perpetuating their
wealth, formed by these means a sort of patrician order,
distinguished by the grandeur and luxury of their establishments.
From this order it was that the King usually chose his
councillors of state." *c
[Footnote c: This passage is extracted and translated from M.
Conseil's work upon the life of Jefferson, entitled "Melanges
Politiques et Philosophiques de Jefferson."]
In the United States, the principal clauses of the English
law respecting descent have been universally rejected. The first
rule that we follow, says Mr. Kent, touching inheritance, is the
following: - If a man dies intestate, his property goes to his
heirs in a direct line. If he has but one heir or heiress, he or
she succeeds to the whole. If there are several heirs of the
same degree, they divide the inheritance equally amongst them,
without distinction of sex. This rule was prescribed for the
first time in the State of New York by a statute of February 23,
1786. (See Revised Statutes, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 48.) It has
since then been adopted in the Revised Statutes of the same
State. At the present day this law holds good throughout the
whole of the United States, with the exception of the State of
Vermont, where the male heir inherits a double portion. (Kent's
"Commentaries," vol. iv. p. 370.) Mr. Kent, in the same work,
vol. iv. p. 1-22, gives a historical account of American
legislation on the subject of entail: by this we learn that,
previous to the Revolution, the colonies followed the English law
of entail. Estates tail were abolished in Virginia in 1776, on a
motion of Mr. Jefferson. They were suppressed in New York in
1786, and have since been abolished in North Carolina, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri. In Vermont, Indiana, Illinois,
South Carolina, and Louisiana, entail was never introduced. Those
States which thought proper to preserve the English law of
entail, modified it in such a way as to deprive it of its most
aristocratic tendencies. "Our general principles on the subject
of government," says Mr. Kent, "tend to favor the free
circulation of property."
It cannot fail to strike the French reader who studies the
law of inheritance, that on these questions the French
legislation is infinitely more democratic even than the American.
The American law makes an equal division of the father's
property, but only in the case of his will not being known; "for
every man," says the law, "in the State of New York (Revised
Statutes, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 51), has entire liberty, power,
and authority, to dispose of his property by will, to leave it
entire, or divided in favor of any persons he chooses as his
heirs, provided he do not leave it to a political body or any
corporation." The French law obliges the testator to divide his
property equally, or nearly so, among his heirs. Most of the
American republics still admit of entails, under certain
restrictions; but the French law prohibits entail in all cases.
If the social condition of the Americans is more democratic than
that of the French, the laws of the latter are the most
democratic of the two. This may be explained more easily than at
first appears to be the case. In France, democracy is still
occupied in the work of destruction; in America, it reigns
quietly over the ruins it has made.
Appendix H
Summary Of The Qualifications Of Voters In The United States As
They Existed In 1832
All the States agree in granting the right of voting at the
age of twenty-one. In all of them it is necessary to have
resided for a certain time in the district where the vote is
given. This period varies from three months to two years.
As to the qualification: in the State of Massachusetts it is
necessary to have an income of Pound 3 or a capital of Pound 60.
In Rhode Island, a man must possess landed property to the
amount of $133.
In Connecticut, he must have a property which gives an
income of $17. A year of service in the militia also gives the
elective privilege.
In New Jersey, an elector must have a property of Pound 50 a
year.
In South Carolina and Maryland, the elector must possess
fifty acres of land.
In Tennessee, he must possess some property.
In the States of Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, the only necessary
qualification for voting is that of paying the taxes; and in most
of the States, to serve in the militia is equivalent to the
payment of taxes. In Maine and New Hampshire any man can vote
who is not on the pauper list.
Lastly, in the States of Missouri, Alabama, Illinois,
Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, and Vermont, the conditions of
voting have no reference to the property of the elector.
I believe there is no other State besides that of North
Carolina in which different conditions are applied to the voting
for the Senate and the electing the House of Representatives.
The electors of the former, in this case, should possess in
property fifty acres of land; to vote for the latter, nothing
more is required than to pay taxes.
Appendix I
The small number of custom-house officers employed in the
United States, compared with the extent of the coast, renders
smuggling very easy; notwithstanding which, it is less practised
than elsewhere, because everybody endeavors to repress it. In
America there is no police for the prevention of fires, and such
accidents are more frequent than in Europe; but in general they
are more speedily extinguished, because the surrounding
population is prompt in lending assistance.
Appendix K
It is incorrect to assert that centralization was produced
by the French Revolution; the revolution brought it to
perfection, but did not create it. The mania for centralization
and government regulations dates from the time when jurists began
to take a share in the government, in the time of Philippele-Bel;
ever since which period they have been on the increase. In the
year 1775, M. de Malesherbes, speaking in the name of the Cour
des Aides, said to Louis XIV: - *d
[Footnote d: See "Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire du Droit
Public de la France en matiere d'impots," p. 654, printed at
Brussels in 1779.]
". . . Every corporation and every community of citizens
retained the right of administering its own affairs; a right
which not only forms part of the primitive constitution of the
kingdom, but has a still higher origin; for it is the right of
nature, and of reason. Nevertheless, your subjects, Sire, have
been deprived of it; and we cannot refrain from saying that in
this respect your government has fallen into puerile extremes.
From the time when powerful ministers made it a political
principle to prevent the convocation of a national assembly, one
consequence has succeeded another, until the deliberations of the
inhabitants of a village are declared null when they have not
been authorized by the Intendant. Of course, if the community
has an expensive undertaking to carry through, it must remain
under the control of the sub-delegate of the Intendant, and,
consequently, follow the plan he proposes, employ his favorite
workmen, pay them according to his pleasure; and if an action at
law is deemed necessary, the Intendant's permission must be
obtained. The cause must be pleaded before this first tribunal,
previous to its being carried into a public court; and if the
opinion of the Intendant is opposed to that of the inhabitants,
or if their adversary enjoys his favor, the community is deprived
of the power of defending its rights. Such are the means, Sire,
which have been exerted to extinguish the municipal spirit in
France; and to stifle, if possible, the opinions of the citizens.
The nation may be said to lie under an interdict, and to be in
wardship under guardians." What could be said more to the purpose
at the present day, when the Revolution has achieved what are
called its victories in centralization?
In 1789, Jefferson wrote from Paris to one of his friends: -
"There is no country where the mania for over-governing has taken
deeper root than in France, or been the source of greater
mischief." (Letter to Madison, August 28, 1789.) The fact is,
that for several centuries past the central power of France has
done everything it could to extend central administration; it has
acknowledged no other limits than its own strength. The central
power to which the Revolution gave birth made more rapid advances
than any of its predecessors, because it was stronger and wiser
than they had been; Louis XIV committed the welfare of such
communities to the caprice of an intendant; Napoleon left them to
that of the Minister. The same principle governed both, though
its consequences were more or less remote.
Appendix L
The immutability of the constitution of France is a
necessary consequence of the laws of that country. To begin with
the most important of all the laws, that which decides the order
of succession to the throne; what can be more immutable in its
principle than a political order founded upon the natural
succession of father to son? In 1814, Louis XVIII had
established the perpetual law of hereditary succession in favor
of his own family. The individuals who regulated the
consequences of the Revolution of 1830 followed his example; they
merely established the perpetuity of the law in favor of another
family. In this respect they imitated the Chancellor Meaupou,
who, when he erected the new Parliament upon the ruins of the
old, took care to declare in the same ordinance that the rights
of the new magistrates should be as inalienable as those of their
predecessors had been. The laws of 1830, like those of 1814,
point out no way of changing the constitution: and it is evident
that the ordinary means of legislation are insufficient for this
purpose. As the King, the Peers, and the Deputies, all derive
their authority from the constitution, these three powers united
cannot alter a law by virtue of which alone they govern. Out of
the pale of the constitution they are nothing: where, when, could
they take their stand to effect a change in its provisions? The
alternative is clear: either their efforts are powerless against
the charter, which continues to exist in spite of them, in which
case they only reign in the name of the charter; or they succeed
in changing the charter, and then, the law by which they existed
being annulled, they themselves cease to exist. By destroying
the charter, they destroy themselves. This is much more evident
in the laws of 1830 than in those of 1814. In 1814, the royal
prerogative took its stand above and beyond the constitution; but
in 1830, it was avowedly created by, and dependent on, the
constitution. A part, therefore, of the French constitution is
immutable, because it is united to the destiny of a family; and
the body of the constitution is equally immutable, because there
appear to be no legal means of changing it. These remarks are
not applicable to England. That country having no written
constitution, who can assert when its constitution is changed?
Appendix M
The most esteemed authors who have written upon the English
Constitution agree with each other in establishing the
omnipotence of the Parliament. Delolme says: "It is a fundamental
principle with the English lawyers, that Parliament can do
everything except making a woman a man, or a man a woman."
Blackstone expresses himself more in detail, if not more
energetically, than Delolme, in the following terms: - "The power
and jurisdiction of Parliament, says Sir Edward Coke (4 Inst.
36), is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined,
either for causes or persons, within any bounds." And of this
High Court, he adds, may be truly said, "Si antiquitatem spectes,
est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est honoratissima; si
jurisdictionem, est capacissima." It hath sovereign and
uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging,
restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of
laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations;
ecclesiastical or temporal; civil, military, maritime, or
criminal; this being the place where that absolute despotic power
which must, in all governments, reside somewhere, is intrusted by
the constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and
grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary
course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary
tribunal. It can regulate or new-model the succession to the
Crown; as was done in the reign of Henry VIII and William III.
It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in
a variety of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII and his
three children. It can change and create afresh even the
constitution of the kingdom, and of parliaments themselves; as
was done by the Act of Union and the several statutes for
triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short, do
everything that is not naturally impossible to be done;
and, therefore some have not scrupled to call its power, by a
figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of Parliament."
Appendix N
There is no question upon which the American constitutions
agree more fully than upon that of political jurisdiction. All
the constitutions which take cognizance of this matter, give to
the House of Delegates the exclusive right of impeachment;
excepting only the constitution of North Carolina, which grants
the same privilege to grand juries. (Article 23.) Almost all the
constitutions give the exclusive right of pronouncing sentence to
the Senate, or to the Assembly which occupies its place.
The only punishments which the political tribunals can
inflict are removal, or the interdiction of public functions for
the future. There is no other constitution but that of Virginia
(p. 152), which enables them to inflict every kind of punishment.
The crimes which are subject to political jurisdiction are, in
the federal constitution (Section 4, Art. 1); in that of Indiana
(Art. 3, paragraphs 23 and 24); of New York (Art. 5); of Delaware
(Art. 5), high treason, bribery, and other high crimes or
offences. In the Constitution of Massachusetts (Chap. I, Section
2); that of North Carolina (Art. 23); of Virginia (p. 252),
misconduct and maladministration. In the constitution of New
Hampshire (p. 105), corruption, intrigue, and maladministration.
In Vermont (Chap. 2, Art. 24), maladministration. In South
Carolina (Art. 5); Kentucky (Art. 5); Tennessee (Art. 4); Ohio
(Art. 1, 23, 24); Louisiana (Art. 5); Mississippi (Art. 5);
Alabama (Art. 6); Pennsylvania (Art. 4), crimes committed in the
non-performance of official duties. In the States of Illinois,
Georgia, Maine, and Connecticut, no particular offences are
specified.
Appendix O
It is true that the powers of Europe may carry on maritime
wars with the Union; but there is always greater facility and
less danger in supporting a maritime than a continental war.
Maritime warfare only requires one species of effort. A
commercial people which consents to furnish its government with
the necessary funds, is sure to possess a fleet. And it is far
easier to induce a nation to part with its money, almost
unconsciously, than to reconcile it to sacrifices of men and
personal efforts. Moreover, defeat by sea rarely compromises the
existence or independence of the people which endures it. As for
continental wars, it is evident that the nations of Europe cannot
be formidable in this way to the American Union. It would be
very difficult to transport and maintain in America more than
25,000 soldiers; an army which may be considered to represent a
nation of about 2,000,000 of men. The most populous nation of
Europe contending in this way against the Union, is in the
position of a nation of 2,000,000 of inhabitants at war with one
of 12,000,000. Add to this, that America has all its resources
within reach, whilst the European is at 4,000 miles distance from
his; and that the immensity of the American continent would of
itself present an insurmountable obstacle to its conquest.
Appendix P
The first American journal appeared in April, 1704, and was
published at Boston. See "Collection of the Historical Society
of Massachusetts," vol. vi. p. 66. It would be a mistake to
suppose that the periodical press has always been entirely free
in the American colonies: an attempt was made to establish
something analogous to a censorship and preliminary security.
Consult the Legislative Documents of Massachusetts of January 14,
1722. The Committee appointed by the General Assembly (the
legislative body of the province) for the purpose of examining
into circumstances connected with a paper entitled "The New
England Courier," expresses its opinion that "the tendency of the
said journal is to turn religion into derision and bring it into
contempt; that it mentions the sacred writers in a profane and
irreligious manner; that it puts malicious interpretations upon
the conduct of the ministers of the Gospel; and that the
Government of his Majesty is insulted, and the peace and
tranquillity of the province disturbed by the said journal. The
Committee is consequently of opinion that the printer and
publisher, James Franklin, should be forbidden to print and
publish the said journal or any other work in future, without
having previously submitted it to the Secretary of the province;
and that the justices of the peace for the county of Suffolk
should be commissioned to require bail of the said James Franklin
for his good conduct during the ensuing year." The suggestion of
the Committee was adopted and passed into a law, but the effect
of it was null, for the journal eluded the prohibition by putting
the name of Benjamin Franklin instead of James Franklin at the
bottom of its columns, and this manoeuvre was supported by public
opinion.
Appendix Q
The Federal Constitution has introduced the jury into the
tribunals of the Union in the same way as the States had
introduced it into their own several courts; but as it has not
established any fixed rules for the choice of jurors, the federal
courts select them from the ordinary jury list which each State
makes for itself. The laws of the States must therefore be
examined for the theory of the formation of juries. See Story's
"Commentaries on the Constitution," B. iii. chap. 38, p. 654-659;
Sergeant's "Constitutional Law," p. 165. See also the Federal
Laws of the years 1789, 1800, and 1802, upon the subject. For
the purpose of thoroughly understanding the American principles
with respect to the formation of juries, I examined the laws of
States at a distance from one another, and the following
observations were the result of my inquiries. In America, all
the citizens who exercise the elective franchise have the right
of serving upon a jury. The great State of New York, however,
has made a slight difference between the two privileges, but in a
spirit quite contrary to that of the laws of France; for in the
State of New York there are fewer persons eligible as jurymen
than there are electors. It may be said in general that the
right of forming part of a jury, like the right of electing
representatives, is open to all the citizens: the exercise of
this right, however, is not put indiscriminately into any hands.
Every year a body of municipal or county magistrates - called
"selectmen" in New England, "supervisors" in New York, "trustees"
in Ohio, and "sheriffs of the parish" in Louisiana - choose for
each county a certain number of citizens who have the right of
serving as jurymen, and who are supposed to be capable of
exercising their functions. These magistrates, being themselves
elective, excite no distrust; their powers, like those of most
republican magistrates, are very extensive and very arbitrary,
and they frequently make use of them to remove unworthy or
incompetent jurymen. The names of the jurymen thus chosen are
transmitted to the County Court; and the jury who have to decide
any affair are drawn by lot from the whole list of names. The
Americans have contrived in every way to make the common people
eligible to the jury, and to render the service as little onerous
as possible. The sessions are held in the chief town of every
county, and the jury are indemnified for their attendance either
by the State or the parties concerned. They receive in general a
dollar per day, besides their travelling expenses. In America,
the being placed upon the jury is looked upon as a burden, but it
is a burden which is very supportable. See Brevard's "Digest of
the Public Statute Law of South Carolina," vol. i. pp. 446 and
454, vol. ii. pp. 218 and 338; "The General Laws of
Massachusetts, revised and published by authority of the
Legislature," vol. ii. pp. 187 and 331; "The Revised Statutes of
the State of New York," vol. ii. pp. 411, 643, 717, 720; "The
Statute Law of the State of Tennessee," vol. i. p. 209; "Acts of
the State of Ohio," pp. 95 and 210; and "Digeste general des
Actes de la Legislature de la Louisiane."
Appendix R
If we attentively examine the constitution of the jury as
introduced into civil proceedings in England, we shall readily
perceive that the jurors are under the immediate control of the
judge. It is true that the verdict of the jury, in civil as well
as in criminal cases, comprises the question of fact and the
question of right in the same reply; thus - a house is claimed by
Peter as having been purchased by him: this is the fact to be
decided. The defendant puts in a plea of incompetency on the
part of the vendor: this is the legal question to be resolved.
But the jury do not enjoy the same character of infallibility in
civil cases, according to the practice of the English courts, as
they do in criminal cases. The judge may refuse to receive the
verdict; and even after the first trial has taken place, a second
or new trial may be awarded by the Court. See Blackstone's
"Commentaries," book iii. ch. 24.
Appendix S
I find in my travelling journal a passage which may serve to
convey a more complete notion of the trials to which the women of
America, who consent to follow their husbands into the wilds, are
often subjected. This description has nothing to recommend it to
the reader but its strict accuracy:
". . . From time to time we come to fresh clearings; all
these places are alike; I shall describe the one at which we have
halted to-night, for it will serve to remind me of all the
others.
"The bell which the pioneers hang round the necks of their
cattle, in order to find them again in the woods, announced our
approach to a clearing, when we were yet a long way off; and we
soon afterwards heard the stroke of the hatchet, hewing down the
trees of the forest. As we came nearer, traces of destruction
marked the presence of civilized man; the road was strewn with
shattered boughs; trunks of trees, half consumed by fire, or
cleft by the wedge, were still standing in the track we were
following. We continued to proceed till we reached a wood in
which all the trees seemed to have been suddenly struck dead; in
the height of summer their boughs were as leafless as in winter;
and upon closer examination we found that a deep circle had been
cut round the bark, which, by stopping the circulation of the
sap, soon kills the tree. We were informed that this is commonly
the first thing a pioneer does; as he cannot in the first year
cut down all the trees which cover his new parcel of land, he
sows Indian corn under their branches, and puts the trees to
death in order to prevent them from injuring his crop. Beyond
this field, at present imperfectly traced out, we suddenly came
upon the cabin of its owner, situated in the centre of a plot of
ground more carefully cultivated than the rest, but where man was
still waging unequal warfare with the forest; there the trees
were cut down, but their roots were not removed, and the trunks
still encumbered the ground which they so recently shaded. Around
these dry blocks, wheat, suckers of trees, and plants of every
kind, grow and intertwine in all the luxuriance of wild,
untutored nature. Amidst this vigorous and various vegetation
stands the house of the pioneer, or, as they call it, the log
house. Like the ground about it, this rustic dwelling bore marks
of recent and hasty labor; its length seemed not to exceed thirty
feet, its height fifteen; the walls as well as the roof were
formed of rough trunks of trees, between which a little moss and
clay had been inserted to keep out the cold and rain.
"As night was coming on, we determined to ask the master of
the log house for a lodging. At the sound of our footsteps, the
children who were playing amongst the scattered branches sprang
up and ran towards the house, as if they were frightened at the
sight of man; whilst two large dogs, almost wild, with ears erect
and outstretched nose, came growling out of their hut, to cover
the retreat of their young masters. The pioneer himself made his
appearance at the door of his dwelling; he looked at us with a
rapid and inquisitive glance, made a sign to the dogs to go into
the house, and set them the example, without betraying either
curiosity or apprehension at our arrival.
"We entered the log house: the inside is quite unlike that
of the cottages of the peasantry of Europe: it contains more than
is superfluous, less than is necessary. A single window with a
muslin blind; on a hearth of trodden clay an immense fire, which
lights the whole structure; above the hearth a good rifle, a
deer's skin, and plumes of eagles' feathers; on the right hand of
the chimney a map of the United States, raised and shaken by the
wind through the crannies in the wall; near the map, upon a shelf
formed of a roughly hewn plank, a few volumes of books - a Bible,
the six first books of Milton, and two of Shakespeare's plays;
along the wall, trunks instead of closets; in the centre of the
room a rude table, with legs of green wood, and with the bark
still upon them, looking as if they grew out of the ground on
which they stood; but on this table a tea-pot of British ware,
silver spoons, cracked tea-cups, and some newspapers.
"The master of this dwelling has the strong angular features
and lank limbs peculiar to the native of New England. It is
evident that this man was not born in the solitude in which we
have met with him: his physical constitution suffices to show
that his earlier years were spent in the midst of civilized
society, and that he belongs to that restless, calculating, and
adventurous race of men, who do with the utmost coolness things
only to be accounted for by the ardor of the passions, and who
endure the life of savages for a time, in order to conquer and
civilize the backwoods.
"When the pioneer perceived that we were crossing his
threshold, he came to meet us and shake hands, as is their
custom; but his face was quite unmoved; he opened the
conversation by inquiring what was going on in the world; and
when his curiosity was satisfied, he held his peace, as if he
were tired by the noise and importunity of mankind. When we
questioned him in our turn, he gave us all the information we
required; he then attended sedulously, but without eagerness, to
our personal wants. Whilst he was engaged in providing thus
kindly for us, how came it that in spit of ourselves we felt our
gratitude die upon our lips? It is that our host whilst he
performs the duties of hospitality, seems to be obeying an
irksome necessity of his condition: he treats it as a duty
imposed upon him by his situation, not as a pleasure. By the
side of the hearth sits a woman with a baby on her lap: she nods
to us without disturbing herself. Like the pioneer, this woman
is in the prime of life; her appearance would seem superior to
her condition, and her apparel even betrays a lingering taste for
dress; but her delicate limbs appear shrunken, her features are
drawn in, her eye is mild and melancholy; her whole physiognomy
bears marks of a degree of religious resignation, a deep quiet of
all passions, and some sort of natural and tranquil firmness,
ready to meet all the ills of life, without fearing and without
braving them. Her children cluster about her, full of health,
turbulence, and energy: they are true children of the wilderness;
their mother watches them from time to time with mingled
melancholy and joy: to look at their strength and her languor,
one might imagine that the life she has given them has exhausted
her own, and still she regrets not what they have cost her. The
house inhabited by these emigrants has no internal partition or
loft. In the one chamber of which it consists, the whole family
is gathered for the night. The dwelling is itself a little world
- an ark of civilization amidst an ocean of foliage: a hundred
steps beyond it the primeval forest spreads its shades, and
solitude resumes its sway."
Appendix T
It is not the equality of conditions which makes men immoral
and irreligious; but when men, being equal, are at the same time
immoral and irreligious, the effects of immorality and irreligion
easily manifest themselves outwardly, because men have but little
influence upon each other, and no class exists which can
undertake to keep society in order. Equality of conditions never
engenders profligacy of morals, but it sometimes allows that
profligacy to show itself.
Appendix U
Setting aside all those who do not think at all, and those
who dare not say what they think, the immense majority of the
Americans will still be found to appear satisfied with the
political institutions by which they are governed; and, I
believe, really to be so. I look upon this state of public
opinion as an indication, but not as a demonstration, of the
absolute excellence of American laws. The pride of a nation, the
gratification of certain ruling passions by the law, a concourse
of circumstances, defects which escape notice, and more than all
the rest, the influence of a majority which shuts the mouth of
all cavillers, may long perpetuate the delusions of a people as
well as those of a man. Look at England throughout the
eighteenth century. No nation was ever more prodigal of
self-applause, no people was ever more self- satisfied; then
every part of its constitution was right - everything, even to
its most obvious defects, was irreproachable: at the present day
a vast number of Englishmen seem to have nothing better to do
than to prove that this constitution was faulty in many respects.
Which was right? - the English people of the last century, or the
English people of the present day?
The same thing has occurred in France. It is certain that
during the reign of Louis XIV the great bulk of the nation was
devotedly attached to the form of government which, at that time,
governed the community. But it is a vast error to suppose that
there was anything degraded in the character of the French of
that age. There might be some sort of servitude in France at
that time, but assuredly there was no servile spirit among the
people. The writers of that age felt a species of genuine
enthusiasm in extolling the power of their king; and there was no
peasant so obscure in his hovel as not to take a pride in the
glory of his sovereign, and to die cheerfully with the cry "Vive
le Roi!" upon his lips. These very same forms of loyalty are now
odious to the French people. Which are wrong? - the French of
the age of Louis XIV, or their descendants of the present day?
Our judgment of the laws of a people must not then be founded
Future Condition Of Three Races In The United States exclusively
upon its inclinations, since those inclinations change from age
to age; but upon more elevated principles and a more general
experience. The love which a people may show for its law proves
only this: - that we should not be in too great a hurry to change
them.
Appendix V
In the chapter to which this note relates I have pointed out
one source of danger: I am now about to point out another kind of
peril, more rare indeed, but far more formidable if it were ever
to make its appearance. If the love of physical gratification
and the taste for well-being, which are naturally suggested to
men by a state of equality, were to get entire possession of the
mind of a democratic people, and to fill it completely, the
manners of the nation would become so totally opposed to military
tastes, that perhaps even the army would eventually acquire a
love of peace, in spite of the peculiar interest which leads it
to desire war. Living in the midst of a state of general
relaxation, the troops would ultimately think it better to rise
without efforts, by the slow but commodious advancement of a
peace establishment, than to purchase more rapid promotion at the
cost of all the toils and privations of the field. With these
feelings, they would take up arms without enthusiasm, and use
them without energy; they would allow themselves to be led to
meet the foe, instead of marching to attack him. It must not be
supposed that this pacific state of the army would render it
adverse to revolutions; for revolutions, and especially military
revolutions, which are generally very rapid, are attended indeed
with great dangers, but not with protracted toil; they gratify
ambition at less cost than war; life only is at stake, and the
men of democracies care less for their lives than for their
comforts. Nothing is more dangerous for the freedom and the
tranquillity of a people than an army afraid of war, because, as
such an army no longer seeks to maintain its importance and its
influence on the field of battle, it seeks to assert them
elsewhere. Thus it might happen that the men of whom a
democratic army consists should lose the interests of citizens
without acquiring the virtues of soldiers; and that the army
should cease to be fit for war without ceasing to be turbulent.
I shall here repeat what I have said in the text: the remedy for
these dangers is not to be found in the army, but in the country:
a democratic people which has preserved the manliness of its
character will never be at a loss for military prowess in its
soldiers.
Appendix W
Men connect the greatness of their idea of unity with means,
God with ends: hence this idea of greatness, as men conceive it,
leads us into infinite littleness. To compel all men to follow
the same course towards the same object is a human notion; - to
introduce infinite variety of action, but so combined that all
these acts lead by a multitude of different courses to the
accomplishment of one great design, is a conception of the Deity.
The human idea of unity is almost always barren; the divine idea
pregnant with abundant results. Men think they manifest their
greatness by simplifying the means they use; but it is the
purpose of God which is simple - his means are infinitely varied.
Appendix X
A democratic people is not only led by its own tastes to
centralize its government, but the passions of all the men by
whom it is governed constantly urge it in the same direction. It
may easily be foreseen that almost all the able and ambitious
members of a democratic community will labor without 2 ceasing to
extend the powers of government, because they all hope at some
time or other to wield those powers. It is a waste of time to
attempt to prove to them that extreme centralization may be
injurious to the State, since they are centralizing for their own
benefit. Amongst the public men of democracies there are hardly
any but men of great disinterestedness or extreme mediocrity who
seek to oppose the centralization of government: the former are
scarce, the latter powerless.
Appendix Y
I have often asked myself what would happen if, amidst the
relaxation of democratic manners, and as a consequence of the
restless spirit of the army, a military government were ever to
be founded amongst any of the nations of the present age. I
think that even such a government would not differ very much from
the outline I have drawn in the chapter to which this note
belongs, and that it would retain none of the fierce
characteristics of a military oligarchy. I am persuaded that, in
such a case, a sort of fusion would take place between the habits
of official men and those of the military service. The
administration would assume something of a military character,
and the army some of the usages of the civil administration. The
result would be a regular, clear, exact, and absolute system of
government; the people would become the reflection of the army,
and the community be drilled like a garrison.
Appendix Z
It cannot be absolutely or generally affirmed that the
greatest danger of the present age is license or tyranny, anarchy
or despotism. Both are equally to be feared; and the one may as
easily proceed as the other from the selfsame cause, namely, that
"general apathy," which is the consequence of what I have termed
"individualism": it is because this apathy exists, that the
executive government, having mustered a few troops, is able to
commit acts of oppression one day, and the next day a party,
which has mustered some thirty men in its ranks, can also commit
acts of oppression. Neither one nor the other can found anything
to last; and the causes which enable them to succeed easily,
prevent them from succeeding long: they rise because nothing
opposes them, and they sink because nothing supports them. The
proper object therefore of our most strenuous resistance, is far
less either anarchy or despotism than the apathy which may almost
indifferently beget either the one or the other.
Constitution Of The United States Of America
We The People of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America:
Article I
Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of
a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of
Members of chosen every second Year by the People of the several
States, and the Electors in each States shall have the
Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch
of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have
attained to the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a
Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be
an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among
the several States which may be included within this Union,
according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined
by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those
bound to service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not
taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration
shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the
Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term
of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The
Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty
Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;
and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New
Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts,
eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut
five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware
one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South
Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State,
the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to
fill such Vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and
other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed
of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature
thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of
the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be
into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class
shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the
second Class at the expiration of the fourth Year, and of the
third Class at the expiration of the sixth Year, so that
one-third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies
happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the
Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make
temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature,
which shall then fill such Vacancies.
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to
the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant
of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice-President of the United States shall be President
of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally
divided. The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also
a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice-President, or
when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United
States.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all
Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on
Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is
tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be
convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members
present. Judgment in cases of Impeachment shall not extend
further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold
and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust, or Profit under the United
States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and
subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment according
to Law.
Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections
for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each
State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any
time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the
Places of choosing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and
such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless
they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections,
Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of
each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller
Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to
compel the Attendance of Absent Members, in such Manner, and
under such Penalties as each House may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,
punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with a
Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from
time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in
their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the
Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of
one-fifth of those present, be entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall,
without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three
days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses
shall be sitting.
Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a
Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and
paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all
Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be
privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of
their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the
same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall
not be questioned in any other Place.
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for
which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the
Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or
the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such
time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States,
shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in
Office.
Section 7. All Bills for Raising Revenue shall originate in
the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or
concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives
and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to
the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign
it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to that
House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the
Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider
it. If after such Reconsideration two-thirds of that House shall
agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the
Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it
shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both
Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the
Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the
Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be
returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted)
after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a
Law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress
by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall
not be a Law.
Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of
the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except
on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President
of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect,
shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be
repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of
Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations
prescribed in the case of a Bill.
Section 8. The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect
Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide
for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;
but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout
the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the
several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform
Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign
Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the
Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive
Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the
high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and
make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money
to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land
and naval Forces.
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws
of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the
Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed
in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States
respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority
of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by
Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever,
over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by
Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress
become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to
exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent
of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for
the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dock-Yards, and other
needful Buildings; - And To make all Laws which shall be
necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing
Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the
Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer
thereof.
Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as
any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall
not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand
eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such
Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be
suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the
public Safety may require it.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No Capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in
Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to
be taken.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any
State.
No preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce
or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor
shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter,
clear, or pay Duties in another.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular
Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all
public Money shall be published from time to time.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States:
And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them,
shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any
present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from
any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance,
or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque or Reprisal; coin
Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver
Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex
post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or
grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any
Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be
absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the
net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on
Imports or Exports shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the
United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the Revision
and Control of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any
Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace,
enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a
foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in
such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Article II
Section 1. The Executive Power shall be vested in a
President of the United States of America. He shall hold his
Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the
Vice-President, chosen for the same Term, be elected as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature
thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole
Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be
entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or
Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an Elector.
[The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and
vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be
an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall
make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of
Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and
transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United
States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President
of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of
Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall
then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes
shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole
Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who
have such Majority, and have an equal number of Votes, then the
House of Representatives shall immediately choose by Ballot one
of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then
from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like
Manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the
Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each
State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of
a Member or Members from two-thirds of the States, and a Majority
of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case,
after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest
number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice-President. But
if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the
Senate shall choose from them by Ballot the Vice-President.]*d
[Footnote *d : This clause is superseded by Article XII,
Amendments. See page 396.]
The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the
Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which
Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the
United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,
shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any
person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to
the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident
within the United States.
In case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of
his Death, Resignation or Inability to discharge the Powers and
Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the
Vice-president, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case
of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the
President and Vice-President, declaring what Officer shall then
act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until
the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his
Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor
diminished during the Period for which he shall have been
elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other
Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall
take the following Oath or Affirmation: - "I do solemnly swear
(or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will to the best of my
Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States."
Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the
Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the
several States, when called into the actual Service of the United
States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal
Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject
relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall
have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against
the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of
the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators
present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice
and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other
public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and
all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are
not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established
by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such
inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone,
in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all vacancies that
may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting
Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress
Information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their
Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both
Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between
them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn
them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive
Ambassadors and other Public Ministers; he shall take Care that
the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the
Officers of the United States.
Section 4. The President, Vice-President and all civil
Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on
Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other
High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article III
Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States shall be
vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the
Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges,
both of the Supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices
during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for
their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished
during their Continuance in Office.
Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all cases, in
Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the
United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under
their Authority; - to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other
public Ministers and Consuls; - to all cases of Admiralty and
maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United
States shall be a Party; - to Controversies between two or more
States; -between a State and Citizens of another State; between
Citizens of different States, - between Citizens of the same
State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and
between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States,
Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers
and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the
Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other
Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate
Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions and
under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment,
shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where
the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed
within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as
the Congress may by Law have directed.
Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist
only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their
Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be
convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to
the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of
Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of
Blood or Forfeiture except during the life of the person
attainted.
Article IV
Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each
State to the Public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of
every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws
prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings
shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to
all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other
Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another
State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State
from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State
having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the
Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any
Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or
Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom
such Service or Labour may be due.
Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into
this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within
the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by
the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without
the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well
as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all
needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other
Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this
Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of
the United States, or of any particular State.
Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State
in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect
each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the
Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be
convened against domestic Violence.
Article V
The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem
it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or,
on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the
several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments,
which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and
Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the
Legislatures of three- fourths of the several States, or by
Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other
Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided
that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One
thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the
first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first
Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be
deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Article VI
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before
the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the
United States under this Constitution, as under the
Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which
shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every
State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the
Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and
judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several
States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this
Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a
Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United
States.
Article VII
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be
sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the
States so ratifying the Same.
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States
present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of Our
Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and of the
Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.
In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,
Go: Washington
Presidt. and deputy from Virginia.
New Hampshire
John Langdon
Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts
Nathaniel Gorham
Rufus King
Connecticut
Wm. Saml. Johnson
Roger Sherman
New York
Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey
Wil: Livingston.
David Brearley.
Wm. Paterson.
Jona. Dayton
Pennsylvania
B Franklin
Thomas Mifflin
Robt. Morris.
Geo. Clymer
Thos. Fitzsimons
Jared Ingersoll
James Wilson
Gouv Morris
Delaware
Geo: Read
Gunning Bedford Jun
John Dickinson
Richard Bassett
Jaco: Broom
Maryland
James McHenry
Dan of St Thos. Jenifer
Danl. Carroll
Virginia
John Blair -
James Madison Jr.
North Carolina
Wm. Blount
Richd. Dobbs Spaight
Hu Williamson
South Carolina
J. Rutledge
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Charles Pinckney
Peirce Butler.
Georgia
William Few
Abr Baldwin
Attest William Jackson, Secretary
The Word 'the,' being interlined between the seventh and
eighth Lines of the first Page, The word 'Thirty' being partly
written on an Erasure in the fifteenth Line of the first Page,
The Words 'is tried' being interlined between the thirty-second
and thirty-third Lines of the first Page, and the Word 'the'
being interlined between the forty-third and forty-fourth Lines
of the second page.
[Note by the Department of State. - The foregoing
explanation in the original instrument is placed on the left of
the paragraph beginning with the words, 'Done in Convention,' and
therefore precedes the signatures. The interlined and rewritten
words, mentioned in it, are in this edition printed in their
proper places in the text.]
Bill Of Rights
In addition to, and amendment of, the Constitution of the
United States of America, proposed by Congress and ratified by
the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the Fifth
Article of the original Constitution
Article I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the pe
ple peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
Article II
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of
a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall
not be infringed.
Article III
No Soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house
without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a
manner to be prescribed by law.
Article IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons
or things to be seized.
Article V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment
of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval
forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War
or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself,
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public
use, without just compensation.
Article VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the
State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,
which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and
to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be
confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Article VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-
examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the
rules of the common law.
Article VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Article IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by
the people.
Article X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to
the States respectively, or to the people.
Article XI
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be
construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or
prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of
another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
Article XII
The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at
least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with
themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for
as President; and in distinct ballots the person voted for as
Vice-President; and they shall make distinct lists of all persons
voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice
President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they
shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the
government of the United States, directed to the President of the
Senate; - The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of
the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the
certificates and the votes shall then be counted; - The person
having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of
Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then
from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three
on the list ofhose voted for as President, the House of
Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the
President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be
taken by States, the representation from each State having one
vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or
members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the
States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of
Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right
of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March
next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President,
as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of
the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as
Vice- President, shall be the Vice-President, if such a number be
a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no
person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the
list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for
the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of
Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary
to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the
office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President
of the United States.
Article XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.
Article XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the
several States according to their respective numbers, counting
the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not
taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice
of electors for President and Vice-President of the United
States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial
officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof,
is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being
twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in
any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other
crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in
the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear
to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in
Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any
State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of
Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member
of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer
of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States,
shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same,
or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may
by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United
States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment
of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United
States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation
incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave;
but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal
and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Article XV
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by
any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of
servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Democracy In America, Volume 2*